City Council - Regular Meeting

Do you want me to start off? What do you want to do? I don't mind.

okay i will go ahead and call the general services uh committee meeting to order at 6 p.m i'll do role of the committee uh chair council member favreau i am present council member di lorenzo present Council member Campbell Cohen.

Present.

And also present, we have Council member Struber. Present. Council member Spain McLaren. Present. Council member McKee. Present. And Council President Steele. Present. Okay. We have a packed agenda this evening. So I'll start with the Freer Park updates, if there's anybody from the administration that wants to join us. All right. Hi there. um thank you for joining us this evening uh so for your park we are in september and the last meeting we approved some reallocation of arpa funds so i was just looking for a quick update on the status of free park because i know there are two projects that are being prioritized right now and that's the north um excuse me the ice rink playground and the new pavilion Um, I know for the pavilion, we've had some funds already allocated to that project for the demolition. Um, and so I was just looking for a status of that and, um, the.

Okay, good evening everyone. So in regard to the demo, we did actually just get back a review. They have to do some reviews about for asbestos and other types of chemicals, of course. So we are getting a clear to take the deck down. We'll be seeing that go out. To bid here in the coming weeks. So the deck will be the 1st to come down part of the plan for 2 reasons. The old park pub, which there will have to be some asbestos mitigation that happens on that before it gets demoed. That was kind of anticipated. So that's been all part of the existing costs in the budget. They did want to leave the footprint of the old park pub as construction started with the new pavilion. The reasoning is to expose kind of the utilities. It will be easier for them to make those connections to new building from what i've been told so we will see the actual demolition of that a little bit later on you'll probably actually see more site prep for the pavilion while the old park pub is still up but the deck does have to come down not only because it's unsafe but also that's going to be a little bit within the footprint of the new the new pavilion as well um we are looking to we did um we're getting to the point where the design is pretty much about finalized nothing uh nothing too different from what all the folks have seen at the public engagement so far um like we did discuss at the arpa steering committee meeting we did have to scale back some items get creative think of a couple different things to get that that cost more in line with a budget that we were all comfortable with So that just reduced a little bit of the size, a tweaking of some of the outdoor deck, some of those items. Although again, in concept, it's pretty much the same that everything that the public has seen aesthetically looks the same. We really did put a lot of effort into making sure that the capacity could be where it needs to be between really the breakdown of three different rooms, a multipurpose room, a dining room, and an outdoor deck that has a mixture of outdoor roofing and is also exposed to the outside as well. We wanted to make sure that that capacity could fit in for the future uses of that. Some of the other things that you saw on previous public outreach, the kitchen, pro shop, some of those items, those are still there too. We did scale some of those back a little bit, get creative with the type of restrooms that were going to be in there. But again, In spirit, it's all pretty much the same of what everybody has seen. But we are looking to finalize that design with CHA. Honestly, even pretty much we're there now, just about another week that should be finalized. And then that will gear it up to start going out to bid. So we're hoping to see that bid go out there within the coming month. And then that way that they can start spending, we can award a contractor and they can get the project going. As we all know, too, that project's going to still spill into 2027. But in regard to the ARPA funds, we feel confident that we can get the project going enough, expend those fundings on those upfront costs, site preparation. It is going to go towards some of the designations design and all that work that's been going on surveying some of those other testing items and things like that as well for the Pavilion

the pavilion and um so in we're in 2026 right now so in 2025 um it was approved for i believe up to six million dollars for bonding but we had only gone out for three um at one point are you going to return back to the council to receive approval like will we have a breakdown of that capital budget for that plan prior to

So, I mean, we could give you a breakdown of the capital budget really now, because we're there. It's pretty much what was presented in the ARPA steering committee and parts of it was referenced in my memo for when we were shifting around the ARPA funding. I mean, the total cost of the project, Again, some of this incorporates some design work. There is a contingency in there as well. On top of the construction budget, we're coming in around 6.7. So there is a little over $1.7 million from the ARPA, the existing funding that had been secured, and then the transfer that you all authorized at the prior meeting. $3 million in bonded monies that had already been bonded for, and then the remainder will also then go to bond for the remainder of that. We are very happy that we, again, going into, we did end up shaving multiple millions of dollars off of kind of some of the first existing plans that have been kicking around. As we all have discussed together, we all wanna see it happen, but within a reasonable budget as well. So I'm glad that we're able to achieve that and still get it done.

And now for the update for the ice rink playground. Yes.

So with the ice rink, that is actually going to be heading out to bid in the coming weeks, if not even possibly next week or the following week. I'm thinking with the holiday that might cause an issue, but that is getting ready to go again with the transfer for ARPA funding that we put in. And when you look over the construction, the design and a contingency, that project will be fully funded with the existing ARPA funds. bonding will be required for that. That project is also staying. The look of that is exactly the same that's been brought out to the public and after getting some of the feedback as well too. One thing, if I may, just because this was a important thing that got brought up with the pavilion and even kind of in discussion, in relation to traffic patterns through where the park is as well one of the things that got cut out um which actually is going to ultimately serve a benefit there was going to be a complete enclosure for the golf courts at one point but you all were at that public um outreach those meetings we did hear a lot of concerns about parking that will actually free up a lot a lot of parking and i think will ultimately help in the decision what we do where we don't may not have the traffic come through by the park like we were discussing as well so that was very helpful that that freed up i know that's more about the pavilion but i did want to note that because i think that the public should know that we heard them and that they want to have that increase in parking and we want to provide that as well um Also part of this that's kind of been, you can consider it tied into both a little bit, but there is the consideration as well for the pedestrian and the traffic safety that was discussed. So CHA is going to be helping with that design as well, maybe kind of shifting the way that people cross the streets, separating so that folks aren't walking in the same space or crossing the street in the same space as that Golf carts are going back and forth. If you've been there, it is a little chaotic. So that's another thing that's going to be incorporated. We heard everybody's concerned with that as well. But yeah, the new ice rink park, we'll get that out to bid. And we do see that being substantially complete by the end of construction season this year. So we're very happy about that. Happy that it won't disrupt the core summer season where it's really often used and very well populated. This is going to provide for a new, Amongst a couple other amenities, but a new splash pad, just to refresh everybody's memory a little bit of a different 1 compared to some in the city. It's like, I think we call it like a helix splash pad too. So this is helpful for folks that. might have certain disabilities that can utilize it as well a playground equipment grills sitting seating areas so again really building off of what it's currently used for now it's really a nice meeting gathering space for a lot of folks that live near there so the new equipment will upgrade it to still provide all those amenities great thank you that's all the questions i had did anybody else have any questions for earthwork

Sure Council member Campbell Cohen um for the sidewalk or pedestrian access whether it's a sidewalk or a mixed-use path sort of both were discussed in that meeting um what are what is the scope of what's being considered at the moment is it like Freer Park proper or stretching into the neighborhood as well um

So for this right now, it's really just considering that area where you have those multiple cross paths of golf carts. Folks are using it to cross from the park over into the other side of the park. So that area right there that I think is Freer Park Road almost entering into the parking lot. We do have those restrooms that we heard a lot of folks want use of restrooms as well. We do have that restroom set up right across from the park. We want folks to have a safe ability to go back and forth as well. But it is primarily focusing on that part of the park. It does not mean, and I think we noted this previously, it doesn't mean that we're not still open to and considering some of the other pedestrian safety and even trail connections from lower Freer Up, things like that, that can also be facilitated through our CHIPS program and our infrastructure improvement program in the future as well. And I know we heard about some stuff, even pedestrian traffic calming elements, even just when you're coming into the pavilion too. So we'll take a look at that as well when we go over there.

Okay. But we're talking basically around the facility.

Correct.

And then you mentioned some features that might end up on the cutting room floor just to fit within the budget. And one of the examples you gave was being creative about the bathrooms. Can you explain what that is and what other things might be scaled back or trimmed down just to fit within that?

yeah so um some of the different some of the different items that got trimmed so so i mean the actual you know the the dining room was going to be a little larger at once we scaled that back um there was a design that uh provided for the outside uh seating and dining area kind of had a more of a half a circle rounded element to it where we're squaring that off. I guess that provides a lot of savings from an engineering standpoint and a stabilization standpoint. The restrooms, instead of having multiple separate rooms, women's and men's restrooms and family restrooms. They're just going to pretty much be the family or unisex-type restrooms, single-type restrooms as well, which actually I think has a benefit itself compared. Shrinking some storage areas, the pro shop, Those are some other elements that contributed to it. Not having covered golf cart storage on the outside was also some large savings as well, too. Maybe shrinking the kitchen a little bit. And just for the council and the public, although we're talking about in some elements that we pulled back square footage it is still not only providing more square footage than the prior park pub but a more efficient use of that as well okay um i think that more or less covers

my questions i i guess the only comment that i would make is is the mixed-use path and sidewalk extensions into the neighborhood um it came up a lot in those neighborhood meetings and i think with good reason and it's not anyone's fault that it's not there yet um but it is pedestrian access is sort of only as valuable as it can take you uh so i would love to see that happen um even though it's not my district

Yeah, no, and we definitely want to, like I said, in the future, look into those things with making sure that we can increase not just the walking of trails, but literally getting to certain parts of the park while also keeping the integrity of a park too. We don't want to riddle it with sidewalks all over the place either, being thoughtful about kind of the nature of that park. no we agree we've heard we've heard uh the public on that as well and that is definitely something that we're still going to be looking into and considering as we move on just probably something that we would we would do through our infrastructure improvement plan rather than incorporate it directly within these projects

And if I could just add, Seamus, we obviously frequent the park quite a bit. It's in my backyard. Many, many people obviously use the park now. um it is a balance when you're looking at various walkways in the park and you know we want to make it more accessible at the same time as Seamus mentioned keep the integrity of the park we also you know want to obviously take advantage of the trails the trails within the park connect them North Lake Ave, we are putting in a nice kind of nature walkway along that stretch, which used to be a makeshift parking lot. So now that will happen by the end of the year. landscaping will happen next year. And then the North Lake Park, I know that Councilmember Svane McLaren and I are very passionate about our North Lake Park. Hopefully we'll hear something about the New York Place grant. We'd love to see that. If not, we'll come back to the Council potentially with a scaled back plan. But that park is just you know, an embarrassment. And for anyone with disabilities or elderly, we have ancient equipment. I don't even know, you know, I mean, some of the folks use it, but saying that it needs an upgrade. So, you know, we will be coming back to the council. you know, either way, if we get the New York place, that'd be great. If not, we'll come back with a scale back plan. And then obviously, the walkway along North Lake Ave. And I don't know if you've noticed, we have trimmed all throughout there. Thank you, Joe, Miss Rillo and folks. So many, many folks are taking more advantage of that area. But You know, to your question, Council Member Campbell-Cohen, we do want to obviously make the parks as accessible as possible. At the same time, keep the integrity of the park.

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair.

The only other question that I had come up when you were speaking, Deputy Mader, was the reduction of size of the facility. I don't know, is that a concern for the vendor of the number of tables that were cut?

No, because again, it's still an increase from previously what was there. And really one of the big, not only just from a capacity standpoint, still going to serve what on average, if not more, say that your average golf tournament or your average, even a medium-sized get-together or what's typical for just regular dining up there and relaxing. So that's not a concern and they're very happy. Really one of the big concerns that we heard from our current vendor that's very familiar obviously with the prior park pub, it's really was that the capacity of the kitchen. So the fact that that got improved and the fact that the food and other elements can be stored safely and easily accessible, that was really even more of

of interest to them from an operation standpoint than the capacity of it chair council member d lorenzo so with the pavilion the changes that we just talked about is that going to affect the scheduled you know opening date and can we get a rough date on that

so it's um the change of it not necessarily is going to change anything we still are on track that we are you know we're saying that we will see this open uh for next golf season um you know so next next summer that could be end of summer you know the beginning of fall um we're obviously going to keep pushing along but we want to be realistic with everybody of course as well so But we are confident we'll be seeing that open and used when it's still in season where folks would still want to enjoy the deck or go inside to have a bite to eat as well. And I know the hockey folks are definitely very excited for it as well. And I know the neighborhood up there is looking for a place to go back to eat too.

Excellent. Thank you.

Chair. Councilmember McKee. The last Can you hear me? The last renderings that I saw there seemed to be a lot of glass walls. And my concern was at the time, especially in the winter, won't that increase the heating costs?

And so, yeah, I mean, one, just so folks know, that's still an element because that's a pretty favorable element to it as well. But I think we're still talking about modern and insulated glass, you know, so does that have a tremendous effect on cooling or heating? I mean, the more glass it could, but not anything that would really uh deter or really make a huge impact on the utilities in the scheme of things and that's again one of the huge benefits to make people feel even though they're inside that they can enjoy the outside on a nice day those uh can you know those doors or those windows can open so it you know we wanted to make sure that's another thing that we heard with public feedback keep it as open and feel like you know your proximity to the park and the course are that much closer but that's not a that's not a huge concern of ours

Okay.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So seeing no further questions for for your park, we'll just move right into proctors. That's another huge project that we have going on. Again, it's September and I know we had an anticipated move in date of January one. So I would just love to hear if we're still on that timeline.

I'll kick it off real quick and then we'll go into specifics. But we are just so excited about Proctors. You are going to be awed what is happening there. And I'm not sure if Seamus has yet, but we will be scheduling some tours with various stakeholders and council members to bring up to speed. But saying that it is coming along on time on budget. I am just incredibly, incredibly grateful for our team. BBL has been phenomenal. Seamus and Joe and Chris Marini have been overseeing this project. Weekly meetings, so much time, energy behind the scenes to keep this project moving forward. We will be in there before January 1st. You are just going to be blown away. Folks are going to love what they see, not just the restoration of the theater, but City Hall itself, the corridor, the entranceways, the accessibility, the connection to the parking garage. The detail, just everything from paint to preservation that has gone into the lobby, to the corridors, connecting the theater to the city hall portion of the five stories, and just the detail and work that has gone into it. Once again, BBL, H2M, They've been phenomenal. And, you know, Seamus, like I said, Joe, Chris, Marini, our team, Carlo, the whole gang have just done a phenomenal job. And folks are truly going to be blown away at that. Proctors and the new city hall. Once again, also, I want to stress this is not only going to save taxpayer dollars. You know, you saw the financials. It's more than just bringing pride to the people of Torrey. The people of Torrey deserve their own City Hall, but also SHPO and others. This is a model project for the state. We are preserving a theater that would have died. Joe Nicola at some point is going to retire. And we could have had a vacant early 1900s theater just die and become a blighted building. So not only will we make City Hall more accessible, save taxpayer dollars, permanent home, revitalize that corridor, all these features, more accessibility. Um, we are just so thrilled about how it's moving forward. And if you have a detailed questions, we'll be happy to answer them.

Yeah. Uh, it's great news that will be in before January 1st. Um, have we already started having conversations or when will that happen for transitioning over and who's going to be responsible for moving everything here to there?

We, uh, We were going to ask you what size vehicle you drive council member and if you were now so big enough. Yes. So, yeah, so thank you mayor and yeah, thank you to everybody that it has been 1 great 1 great team to with staff. Everybody from Joe Chris homemade. H2M, BBL, everybody. So LDC team, it's been a lot. So it's been great. Just to be clear too with the Council of the Public, what it calls for is substantial completion by October 30th. We do feel on track for that. So pretty much that we could start moving items in it. It might mean that a sign or a door, for example, where one of the parts going from the lobby into the historic arcade, there's sets of a mixture of wood and glass doors that are going to a specific outfit to be refurbished. Do those possibly find their way getting put back up in November or December? Small little things like that might occur. But we do not feel that anything is going to come up at this point to put us off track from getting into that building by January 1st. And just one other note to bit off of as well, again, about how much it saves the taxpayer. You know, this is it's very rare. to lock in any type of payment in any type of, you know, even for a city for as long as we are here where, you know, at a place like this, we would see constant increases, even modest ones, but it would continue to increase. So the fact that we were able to lock that in for future generations is great. um so all that and if you don't mind it might preempt a couple questions as well too but you know just to rattle off a couple different things here that this you know this project has incorporated a new new roofing um HVAC systems on the rooftop that are are getting fed through different parts of the building primarily to the assembly hall as well that is what the uh Box in the box was referred to. I'm just over that saying, sorry, but I saw it. But that's that assembly hall that's over the old, the seating area in the theater. There has been the historic restoration, which is pretty close to being complete in the historic lobby. and the arcade. This was a lot of plaster work, painting. We really put a lot of effort with a lot of different folks, especially that are part of our historic community, to try to nail down as close as it used to look at its original form. So we did try to pick colors and flooring that try to as closely mimic what was there before so you could really appreciate that historic character. The terrazzo flooring in the lobby is in in the middle of getting restored um there was a crack going through parts of it which you may see if you're a history buff in many historic buildings uh so tracking down matching coloring to fill in all those cracks that's something that's occurring right now um the creation of the hallway that will carry you from the arcade over to um The entryway to the assembly hall and say, the city clerks are vital statistics office, or that bring you into the other part of the other side of the building to give you access to the elevator. That hallway has been complete pretty much all the 1st floor is primed and pretty much ready to be painted in that new hallway. We really had a lot of success. cutting out three windows in the hallway for viewing spaces. They actually definitely ended up being a little larger than originally thought. And again, that's working through with BBL. Okay. You know, it costs them a little bit more to make it, but they, they, they were willing to do that. And this will give folks a real appreciation right behind it. You can see the old balconies and chairs. You can get views of looking up to the ceiling. We were able to maintain some of the historic moldings throughout spaces in the hallway and in the assembly hall. So there's going to be plenty of historic viewing options here, which is great. We're also too, which you'll hear, Next month, the LDC will have a resolution before to initiate a, what we're calling an adopt a chair program, 70 of the original historic chairs that were saved and refurbished. We're going to utilize that folks can adopt those, get their names on the chair, that those funds will get used towards future artistic or historic exhibits, but primarily a mural on the back of the assembly hall wall. So we're very excited about that program. The sprinkler system is just about to be finished. All electrical work minus some small details have been complete. The elevator has been serviced. Upper floor walls are pretty much completely demoed. new walls are are up um also they're in the middle of finishing up hvac updates up there um technology uh for new city hall that's another thing that we're gaining out of this not only are we behind in this existing on the existing city floor in a lot of our infrastructure like we talk about over and over again, but we're going to kind of take it to the next level with our IT infrastructure. So yeah, yes. So you've done good since you started and I should get this there. But so, you know, yeah, even simple things like in the assembly hall, instead of having kind of wires everywhere and stuff, I mean, we're going to have cameras that are in the wall, TVs that are in the wall. This will be very more functional for our public, the folks that come here to get engaged in their civics. So you can utilize it for many other things from plays to larger meetings. So we are taking a step forward when it comes to the IT for the building. That's been ordered. We're going through some wayfinding signage throughout the building. Just all of those type of little details. The ramp out in the back alleyway has been complete. And then we're going to be coming through there with our infrastructure, our annual infrastructure plan, and make that so that paving the alleyway, making sure it still has access for garbage trucks, fire safety access. But that alleyway will ultimately be blocked off. So it can be walkable. can be safe as staff and visitors walk back and forth from the parking garage into the building that's going to be besides the front entrance, one of the primary entrances in and out, especially if you're going to utilize the garage for parking. Countertop stuff has been ordered, flooring is due any week now. A lot of that stuff really is moving forward. Just to give a picture of the way that this building is going to become together, we really put a lot of thought and effort to not just make it. Again, we want to appreciate the historicness of the building, not just paper everything off with the same gray commercial carpet you see in larger corporate buildings that you go to. um and to what i believe is your question uh facilitating the actual move we are um about to engage a moving company we've already worked with several of them walking through the building uh talking about uh you know what are the ideas of What is going to come with us? What won't be staying? What will we get rid of? You'll be seeing soon, I'm shooting for the September finance meeting that we'll be putting forward to the council to surplus a lot of some of the furniture and stuff that we existingly have. As some of you may be aware of, you can even just feel the wonderful chairs and the plastic tables you're sitting at right now. It's time for Troy to move forward. There are some chairs that I often joke that, you know, now they've been here since one monument square. I think that if we, you know, gave them to one of our business friends down on Rivers, they could probably refurbish them and sell them for a good buck there. They're like retro and hip now. I mean, they're so but a lot of dated, dated furniture and equipment, the cubicles are I mean, ancient, heavy, you know, can't come with us. So really, a lot of that stuff, a lot of that stuff's going to be going. So we'll be putting a surplus action before the council to in the coming month. So we can start that process. But yeah, we we have been engaging a moving company to facilitate and helping that that large move.

And those expenses and the expenses for new furniture, which is needed, those were already built into the project?

So those were actually, those were secured in a capital count as well last year. That those are the things that we're pulling off of. That's funding those, like the IT expenses, the moving, and the furniture, primarily.

Do you have an idea of how much that dries?

How much altogether that we think that, I think some of the IT has already been ordered with furniture in the move. I mean, I want to give as rough of an estimate as to, but I mean, you could be talking about between all of that furniture move and IT, I mean, 600-ish thousand or so, give or take.

And we've talked about transitioning employees and staff over. What about services to the residents while that's happening?

So thank you for asking that too. So we're very thoughtfully planning. And of course, like everything, there's a cost to it. We could, for example, one of the moving options, they could put their whole entire team here Friday night to Monday morning. And we could have one big switch like that. I think we're leaning towards not doing that. That's quite costly. What we are talking about is prioritizing that. Again, take the mayor's office, for example, over where we are. We already do work wherever we are. They can be here during the week. It's OK if we're a little displaced for a bit. The treasurer's office can't be. We can't skip a beat with those front-facing offices. The clerk's office, we can't have them in limbo. So those are things that might get moved in an overnight so that right away they can start working where they are. The goal is to try to do those front-facing interactive offices. Those will be something that we'll see where, say, they might chip away a couple days to some of the other offices like ours, for example. But no, we're very, we're making sure to take that in account. Also, same with the IT, we have to set the IT up in the new building so that it can kind of also, Omid would be able to explain a lot better than me, but feed a little bit off of here. So this way, nothing goes off wire. You know, that was one of our biggest concerns going up. We don't want someone to be at the treasurer's window, paying their taxes or paying a bill and all of a sudden everything goes out or so we're very thoughtful when it comes to that transition and making sure that it doesn't disrupt services.

The last question I had was in regards to the parking garage, which you brought up. I know that there's, I think there were plans to make updates and upgrades to that parking garage. When will that happen?

Yes. So, and again, thank you to Joe and his team. We are, they should actually be starting to go out there soon, I believe, right? For the elevator and for- yeah so elevator um as some of you may know the elevator has not worked in there for years uh so that is one of the improvements that has to be made we also have to get signage to make sure that we have spaces for staff and visitors um on as there's i'm sorry more lighting is something that we're going to put into um one what this will help with is if you've been in that garage they're kind of the way that the handicap parking spots were set up um you know they're not necessarily to grade where they need to be and that caused a big problem especially considering lack of use for the elevator now that we have the elevator use you could still have ample handicap parking really up and down the whole parking garage. So that's something we're going to take a look at, not to preview stuff that we're going to discuss during budget time or different things we're going to bring to the council, but we really do feel it's time for a comprehensive look at parking across the whole entire city, all the way from engineering to structurally, how do we find parking, do we you know the parking meters that can are constantly down and have been for years you know does it make sense to upgrade that i mean just all the way how do people find parking in troy i've been saying this as a sense of resident and being on the bid board i don't think we have a parking spot problem and allocation of parking the problem is that people might not know where to go find parking We don't have smart enough technology that could say, hey, the parking garage down here for the farmer's market has 40 spots open at this time. As you know, the state of some of the parking garages, we really need to upgrade them. We are through our infrastructure program. We are going to see one of our surface parking lots improved this year. We're trying to start chipping away that, but I think everybody could agree. It's time to look at the parking across the whole city. Now, and as we also enter into, we recently had a meeting about wayfinding. We have DRI funding for that. That's something we're looking to go after too. All that's going to be incorporated. I mean, it's not that funny, but as a joke, it's like, I think when you pull into Troy, there's still a sign directing you to the central shopping mall. I mean, it's time for that stuff to go.

Agreed then capital streets, uh, in coordination with council member McKee just held a great conversation about parking downtown. Um, so if you haven't seen it, I'd love to share it with you. Um, that was all my questions. Council member Campbell Cohen.

I also agree that I would love to focus on parking resource management and less on developing new lots if they're needed they're needed but I completely agree that resource management is the best use of time but those are not the things that I was planning on asking about with proctors um the first sort of line of questions that I wanted to jump into is you know whenever anyone buys a building this old and big um everybody has heard horror stories you peek under the hood and there's X or Y or Z have you encountered any surprise expenses or any surprise like environmental health concerns thinking of like Lead, asbestos, you know, mold is another example.

So a couple of things on that council member. So we one keep in mind this building when it originally was purchased by Columbia from RPI and also the same contractor BBL worked on it. the asbestos abatement had occurred then. They did a lot, put a lot of effort to make sure that the theater was dry, very safe and secure. Sometimes in these rundown, larger, older buildings, you know, you have you know rodents running around you have uh birds that are flying and out all that type of stuff uh water leaking in that slowly i mean water is our biggest enemy and our biggest gift it's um you know deteriorating some of that stuff so the fact that they secured all of that um way early on when they when they first originally took over the building that helped with when we went to take it over and then of course the existing office spaces were already redone as well so and then One of the benefits of the GMP, the guaranteed maximum price contract, is that going into that, it's not like your traditional public works job where you're susceptible to change orders as you go along and you have to account for those. They really had to account for any potential hiccups that they ran into knowing they were going to be on the hook for it. So, I mean, an example would be that there was a section of the roof that was replaced not too long ago, but because of putting the HVAC in and certain things, the decision was made, okay, we're going to just redo the roof. That's right. That's what we guaranteed under the contract. You know, making sure that there's certain heating elements so we don't deal with, you Pipes bursting, things like that. We've come across a couple of those issues, but again, that's the benefit of that GMP. BBL had to fix them and make it right. They went into it knowing there'd be some unforeseen circumstances, although we had the benefit that they were very familiar with the building from the prior work that they performed.

And that hallway that you were describing that's being built going into essentially like council chambers and vital records and so on, is that also a way of sort of sealing away some of the more obvious environmental health concerns? Like, because that hallway is there.

people would not be exposed to it so well i mean the hallway is really for functionality to get through the building i don't know of really any i mean environmental issue i mean we probably wouldn't want somebody picking away at the old paint on the that's That's what I was getting at. So it does give for the fact that the public can still enjoy the historic elements of it without just saying, hey, go through this door and wander around, which is pretty cool, frankly. But yeah, it would protect from anybody really kind of getting into, say, the old balconies and things like that. We wanted to make sure because the nature of the building and the fact that we're talking about multiple tiers of balconies and mezzanines and things like that, Not only that the interior core that we're all going to be operating in is very secure and that only a very small amount of people will be able to have access to those areas. We also do even right now have sensors, fire safety throughout the entire building, even the parts that we're not really activating at this point just yet, just to make sure that we have that safety ability, Bob. see okay and so um not anticipating sort of additional expenses around environmental health costs no because of the ceiling that you have in the contract uh i mean i don't think not necessarily because of the ceiling or anything i don't you know there was nothing um going into the building that we were aware of that was going to have to be remedied to occupant It wasn't like we were told to build the hallway because there's environmental issues around it. It was natural that we were going to build it for functionality, but there's no environmental concerns that we have.

Okay. Well, that is good to hear. The second questions I wanted to ask about is just looking at square footage of what we're in now and square footage of what we're going into. With regards to records and moving those over, is there a plan around that? And is this seen as sort of like an opportunity to digitize some things so that we're not hauling them over?

So Vital Statistics, at least right since we took office, has been going through a digitizing effort. Frankly, one of the consultants that worked on that, by consultant, it's really the person doing kind of the legwork. And that's kind of a little bit of a niche area, it sounds like, to do, especially when you're you know, doing birth certificates from 1790 or whatever's over there. So that person has passed away, unfortunately. That kind of threw a little bit of a hiccup in that process. But the, and shout out to Heather, supervisor in Vital Stats, that's been something she's been on taking for years now. although digitizing the records from my understanding is very helpful for residents and staff to reference and look up i want to say that we're still required to store a certain amount of records whether it's vital statistics the clerk's office the assessors but one of the benefits of this building is that we do have ample uh basement space. And actually one part of the basement has been modernized and sprinklered. So I have been having discussions that now we kind of go through this exercise of taking records and bringing them under the headquarters at our firehouse. This should be able to stop that. Or say that even in the clerk's office, there's Two filing cabinets that never regularly get used, but they're required to store those. We're starting to have those discussions with staff. Okay, well, that's something that can free up space in your office. We could probably put down in the sprinkler basement. So there is the thought of some of that, but we already want to try to digitize some of the records. That effort's already been occurring through Vital Statistics. I imagine that's going to be quite a while, quite a long project. I know they've been chipping away at it already for two years now.

okay and even outside of sort of vital records i'm just thinking of like plans that might be in a planning office that are sitting around the you know their valuable documents maybe maybe not imminently actionable, but the sorts of things that you would want to keep around. Or even in DPU, I know DPU is offset, but lab code, as far as it interacts with it, just notes that never got digitized or what have you. Is there a plan around consolidating those?

It's something that we talk about. I know even in planning and that should be something that's awarded soon is that we're even going through where we're going to change the way that we operate in the planning department when you're submitting plans, for example, for a project instead of walking in sometimes with these loads of documents that we did put an RFP out for a vendor that would digitize that process and streamline it online. You know, we always talk about Tyler technologies with some things, but the short answer of it is, we're constantly looking how to kind of move forward in the future, make things more efficient. And the conversation of digitizing certain records are always part of that. Not necessarily butting it up against the move of new city hall. So probably just to be careful, we will see most paper documents that are currently on the 5th floor here. brought over to um new city hall some staff has been great about already starting to weed through some of their stuff and and and disposing of things they may or not may not need i'm going through their cabinets and consolidating them so that is an effort that's already happening but yeah to digitize records just like it would be great to see our website go to another level too and you know apply online for jot things like that those are conversations we're constantly having and projects we look to take on in the future

Is there any concern with the storage space of the offices about the ongoing sort of space for records on site? You know, if people are currently expecting that they have the square footage that they have in their department and it's getting tighter, something has to give often. What would that be for a lot of these offices?

Yeah, so a lot. I don't think any of the, I know that none of the, let's call it filing cabinet intensive offices or storage offices, again, clerks, vital statistics assessors are big examples. When we were going through and finalizing the floor plan, we worked with our architects and BBL on making sure that the filing cabinets were accounted for in uh and the storage was accounted for in new city hall now the way that might be stored instead of having kind of filing cabinets scattered here there they might be condensed a little bit more i'd argue where say that say even just to take the city clerk's office where in the actual office where they work out of and operate there might not be as much space for the existing filing cabinets that are in their office but then the room that's off of their office for storage is just that much bigger than the existing one they have So we did look at trying to make sure that we could not only be efficient with storage, but making sure that things that are existingly here can fit in the new city hall. So I don't foresee that being a problem.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Council Member McKee.

Thank you. Is there enough office space to cover all the employees that are here right now?

Yes, we have enough space for everybody, even the city council.

Great. So there won't be any need to rent other office space?

There will not. And again, another benefit of this building is that whatever that may look out many years down the road, but there is even opportunity to still build off of the space existingly. But no, definitely every person we also even accounted for, an example would be in BIS. We don't have a budgeted room for an assistant director of BIS. Maybe down the road, that will be a position that comes up. So we did try to account for some of that think in the future, what would future administrations might need, what type of space might they utilize. Around this building now, for example, too, there's kind of, I think, wherever conference rooms might have fit, they were just put. So we try to even go about that a little bit more efficiently. You know, we want this to be a place that if a resident comes in or someone wants to come in, instead of wandering around the building just to submit a job application or a permit to fit your deck, you can walk into the lobby, say, here you go. um you know and you don't have to kind of wander around the building although we welcome people to explore the historic elements of it of course they still have that option to have help from staff but not only is it you know a great new structure for us to move but we're trying to take every step we can to make sure that that not only just the workflow but the way that visitors and residents when they come can operate efficiently and but there's also room for expansion of personnel for instance if you hired a planning director

You would have room.

Yeah, I don't know the plan. I mean, if there are you saying like a like the planning commissioner, is that what you're? Yeah. Yep. So the planning commissioner, I mean, everything that's currently, although they might be a vacant position currently, we did not just not give those folks in office. Those are accounted for. We did. Okay, great. Thank you. Yep.

Okay. Seeing no other questions for Proctors, thank you for that. We'll move on to the bulk trash pickup event that happened last month. I would say it was a huge success. Far more residents participated in this event than the typical Alamo drop-offs just because of the convenience.

Yes, it was a lot of work and residents seem happy and we're happy to do so. So it was a successful event for sure.

Yeah. More trash picked up is less trash.

Less legally dumping. Yeah.

Yeah. And if I could just give an incredibly huge shout out, Joe Maz, Seamus, Joe Martin, the quality of life action crews, the team did a phenomenal, phenomenal job. It truly was one of the most successful events in history. you know decades in terms of just uh efficiency um a lot of folks didn't think we could do it in a two-week period we are debriefing and we will tweak some things for next year um but i cannot say enough about the cruise they just did a phenomenal phenomenal job and you know so many folks so convenient some folks actually are redoing their basement that they've been talking about for you know 15 years and because of the accessibility and the pickup and the convenience of it they actually took advantage of it and ripped up carpets you name it so once again kudos um to the team they just did a phenomenal job

Yes. And that first day was a lot of rain, if everybody remembers.

It was a lot of rain.

Yes. So I just have two questions for you guys. And I had emailed them over prior to tonight's evening. So our meeting, I was just curious, what was the total of overtime that was?

um incurred so the actual event was two weeks but it lingered over for a few more days tallying up to maybe 10 to 11 days and in total to be 7 600 in overtime

Which for folks listening keeps us under budget. As of the June financials that we received for quarterlies, we had approximately 50,000 remaining. So that's great. And then my other question was, how much did we pay for tipping fees?

We haven't paid the tipping fees yet. The receipts are still coming in. We're just about done receiving them. They tally up to be 36,000. Great.

Thank you. Chair? Sure. Council Member DiLorenzo.

Thank you. So, yeah, this was a great event. And the communication and getting that out was also fantastic. But I have some worries that some residents might have been, you know, confused or they heard about it late and they put something out, you know, maybe after their scheduled date. How did we handle situations like that?

I mean we blasted on Facebook and I mean the mayor's done multiple videos a day. We I think we sent out letters in the beginning of springtime talking about the exemptions that this is going to be a part tax alerts. This is going to be a perk to come back to city services. So we've done our due diligence to get that out there. We could do more for sure next year. If you care those concerns, let me know that we can work for it next year.

Tom Preston- yeah no I didn't I didn't hear those concerns, but I was just i'm kind of more wondering, you know where we showing some flexibility with residents who are maybe a day late or were we finding them.

no actually we did a lot of flexibility i mean uh only if they were city service cans that had the bulk bulk in front of them uh we did send violations to private cans uh but it wasn't that many so okay uh once you had a city barrel and a bulk if it was the day after we definitely went back and picked it up okay great thank you chairman council member campbell cohen

Is it possible to get a sense of which groups of employees are involved in making this happen?

Yeah, so this is strategically our streets department.

Okay. And for folks who might not be as familiar, can you just give a high-level scope of what the streets department is responsible for generally? Sure.

Streets is responsible for everything in the streets, snow removal, litter on the ground, litter patrol, sweeping, anything that's in the way of our right-of-way, they will maintain it.

And was it segments of the streets staff that were involved in this event or the whole street staff?

Segments, but I would say 75% because we still maintain our street cleaning routes every day.

Okay. Were there any things that had to get sort of deprioritized to make this work in such a tight timeframe? And there's nothing wrong with deprioritizing things to make another thing happen.

Can you clarify that with an example of one?

If, like, Litter Patrol, for instance, if folks are involved in the bulk pickup, are they able to still do their ordinary routine work?

Yes, they were. They're actually low patrol was actually hand by hand with our boom trucks. So they were they were working very closely. Everybody was working very closely together about it.

OK, I guess what I'm asking is, they able to do what they would normally do outside of as a bulk pickup so we had we had two assigned to the book and then one would be throughout the whole city doing other things that were noticeably illegal dumping yes okay got it um is there anything you'd like to do differently next year and especially as we're heading into budget season anything that you want us to be keeping in mind for for making that happen

Honestly, I would love to have a conversation with all parties, Deputy Mayor, Mayor, Joe Martin, Supervisor, his staff, a roundtable and see what we can do better and what kind of went wrong. But I don't think much went wrong because we accomplished what we did and what can we do better for sure. Okay, right on.

All right. That's it for me. Thank you.

Chair. Councilmember Struber. You mentioned Facebook was a large part of alerting people to this. We do have a lot of residents who don't use Facebook. Was this put out there, like the specific days, what to put out, et cetera, in any other way?

Media and text alerts, I believe. Websites. Yeah.

everywhere okay the week before um where it was happening every day we would announce the next day um we encourage folks to sign up for emails text alerts uh the media was fabulous um it was on the news uh i would say three or four times the record um you know we did everything humanly possible to get the word out but obviously we'll you know we will always continue to just keep at it thank you um i mentioned it because i am on all of those lists and i don't remember getting an email or a text i only saw it on facebook so wanted to bring that up

Thank you.

Are you still able to participate?

I didn't need to, but thank you.

Council member Spain McLaren. Thank you.

So that tipping fee, I know, Mayor, you mentioned before that the hope was that it would be offset by not having the free drop off at the Alamo. Do you feel like that kind of evened out?

uh probably didn't even out but i did find some money in one of our budget lines uh i feel comfortable but i haven't made my decision yet but in the near future i think i will pull this trigger to pay out of a certain line But in the near future, I probably will be coming to the council to talk to you about a transfer.

Okay. And do you think going forward, I mean, the plan is to do this ongoing. So you'll make sure to budget for it in the future. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

So early to tell if I'm even going to be coming to the council. It's early in the year, but maybe still pull it off. But if we do, we will meet you guys and we have a discussion about it.

Thank you. I would add one thing that folks did get confused with was the brush pickup. We will definitely improve upon that for next year because people did put their brush and their bag leaves the day of the bulk pickup. And that's a separate pickup. So that will be definitely explained and corrected for next year.

In the original flyer, it did list brush as one of the things that could be picked up. And I know that's what happened in my neighborhood was, you know, a lot of people put brush out and worried that it was going to sit. But it did eventually get picked up and we all appreciate it. Thank you.

no thank you i really want to thank um the residents uh they worked with us um you know was a real partnership project uh i saw folks um i was out there probably half of the days with the bulk pickup and our crews and people were cleaning the fronts of their yards, their sidewalks. It really was a great partnership project and just in tutorial legal dumping and also encourage folks to pitch in and really do improvements at their homes. It really was a phenomenal success and we'll continue making it in even more successful program.

Okay, so moving on our last agenda item this evening is the temporary animal shelter. And this is a new topic for this committee. Do you have any idea why we maybe have brought it up for this evening?

You know, I will kick it off. The prior council was briefed on this issue. Council President Steele's aware back in 2023, during the prior mayor's tenure, he actually informed the council at that time during budget that The Humane Society was definitely not just charging us more. They actually doubled, if you recall, Council President. So we kind of saw in 2023, during that time, that the Humane Society was kind of taking a different turn in terms of their ability to accept dogs, et cetera. So hence, I come in in 2024. You can only imagine the second week in office and the bitter cold on a weekend. Our ACO, Kevin McDonough, called myself and Seamus and Joe and said, we got a real problem. The Humane Society has locked the door, changed the locks, and will not accept dogs. We have come a long way these past two and a half years. I cannot say enough about the team effort here. We have learned a lot. We have educated ourselves. Ag and Markets has held our hand throughout this process. They have been just fabulous in terms of educating us, coming to visit the shelter, give us tips on how to improve. I can't say enough, seriously, the team between Joe Mance, Seamus, Maria at the time, the city clerk, Joe Martin, our public utilities who had to run water lines to ensure that the drainage was happening. Initially, we had DPW, one of our back garages, you know it was okay and it was a start now fast forward we actually have a real temporary holding shelter whereby we have epoxy flooring we have the correct ventilation we have the correct water drainage and it truly has been an all-out front effort of all of our departments working together to make this happen. Do you know we're not the only municipality who's facing this? I speak to Mayor Petrocelli quite a bit, Supervisor Crummey over in Colony, Brian Marsh over in Manan, saying all of that. They have the humane in their backyard. I think they get a little more success from the Humane Society. But saying that, we have come a long way. I would love to see a regional effort, Councilmember Fabro, but to date, no one really has taken the bull by the horn to do that. It costs quite a bit of money. But saying that we have come a long way. We have built partnerships, as you know, with Saratoga Animal Shelter, Saratoga County. We have a contract with them. They stepped up to the plate. We have other nonprofits that we have built partnerships, the pits and others. um so saying that we have come a long way do you know we do not do direct adoptions uh we just don't have that ability and so what we do is um we hold the dogs you know obviously feed them walk them make sure they have great shelter um take them for walks Etc and then the assessment comes into play and hopefully foster or adopt the drugs through the nonprofits. So we are a holding facility and, you know, by law, we have to take in strays. You know, it's New York State law. So, you know, at some point, though, we, I certainly see a regional effort to having to happen brunswick um we were holding their dogs early on um saying that they are facing similar struggles um they partner with another municipality they don't have a holding shelter so saying that um we do have uh some answers to your questions in detail but i really wanted to give that 10 000 foot overview um just to let you know where we were and where we are now. And we've come a long way and we'll continue to improve. Um, but saying that, um, our folks do an amazing job.

Yes. Thank you. And, um, The main reason why I added this as an agenda item is just because I've been hearing a lot of concerns. I've been hearing concerns from residents about the services. I've heard concerns from staff. And it's important to know for everybody in the room that this is not a Troy problem. This is a regional problem. This is a national problem. The number of strays that are on our streets, it's across the area. And I had spoken to the Hudson Mohawk Humane Society in preparation for this meeting. And they disclosed that under our prior arrangement, we were handing over to them or transferring 200 to 300 dogs a year. And that's still happening or would still be happening if we had that agreement. And I do have a lot of questions to see what's going on with Saratoga. But we're seeing a lot of dogs on the streets, not just in Troy. This is a bigger issue. So that's why I wanted to have this meeting. But. So I have some questions that weren't financial that I had here, and if anybody else has any and wants to jump in, how many dogs does our temporary shelter hold?

I just, Council Member, if I can just address one thing that you said, we would, if we had the option and ability to continue to work with Mohawk, we would. They turned us around. I just, you might have not meant it, but when you said if we, you know, we would still be doing that, we... I just want to be clear for the public that it's not that the city ever decided we don't want to work with Mohawk. It was the other way around. And that's what triggered some of the stuff that the mayor just said about we had to think quick and constantly involve what's going on. Like you said, it is a problem everywhere. So I just want to make sure that that's clear.

No, I just, to clarify, I just meant the amount of dogs that we would be handing over to them if we were still in that contract. And I'll be asking how many dogs we've brought to Saratoga because I'm thankful that they've stepped up with their county shelter and have the ability to work with us because I don't know what we'd be doing if they didn't step up. Me too. Yes. Literally. And yes, quite literally. So how many dogs can our temporary shelter hold?

We can hold 22 dogs.

Okay. And like approximately percentage wise of the dogs that are being picked up, how many are being reunited? I think we call it redeemed, right? redeemed, rarely, rare. Okay. And so the majority of them are being handed over to Saratoga after being held

Not necessarily. So we have a five-day hold. Our first call is to Saratoga to do a full assessment. But just like everywhere else, Saratoga is having a tough time having kennels open as well. We are doing a good job talking to rescue groups and foster homes. We've been utilizing them to the max. We work with Out of the Pits. We work with Mount Reidy, Pepper Tree, Dog House. Just to name a few, we're still trying to do our outreach just to find as many rescue groups as we possibly can because if Saratoga is full and these not-for-profits are full, then they're just going to be housed in our temporary hold and shelter, which we don't want to do. So we're trying to move these dogs as quickly as possible.

And I know Saratoga, I spoke to them and they've recently had stopped surrenders from private citizens up in Saratoga County because their facility is full because they have to prioritize crisis cases. Has that shift impacted our relationship with Saratoga?

We do not take surrenders either, but I do want to say that Saratoga has been wonderful to work with. They've been terrific.

Okay. And if our shelter is full, say we have all 22 cages full and somebody finds a dog and calls it in or Kevin, our animal control officer is out, what happens to that dog if we're at full capacity?

are trying to contact family members any resources neighbors friends anything that this dog can go and stay in a healthy home we can make some kind of arrangements at the shelter but it has to be very very temporarily it can't be a long term you know i'm thinking a day or two we can put them in a holding cell uh a temporary cell once it's it's movable so yeah yeah

Just one thing too is that we have, we've instituted where the group that's involved up to myself and the mayor, we have staff that runs weekly reports reporting to us how many. The commissioner is very aware of that as well. communicating with staff or ACO. If we know that we're at a 22 capacity or if we know we're approaching that, that is when we eagerly reach back out to our partners, Saratoga, really letting them know. Like everyone's noted, Saratoga has been really good working with us. That is the constant monitoring of it is another thing that maybe doesn't get discussed as well too. I think for public knowledge, that everybody needs to realize that there's you know this is not just taking taking these animals and putting them off in a corner somewhere uh we have come a long way and some of the stuff that the mayor's noted but they're very monitored and tracked and we're constantly reviewing how close we are getting to capacity knowing uh that that could create an issue so you know that is a that is a daily process making sure that we try to keep that level down as possible like i'm sure we could i don't know how many pet lovers are up there but uh we you know it is it's it's sad when you do find one you know one of these dogs and you want to do everything you can to try to help them and uh it is shocking how how many folks don't don't go for the redemption or or a search for it so yeah we really only run into this issue in the summer months winter fall spring it's not as high as it is when it's summer summer it's just it's out of control that dogs roam in the streets

And who is authorized to pick up dogs off the streets?

Who is authorized? Our ACO.

And just the ACO?

If there is a need and the ACO is not available, our street supervisor, Joe Marron, will assist.

And no other employees on staff?

Not that I'm aware of, unless it's being discussed by structure. I don't know.

And random cats. We don't take in cats. No.

No. We have a very wonderful unnamed person that helps with that.

We love you, cat ladies. Let's see here. So I gave you a lot of questions financially. You'll be so mad. Oh, my God.

Even though we all know who it is.

Exactly.

So year to date. And so it's tricky in the budget. Our animal control officer has a line in the police department. That one's an easy one. But these services, they're all lumped together in where?

Streets. Streets. Yes. So there's typically two or three temporary street workers helping maintaining Kevin within the dog shelter.

Okay. And year to date, do we have a breakdown of regular and overtime?

So I have a breakdown of regular, including Kevin's base pay, if you want. Altogether, it is $83,705.69. And then overtime for them year to date? It is $27,302.50. Okay.

And I'm making an assumption that a lot of that is weekend hours for care?

It's evenings and weeknights.

Correct. And changes from 2025?

Changes from 2025 because last year we had a part-time ACO that helped in the evenings and weekend time. So that's why that line is a little higher. uh together for regular pay is a hundred and twenty three thousand three hundred and thirty three point six eight okay and the over time for twenty five is twenty one thousand eight hundred and seventy five forty nine cents so we're already over by six thousand but we are dramatically yeah well okay well we will be under in regular okay

And for year to date supplies, like I'm assuming bedding, leashes, foods.

Yep. So year to date, we're about just shy of 11,000, which we also get a lot of donations for as well.

Okay, great. And then 2025 total? 2025 was 17,223.

And then year to date vet care that we've paid so far for these animals? Uh, for 26, we did capital district. That was for 6,741 and Oakwood vet for 1500. And then year today, or I'm sorry, a full year, 2025 capital district was 8,622.

Troy vet was 943. It's a little high. How their city was three 90. Um, and how much have we generated in revenue? I'm assuming it's very little because you said the redemptions are low.

So my knowledge they are, but this may be more of appropriate question for the city clerk's office as they do the redemptions. I do have ballpark, but I don't, I don't have facts.

Okay. Um, and for any fines, so if folks same department, so all of those would be booked and closed. Okay. Um, let's see. And how much have we paid in transfer fees, either to Saratoga or do we pay transfer fees to any of like out of the pits or pepper tree, any of those organizations that you named?

We pay for reimbursements. It's the New York state law that these dogs have to be neutered and have updated shots. So they can be transitioned into the home, but right away they have to have that service. They'll pay out of pocket. We will then reimburse them.

Okay.

And how, so out of the pits for 2025, we paid 2,200 26, we pay 1,200. Dog house adoptions in 25, we paid $1,348. In 26, we paid $6,957. And then Saratoga, we paid in 25, $17,550 compared to 26 is $6,990. Okay. And

I don't know if I included this to you. So if not, I understand if you have to get back to me. How much did we pay the last year? I believe it's 2023 to Hudson Mohawk. 2023 we paid $91,000. $91,000.

Okay. Which that was the end of that term contract. And then in 24, they gave us a new contract that would pay $750 per dog without services. So that was just for the dog to walk into the building.

Right. And how much did we pay Saratoga in total last year? Do you have that number?

Total is $17,550. That includes them taking dogs, assessments, services, anything like that.

Okay. And mileage, is that broken down within your department?

I do not calculate mileage, no.

I'm assuming it's higher if they're having to go to Saratoga for an assessment.

Saratoga comes to our shop, but to move dogs, we would deliver dogs to Saratoga. Okay.

And just to make a point too, we don't, we don't provide mileage when staff's using a city vehicle compared to using a private vehicle, which we don't, you know, we don't do either. And just two things since I have the microphone that I just did want to mention. You could see during budget time a request for another part-time ACO or so that is stuff we're evaluating just to be upfront with that too. And everybody that has got a thank you here definitely deserves it. Our police department deserves a thank you as well, especially early on when it was unknown of uh exactly what the plan was where we were going to go the police department really picked in uh pitched in a lot in helping that and still to this day just like we know folks don't know exactly who to call so they call 9-1-1 or they call the police department so a lot of our officers uh do deal with uh kind of uh the beginning of a stray dog or You know, if we go to raid a home and there's dogs left there, those are examples where PD really picks up a lot. So, you know, we do got to give a lot of credit to a lot of officers out there for helping with that as well.

Thank you. I think that was it for my financial questions. And circling back, how many employees are currently there's the ACO office or the officer and how many employees are are helping with the shelter? Yeah.

Three.

And are these new employees or are they employees that we had who have existing jobs who are now?

Both. And Sarah is actually working with Agamarkers right now to get them properly trained. And like Seema said earlier, Agamarkers has been down to the facility, witnessed our facility, witnessed our workers with animals. Things are going pretty good. They've been extremely helpful. So they'll be there. they'll be friends of ours and hopefully get more knowledge from them as well.

Yeah. I went online and I looked up their inspections and Troy, um, for anybody, you can go online for any shelter or, um, organization that houses animals. You can go online through eggs and markets and see those inspections. So I can see that they were just here in August. I saw that there was a note on there for the complete 90, which is, if I'm understanding correctly, the $35 deposit. It said something for like spay or neutered. Is that something that you guys are working through with them?

It's just going into effect now.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to look through my notes here to see if there's anything else, and I'll hand it over to the Council and Committee if you had any further questions. Council Member Campbell-Cohen.

I'm not sure I understood the second part of your answer about which employees might pick up dogs if it's not Kevin or Joey. Could you say it again for my benefit, just a different way?

so if kevin's on vacation or or is not in the area joe martin who is a street supervisor will transport dogs the next person which is very very not frequently would be keith abbott okay so the only people who have picked up dogs are kevin joe or keith abbott to my knowledge okay um when we do pick up a dog how do we go about trying to locate the owner We post, we contact the city clerk's office. There could be a license on the dog with already contacts on there. Chip reader, bring them to the vet, things like that.

And we'd always go to the city clerk's office as just standard order of operations.

Just in case someone is looking for their dog, we'll all be on the same page. Okay. And who does that? Kevin, Joe, Sarah.

Nellie's been helping. You mentioned that the dogs need to be walked and thank God something's doing it. Who does that?

Our temporary staff and Kevin. Kevin assists as well. If Kevin has to go out on a run, our temporary staff will be maintaining the garage in itself. We're also walking the dogs in the field as well around the garage.

So the temporary staff who are responsible for walking the dogs, their other job responsibilities would be...

If Kevin can do it himself, their responsibility is to wash out the dog area. Okay. And feed them, give them water, things like that.

Answering phones?

Paula and Nellie answer the phones.

Okay. But Paula and Nellie would never be walking the dogs?

No.

Is there... You mentioned... Remind me, how many crates do we have in the facility?

22. 22 secure crates.

And how many unsecured crates?

A handful.

And what would the distinction between those two things be?

Yeah.

I see. You're just kind of like a fixed crate.

Yeah. These crates are bolted to the ground. Okay. Is it always just one dog per crate? most likely yes unless they came from the same home or their siblings or they're friendly with each other if they're maxed out they would share their witcher kennel but that's rare it would never be two strange dogs never right never has that always been the case yes okay okay i think that's the end of my questions thank you did you i don't know okay right now um how how long do you typically have a dog stay like do you have a a long-standing resident or We do have a long stand resident. It's extremely difficult to answer. If we get a new puppy, that puppy after five, they'd hold is probably getting picked up that day. Um, if it's a couple of years old, it could be a week or two, but the older fellow with a gray beard is extremely difficult to move. That's the, that's the truth.

Okay. Um, have you had to euthanize dogs?

Yes.

Okay. And how do you make that call? Is that based on how long they've been there or their reactivity?

We contact Saratoga. They do the assessment and they'll determine it. And then if they find that determination is reasonable, they would do it.

they perform it yes okay um so that's included in there in the what we give them correct okay now how about just to microchip a dog do the vets typically charge for that because they just have to wave a wand over them right do they they don't okay yeah okay

Should Sarah come to the table so that other folks can be on the mic?

Just to the people who are listening, she's saying that the vets are very generous, that sometimes the receptionist will wave the wand, and it's a quick interaction.

Or anything like that. We don't need an office visit. We don't need a vet.

they have a wand right at the um desk they almost they almost never have chips but it's our first gotcha it's our first try to find the owner right right um is there do you have a percentage of how many dogs are licensed and and get i mean i know you said it's very rare that do they ever say eh we don't want them back less than 10 are licensed maybe less than five percent joe i think we had did get the number

I think we had an exact number.

that's okay i i don't need the exact if i can't find out we'll definitely email you but you know i mean i know you said it was rare um how do you have a number of how many dogs have had to be euthanized since we started this you know since the city started this uh i'll get that number back to you for sure and just to clarify it's health or behavior only we're not euthanizing because we have no space okay okay thank you for clarifying that um I know you mentioned a part-time. I mean, I was going to advocate for that at budget time, having someone to help out, having maybe help streamline the whole process with the rescues. Has there ever been any consideration given to having somebody oversee maybe a volunteer list of people who would like to come in and play or walk? You know, having a, you know, signing something saying that they wouldn't hold the city liable, but, you know.

That idea has been thrown out. We definitely would have to talk to Corp Council about that.

Okay. Because I have a feeling you'd have a lot of people who were interested in doing that. I know you said you can't directly adopt out dogs, and that's what the rescues do. What about having... I've seen it kind of randomly show up maybe on a page here and there like, hey, we have this dog. Does it belong to anybody? Is there anybody who or would you consider maybe making it someone's position to do that on a regular basis so that we maybe could have a quicker response?

result um for that kind of um all of our city all of our foster agents adoption agencies they do that now it's just finding more of them because they're booked up that's the issue where we can't move the dogs to a new foster home because we're running we're running out of people to take these dogs in right okay but we are still doing our outreach we're capital district and beyond we're we're still doing outreach to find foster homes

All rescue partners are in the same boat that we are. For example, Out of the Pits has an adoption event over the weekend. They tell us, whoever gets adopted, we can come get two from you. I call her every Monday. No bites. We did get rid of one dog this weekend. We can't help you. Everybody. It's just an epidemic everywhere. I work very closely with our rescues. I beg them. We have some longtime residents in there, more than others, but they're all in the same boat. We try to get more. We've reached out to more rescues, doing everything we can to get them.

How about fostering? Have you considered a foster program?

It's been discussed. Again, we would have to talk to our corporate counsel about that.

But there's currently nobody fosters.

We work with fostering organizations. Of course, look, I say this all the time. I mean, we're a city. We're a walking liability. But it is our duty to try to balance that as much as we can. So when we've talked about direct adopting, when we've talked about direct fostering, when we've talked about... volunteers coming in and working with folks as much as that there could be some benefits that that's not that's not not acknowledged it really is the question of how far do we want to stretch this liability so that's why we try to put everything we can into working with all the partners that were listed here today to try to protect the city as much as much as we can too and again like it's noted here at least since we've been here this went from a problem that we thought okay if we We'll be able to remedy this quick. We just need a temporary. Then it became, okay, we need a larger space. Then it became, okay, we need to ventilate it and get X amount. So, you know, unfortunately it could be a growing, it could be a growing problem, especially if we don't see any help regionally or from the state to, to, to try to tackle it. But, You know, that's why we're going to add different staff and stuff like that, too. And the staff is great. As you can tell from listening in here, a lot of folks are involved in this process out in the streets and back here at City Hall. You know, so we try to get the dogs posted, get them out of there as much as we can. Some of it, unfortunately, is like it's been stated. Some of those dogs, you know, just have have other issues.

you know that that's just always been the question of balancing that liability as much as we can and something that we'll continue to look at as we move forward i wonder if going forward also we could talk about maybe a task force or or a you know a core group like you've said you know you have a core group of people who are involved maybe broadening that a little bit and talking about brainstorming some ways that we could get you know whether it's funding whether it's you know a real consolidated effort to appeal to you know the county to the state or whatever to to you know we are going to be applying for a grant as well yeah oh okay Who's the grant with?

The New York State Animal Companion Capital Fund, and it's up to $500,000. Many municipalities, Saratoga, just use it. You can only use it for building. You can't use it for staffing. But I believe Schenectady just partnered with the Hudson Mohawk Humane Society with their help and just built a shelter for, it's only 15 dogs, but it cost $386,000 of that $500,000. So I'm really happy to hear that you guys are going to be going for that.

Yeah. Craig Apple also turned a corner of the jail into dog shelter through a $500,000 grant. I want to say it might hold 10 or 12. So, you know, having 22 may not sound like a lot. It really is compared to some other temporary hold-in shelters or full-fledged shelters. And one other quick thing, the part-time ACO, very difficult to find someone for that role. We were fortunate. We did find someone last year, but he really stretched himself throughout the county and had a full-time job. So it is tough finding, you know, qualified and capable part-time ACOs. But we will continue improving. And like I said, it's uncharted waters, but we've come a long way.

Thank you.

The ladies from the state were extremely helpful. They gave us a lot of knowledge when we met with them. They're a vet and a licensed vet. They were awesome. They're not trying to catch us on anything. They were strictly there for educational to tell us every, we had questions, they had answers. And like I said, they're not trying to trip us up or find anything wrong. They wanted us to have all the resources we have. And they were actually very pleasantly surprised with everything they saw and everything that we've done. So we were happy with that. And I printed out the same thing that Jonah printed out. Um, she printed me out a copy of it so that we know what we need to improve on and that type of thing. But we're at the mercy of our rescues with moving the dogs. Thank you, Chair.

Councilmember DiLorenzo.

So do we have plans to, or is there, I guess, is there an opportunity to expand in the space that we have more of those, you know, the kennels basically?

not at this point, but again, it's, you know, like we said, as depending on how, how this situation continues to unfold. And, and that's why to make it clear that, you know, just to keep, to reiterate too, that we really, as much as it might sound like garage space and stuff, if you were to walk in there outside of it being a full fledged shelter, I mean, it is, you know, again, from pouring concrete to ventilation to water and, um like sarah had noted uh ag markets has been more of a hold your hand than we want to find you agency and you know provides us information and different things that we should do and and keeps us in in loop with what the requirements are so um you know honestly council member it's not necessarily something that's part of the plan but it's something we should talk about because you know part of the plan wasn't to have 22 of them at one point either And then the problem just can continue to exacerbate. We're in an urban area. I'd have to imagine that we also do get dogs that are not from Troy originally that get dumped here because they know that they're going to get picked up and they might not get picked up out in the wilderness in Brunswick somewhere. So, you know, that's part of the problem. Just like we deal with multiple of those problems being kind of being a city center and most populated city in the county. So, but, uh.

Do we have a documented procedure for what to do with these dogs?

Yes.

Is there any way we could get that in an email maybe after this meeting?

No, we can have the commissioner send it over.

I would love to just see it just so we have something.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no other questions, thank you. It's hard because the word temporary is in that service, temporary animal shelter, and it seems like we are at the mercy of Saratoga County and all of these adoption agencies. and I don't wanna see it crumble. And for clarification, I know I started this meeting saying I've heard complaints and we've heard complaints, but to make it clear, we have not heard complaints about the care of the animals. So nobody has come to us saying, they're living in filth in this garage. We don't see it, so a lot of people can make assumptions. That's not what we've heard, and I just wanted to make sure that was clear because I know the folks who are involved are doing more with less. They're doing two jobs, and that's a concern for me personally. and i would love to see if this is something that we're going to continue doing i would love to make sure that we have enough staff because um a year ago i had to call kevin for a crisis and you could tell he knows a lot he does a lot um and kevin if you're listening I know you're coming up on retirement. I'm not looking at him and saying you're old, but I know he's coming up on retirement. And my concern is when he leaves, what are we going to do if we're having trouble finding temporary jobs? I hope we can find another guy like Kevin to fill his shoes. Yeah.

Definitely. And that's why you might see in the budget that it's actually a full-time person that comes in to supplement that. That might be more enticing for someone to come because like we make an attempt to do across all our departments. Troy has folks that have worked here in different capacities. for 20, 30 years. They're masters at what they do. They have so much institutional knowledge. And we've seen circumstances where that institutional knowledge goes out the door and it's then lost with that person. And it can be quite devastating to our local government here. So, you know, that we're constantly focusing on trying to build that bench. And that's an area that we're looking at too. So something that you'll probably see during budget time.

Just a real quick thing I want to do, if you guys ever have any ideas, I think a lot of it is community education. What's the root of this issue? Why do we have so many stray dogs? I don't have the answers, but is it finances? Is it bad people? I don't know. But if anybody has any ideas how to stop the problem, that would be.

I think that's the real issue here what's happening sure Councilmember Kim Cohen um I was curious when a dog does get picked up um I'm thinking about like uh the the locksmiths downstairs uh downtown Joseph Mangione um their employees found two German Shepherds, was just walking by and ended up in this situation. And the German Shepherd stayed on site. The city didn't have to get called in. And because it was in the neighborhood, the owners were located pretty fast. And so best case scenario, I would say for the city that this is just solved socially. When the city does get involved, What does it look like talking to neighbors or businesses around there being like, hey, have you seen this dog before the dog is brought in offsite?

Honestly, we talk about it even with the social media outreach. It seems to be, I think if we put out on social media our word around the neighborhood that we were giving out a million dollars, I think we'd still get more interactions with can someone help find the owner to this dog? I think the community, neighbors, folks on Facebook, you know, calling some folks like we know how our little big city here is, you know, if there's a dog missing from a certain area, you might know who to call and say, do you recognize this from the neighborhood? A lot of us walk around our neighborhoods. We get recognized with people and dogs. So the community, I think, although when it comes from the education standpoint of what really is the crisis, that might be lacking a little bit. But when it comes to trying to help find, bring, you know, bring back opportunities a dog to their original home or trying to help it people the outreach the outpour is tremendous the community definitely helps a lot whether that's in their neighborhood on social media whatever form it might be so i don't know if that's necessarily part of the problem but

and to your point um just to dovetail that in the neighborhood when that dog's found kevin knows a lot of the folks in the neighborhood he's been around the city so long uh to your point council member favor so um he does contact various folks before running them uh to the shelter that's right he'll knock on doors that's what i thought you find a dog you're gonna check with the

nearest oh yeah owners before yeah okay and he will literally go around that neighborhood before taking them i've seen them do it okay yep great thank you great okay um i will entertain a motion to adjourn motion okay i'll say a motion by di lorenzo second by campbell cohen all in favor aye aye

I want to thank you all for participating tonight. This has been very entertaining, but also very educational. We are at this point running about an hour late. I do want to apologize to those of you who have been here, but I hope you agree with me that we got a lot of good information tonight. We have a special finance committee meeting. We need a few minutes to reconfigure the room, so we'll take a break. Thank you.

It'll break got another one.

Thank you. Or grandpa you don't want to.

Like a Simpsons ever reviews are gone bad.

Why do we have to call them down today? Because they wanted to be they wanted they wanted. Yeah, they want to be needed. This is about what you understand, you know, this for a moment to the thing. What are we doing? We think we're going to be like. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The model I live by.

I might come back a little bit, just so you know. No worries. I've been moved back and forth.

But it is, it is, it is always, like, great.

Yeah, I know. I'm also there.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Like eight hours ago.

yeah. yeah. So I was like.

I feel like.

You know, just like.

Chris. You know. Growth Team, Growth Team, Growth Team. Growth Team, Growth Team. Growth Team, Growth Team. we please get this is not council member mckee are you ready i didn't want to i didn't want to interrupt you but you were

Okay, everyone, we're going to get underway with our special finance meeting. If we could come to order, please. Thank you. I would ask that you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member DiLorenzo. Present. Council Member Struber. Present. Council Member Spain-McClaren. Present. Council Member McKee.

Present.

Council Member Favreau.

Present.

Council Member Campbell-Cohen. Present. And Council President Steele also present. We will move into the public forum. This is a public forum on agenda items before the Special Finance Committee only. So we have before us five resolutions. Does anyone wish to speak on any one of those five resolutions? Seeing none, I'm going to move right along. TO THE PRESENTATION OF OUR AGENDA. RESOLUTION 86, RESOLUTION DECLARING THE TROY CITY COUNCIL'S INTENTION TO ACT AS LEAD AGENCY UNDER THE STATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY REVIEW ACT FOR REVIEW OF A PROPOSED ACTION AMENDING CHAPTER 285 OF THE TROY CITY CODE TO ADD PROVISIONS REGULATING BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS, COUNCIL PRESIDENT STEELE. IS THERE A MOTION? Council Member Struber. Second. Council Member Spain-McClaren.

Discussion on the resolution. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Resolution is adopted 86. Resolution 86 is adopted 7-0. resolution 88 resolution condemning the russian federation's military and political actions in ukraine and especially their impact on ukraine's children council president steele council member spain mclaren council member favreau council member campbell cohen is there a motion motion council member struber is there a second second council member di lorenzo discussion on the resolution All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Resolution 88 is adopted unanimously, 7-0.

Resolution 89, resolution appointing Commissioner of Deeds for the City of Troy, Council President Steele.

Is there a motion? Motion.

Council Member Spain-McClaren? Second. Seconded by Council Member McKee. Discussion on the resolution? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Resolution 89 adopted 7-0. Resolution 90, a resolution commemorating the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks and honoring those who were lost, those who responded, and those who continue to bear the cost. Council Member McKee, Council President Steele, Council Member DiLorenzo, Council Member Spain-McClaren. Is there a motion?

Motion.

council member favreau with a second by second council member discussion on the resolution all in favor aye opposed resolution 90 adopted unanimously resolution 91 resolution designating september 25th 2026 as dolly parton day in the city of troy new york council member spain mclaren council member di lorenzo council member struber council member mckee council member favreau council member campbell cohen i so move forward is there a second second council member spade mclaren all in favor aye opposed

Resolution 91 is adopted unanimously.

I would entertain a motion to adjourn the special finance meeting. Motion. Council Member Spain-McClaren, second. Council Member Favreau, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned and we'll continue right on to our regular meeting. We've pledged, we've called a roll, we'll now have a public forum on the one local law and the ordinances that are on the agenda and the rear of the chambers. Is there anyone who wishes to speak on any agenda item?

Good evening, council members. My name is Frankie and I'm a resident of Troy. I once again want to express my full support for local law number four for all the reasons I previously stated at the public hearings. It's well-crafted legislation that aligns Troy with New York state law and simultaneously solves the problem of administrative misuse of emergency declarations. I look forward to seeing it passed. I'm also pleased to know that this law will finally put an end to the inexplicable ongoing state of emergency that was declared by Troy's mayor back in April. It's been very strange to live in a city that's supposedly in the throes of a 24-7 public safety emergency that has no plausible justification and cannot be seen, heard, or felt by the public. It's also been concerning that a public safety emergency can last for months and never be fully explained or addressed. Thankfully, local law number four will be bringing this mysterious emergency and the potential for any future fabricated emergencies to an end. I really appreciate you getting that done for us. It's been an embarrassing episode for Troy. Thank you, Frankie.

Does anyone else wish to address the council on any agenda items? Please come forward. Say your name and place of residence.

Hi, my name is Tyrell Pryor. I reside in Mechanicville, New York. Just want to let everyone know that I feel that the mayor is doing an excellent job and the city of Troy is flourishing from my perspective. That's all.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Did you say his name?

Am I wrong?

mechanic though correct does anyone else wish to speak on any agenda item seeing seeing none i'm sorry the whole agenda the whole agenda

good evening council my name is jerry ford i am a resident of troy i want to say first and foremost um thank you for all you serving and everything that you guys do i appreciate the hard work that you put in um i want to speak today on resolution number 84 honoring the street declaration of kevin prior way um yeah you could do that you can do that um I moved to Troy maybe about 24 years ago. And I got started in community work shortly thereafter. And that was my first interaction with, I call him as KP. And ever since then, KP has been doing his best to make the city of Troy better for each and every single resident. So I just want to say that it is an honor and a privilege to be here to support my brother today. And I thank you all for recognizing him.

Thank you, Jerry.

Good evening, Council. Of course, my name is Reverend Victor Patterson. I live in Lansenburg. I also want to stand up behind Jerry Ford and thank you for the Resolution 84 in naming and designating Kevin Friar Way. I've only been here for about three years, but I can tell you, I felt the impact of what he has done and what he is means to this community. And so I also would ask that each and every one of you as a council sitting council member to also endorse this. I see only a couple of names behind it, but I believe that everyone on this table should be able to say, I want to support him in this way as well, because he has done so much for this community. Thank you.

Thank you.

does anyone else wish to address the council on any agenda item seeing none we'll move forward we're going to be changing up our agenda a little bit tonight given the fact that we have a special designation to do we will be moving up resolution 84 before our local law so

resolution 84 resolution 84 resolution honorary street designation of kevin prior way council president steele council member spain mclaren council member struber council member mckee at the request of the administration was there a motion motion council member favreau is there a second second council member campbell campbell cohen excuse me swedish fish moment um

Is there any discussion on the resolution? Council President? Council Member Spain-McClaren.

So I have lived in Troy my whole life and always heard about Kevin Pryor, didn't know him very well as a kid. But I can remember my brother telling the story of playing hoop underneath the bridge downtown. And on Sunday mornings, Kevin would come late, but he'd come running with his church clothes on and real quick changed into his sneakers to join the games. So I grew up in a basketball family. I raised two boys who were basketball fanatics and players. So basketball and Troy and Kevin Pryor are kind of one in the same, if you're from Troy. I've also gotten to know Kevin, though, more recently through Troy Look. I teach at school too, and I run their after school program. So I come into contact with a lot of the kids who do the KP program after hours in the evenings. I know a very large majority of the kids in my after school program are only there because if they went home after school, they wouldn't have a way back to KP's program. So they're really only there because they're just waiting for KP's program to start. But I do know that he and I have connected a lot on, you know, on certain kids and how can we lift them up? You know, certain families that I think of, like our boys who did the Pledge of Allegiance last year at the mayor's State of the City. um who sadly moved out of troy so i don't get to keep tabs on them anymore but um a lot of a lot of troy families um that we both know um through our work um are you know they're better off because of kp's work uh so i'm i'm really happy to um that we're doing this and to co-sponsor the resolution council president thank you council member d lorenzo

Yeah, I just want to thank Kevin for all the work he's done in Lansingburg. You know, I've known Kevin for a little while now, going back to my time before on the council, but he's at every event. He's always putting in his best effort. He knows everybody. And I just wanted to share a quick story. A couple of weeks ago, I was setting up my pop-up tent at the Nick Night Out, struggling. And Kevin, I was by myself and... is this tent was collapsing on me and kevin came over and helped me get it sorted out and i think that's a perfect microcosm of what kevin is so i'm happy to uh vote yes on this resolution i think we all share those sentiments uh but anyone else want to add okay then all in favor aye opposed

seven nine zero knows the resolution it is adopted unanimously i would invite the council and the mayor and kevin and family to join us

Give us a hug. yeah. yeah.

A couple of things that we want to say to Kevin and then to the council president. Myself and the deputy mayor are going to present Kevin with a proclamation. a couple quick things um kevin and i have known each other my gosh for uh close to 40 years kevin was friends with my dad and kevin's uncle ran in auto body shop mechanic shop and my dad would frequent there when he was a troy cop detective and it was a part of his beat And I got to know Kevin as a kid. But saying that, ever since I've known Kevin, he literally has dedicated every hour, every waking hour to his family and friends, but the youth here in the city of Torrey. I have not met anyone that loves the kids here in troy um more than kevin and jerry and uh honestly what kevin does on his off time not just for youth but finding people's shelter um kevin will literally if he hears that a girl might not have a prom dress for the prom will literally go out there and use his own money or find a prom dress um just the other day i was at a tha event with kevin and it was torrential pouring this is just the type of person kevin is alex's nice shoes and socks and all of us we were in mud and we were drenched we came back to work what do you think kevin did he went home grabbed a pair of shoes and socks for alex i mean why i say this he literally would give you the shirt off of his back he literally or shoes or shoes exactly thank you council president um He's the most humble, pay it forward, you know, puts everyone, everyone, and especially our youth before himself. Kevin, one of my first appointments next to Seamus, next to Jomez and Kitty, Kevin literally was one of my first appointments. And over the past two and a half years with Roy and Andre in the county, We have worked together to put over 250 kids to work here in Troy. That would not have happened without us as a team and Kevin and the county. Secondly, the rise money that you see and the governor just announced another two mil for the city of Troy. Funding our nonprofits funding our youth that happened because of my appointment of Kevin prior the deputy commissioner called me after I appointed Kevin and we were asked to come to the commissioner's office. we spent two hours in the commissioner's office talking about joy talking about youth and kevin and i literally were able to get rise money two million a year for the next three years because of that work so i i could go on and on and on um i learned firsthand the bullying program the anti-bullying program um the the boot camp that kevin runs you know council members faye mclaren said it best those kids admire kevin they look up to kevin he is a role model and we are so fortunate to have kevin pryor here in the city up to reich And just one other quick thing. Come on, brother. We got a lot to say about you. And despite being the brother of Gene Pryor, he has still made his way. I'm kidding. Literally, Kevin is buying pizzas. Think about Karen Bobo when Troy Look first started out. They had no money and they were literally taking money out of their pocket to buy 24 cuts from Jimmy's Pizza. But wait, you want to hear this? I saw it firsthand. These kids, sometimes this was their only meal. they literally would slice the 24 cuts into 48 cuts because these kids would pocket some of that pizza and take it home to their brothers and sisters that's what kevin did and now we're we're getting better if you notice our food deserts we have food pantries all over the city we have 40 something non-profits who are working day in day out Jerry Ford, Team Hero, Troy Luke, all of you, together, we are turning Troy around. And Kevin Pryor, you are a huge part of that. So real quick, and I know Shane wants to say a couple of words, and so does potentially the council president, but we're going to read this. And one of the things we started doing, if you notice, the street designations, a lot of times they were designated after people pass. Kevin and I talked about it right after I took office and you know Kevin and I both said you know what these folks need to know that they're important and that we want to honor them but we want them to know how much they mean to our community while they're alive so Kevin Pryor you're alive thank god all right yeah and and i did hear kevin used to dunk i don't think he can dunk anymore okay katie i don't think he don't say more all right whereas kevin john pryor kp was born on february 20th 1966 in troy new york and is the middle child of seven seven siblings eight if you include gene twice and whereas kevin yeah hurt his boo her boo okay whereas kevin experienced the tragic loss of his dad on february 18 1976 just two days before his 10th birthday an experience that profoundly shaped his character and instilled in him a deep sense of responsibility compassion and perseverance and whereas Kevin found solace in basketball following the loss of his father, developing a lifelong passion for the sport that would ultimately become an important avenue through which he connected with and served his community. And whereas Kevin Pryor has devoted more than four, folks, four decades to community involvement, leadership, volunteerism, and service to the residents of Troy, And whereas from an early age, Kevin demonstrated exceptional leadership and organizational abilities, bringing people together through community events and activities and developing a commitment to creating a stronger, more connected community. And whereas Kevin attended Troy High School and later continued his education at Schenectady County, Community College earning his GED and studying in the field of human services, experiences that further strengthen his commitment to social justice, equality, and service to others. and whereas at just 17 years of age kevin began community activities including summer basketball leagues family fun days movie nights and block parties creating opportunities for children families and residents from diverse backgrounds to come together and whereas Kevin's committed, through Troy Look, Kevin has recruited more than 100 local adults and children to serve as coaches, chaperones, and volunteers to community activities, helping to provide positive opportunities and safe spaces for Troy's youth and families. And whereas Kevin has played a significant role in organizing and supporting youth and family programs throughout the city of Detroit, helping foster a greater sense of belonging, inclusion, opportunity, and community pride. And whereas Kevin is, geez, Kev, you are important. And whereas Kevin currently serves as the first director of diversity, opportunity, and outreach, in the office of the mayor of the city of troy where he works tirelessly to strengthen communication and relationships among local businesses government agencies young people families and residents throughout the community and whereas through his approachable manner that better not be you, friendly demeanor, humility, come on, Jean, compassion, and exceptional problem-solving skills, Kevin has earned the respect and admiration of countless residents, community leaders, young people, and families throughout the city of Troy. And whereas Kevin's life's work has been guided by a steadfast commitment to service, inclusivity, faith, perseverance, and the belief that every child and family deserves the opportunity to live in a safe, hopeful, and supportive community. And whereas the City of Troy recognizes that Kevin Pryor's more than 40 years of service have left an enduring and positive impact on generations of Torrey residents and have helped strengthen the social fabric of our community has proudly called home. And whereas it is fitting and appropriate that the city of Torrey honor Kevin Pryor's extraordinary record of community service and dedication by designating an honorary street sign in his name. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Troy City Council this evening pass the resolution and we all hereby recognize and honor Kevin John Pryor for more than four decades of outstanding community leadership service, advocacy, and commitment to the youth and families of Troy, and be it further resolved that I, as the mayor of the city, hereby designate the corner of 7th Ave and Ingalls Ave as Kevin Pryor Way. in recognition of Kevin's lifelong dedication to bringing people together, creating opportunities for youth, supporting families, promoting inclusion, and making the city of Troy a stronger and more connected community. Let's give it up to Kevin Pryor-Way. I'm gonna give it up to the deputy mayor, and then I know, I think the council president, and I know your granddaughter wants to speak.

Thank you, Mayor. So, Kev, I mean, first off, I love you, my guy. Listen, me and Kev have a lot in common. Troy boys, born and raised, losing fathers at a young age. That's something that has a lifelong impact on you. It affects how you go about your life. And you can kind of choose what path to go down to. Do you turn that bad life experience up on its head and do better for your family, for your friends, and for your community, or do you go another way? Kevin clearly went down the right path, caring, strong. You know, look, here in Troy, these are the things that we value the most, especially a lot of us born and raised here. We care about our families. We care about our city. We care about our friends. And I know when I say this, especially about my friend Kevin Pryor, we care about God, that I know that's somebody that has driven you to the exact point that you're at. And I have to say, working with you every day and, you know, when my phone goes off and I look at Kevin Pryor, I'm just like, oh boy, let's hear what this is. Let's hear what this is. And it's always something coming from a deep place of care and conviction. And another thing, there's a lot of great people here today, a lot of folks doing a lot of good things in the community. And we see you, we celebrate you, and the things that you're doing is tremendous. The fact that a half of piece of pizza is a is a the only meal that a child in our community will get in a day is sad and that's something that we're going to continue to to make inroads on and to better and you know kevin again what i have to tell you is that you're you don't only care you don't only try but you're achieving there there's nothing more refreshing for me uh sometimes especially doing this job that there's a lot of things going on stopping down at Pompey Park when basketball's, but now I was a football guy, you know, I don't not jump in. All right. So, you know, but so, but coming down there and seeing the impact that you have on these kids, not only are you helping them find a safe space, not only are you teaching them to take care of their parks and their neighborhood, that that's their neighborhood, you care in the whole group. They're respectful. You're carrying on that. You're giving that legacy to those children so they do even better than we could ever do. And that's an invaluable thing that you do. And I'm so proud to work with you. I'm so proud to call you a dear friend of mine. And I can't wait to just see. Keep fighting the fight as we move on and on. So I love you. You deserve this. And like the mayor said, unfortunately, we wait for folks to go to stop and think of what we missed. and uh you know the fact that you're here and that you can celebrate this with everybody that's very purposeful and frankly you for dealing with gene you deserved a street a long time ago but god bless you my man

We love you, Kev. And two quick things that are in the works, the diversion program, which Kevin has literally spearheaded with Assistant Chief Mason and Kyle, the sheriff, and Mike down in the sheriff's office. So stay tuned with that. And probation, also a part of that. And then the reentry program. Kevin, the list goes on and on, but we love you so, so much. September 18th, 3 o'clock, Gene will be barbecuing. We will officially hang the sign for Kevin. Council President.

Thank you so much, Mayor. It's a tough act to follow. The Mayor has said just about everything that I could possibly. No, we believe every word of that. And it was the Council's honor tonight to unanimously adopt the resolution to name this way in your honor. The work you have done is outstanding and it is amazing the children you have touched and and this sign on that street is going to touch many many more in the future and they're going to say Kevin Pryor, who is he? And there's going to be someone who will remember who Kevin Pryor, and they will tell the story and that will mean something. And that will touch a life in the future. So thank you for all you've done and all you are continuing to do. This will be a way to pay it forward.

Okay.

since i am the child of greatness and the grandchild of greatness i feel the need to say this i love you grandpa i love my family i love my friends and when i mean my friends i mean all of you because you are all my community and i just want you guys to remember that no matter the skin color the the religion uh the beliefs or where you're from you're where you come from

make sure to love each other because remember we all believe the same same color red and that's my grandpa now let's hear it from kevin pryor come on kev i'm gonna i'm just gonna sing i'm just gonna sing a song i'm just grateful i just want to say thank you very much um

That's why I knew you wanted to.

Well, this has just come from great leadership. Sometimes when people plant seeds, we don't understand what they are until we get older and we go through things. So I'm just grateful to be able to give back from the people that taught me to the people that we're working with now. With all these organization groups and my friends here, I just appreciate you guys. And we just continue working together. Thank you. I love you, Mayor. Love you, Shane.

Would anyone else just like to say a couple of words?

Brother, I just want to say how proud I am of you. You are an inspiration. You better shut up. You've been an ace to me, backbone to our family. I'm very, very grateful. I just love you. Love you. Love you.

Kevin? KP? Nah. He laughs when I call him Kevin. I've known you for about 32 years. You was older than me, showed me how to play basketball really. I used to watch you. Then when I decided I wanted to run the program, He said, I'm not going to run it for you. I'll help you run it. I'll teach you how to do it. He taught me. We got a successful program for eight years. I mean, he never left my side. I got sick. I was in the hospital for eight months. He was there every day. I can remember one time I didn't go outside all day. So I'm like, nobody ain't come to see me today. I called Kevin. He was playing basketball. I said, I want to go outside. He stopped playing basketball, came over to Albany Met, took me outside for 10 minutes. And let me go back in because I didn't want to stay outside no longer. But he did it. He was always there no matter when I asked, no matter what time I called. I called 2 o'clock in the morning and said I felt sick. He said, you want to bring me some tea? I mean, he was always there. I get married in a couple weeks. He's my best man. So I'm proud of you, man. I'm just happy for all you're getting. I'm glad you're getting your flowers now. You've been doing this for a probably longer than i was born almost but i'm only 32 now but you've been doing this so long man and we just appreciate you as a community that you're here and you're working with our community mr uh prior just met him a few days ago i said i feel like i knew him for a lifetime

now he's such an inspiration to me and everything i do even goes down to my daughter uh the human services path i follow because of him he's introduced me to that and my brother and my sister you know we all choose our own paths in a way but we all come back to some part of the human services and now with me what i'm doing My daughter follows behind me, and it makes me feel a sense of pride that he must feel seeing that the mission is continued. And you never faltered. It's always just been consistent, like always. So thank you for making me feel feel at home in my own city. And thank you for creating so many siblings for me in the city too, as far as. No, but realistically, Other people I grew up with, it's not friendships, it's siblings. But yeah, we all look out for each other. We all say I love you to each other. And that's kind of hard in these times right now, like the distance between individuals. You created something in me that was going to be a reinforcement for the times that come that we didn't even know was going to come. So I appreciate you for that. And everything you continue to do, just know we got you. We're going to continue on. Thank you.

You're okay, it's fine.

Well, hi, my name is Karen and I am Kevin's sister, cousin, kind of, you know, because I'm a little bit older than him, like a year, I think. But, you know, I mean, look, look, though, it don't crack, right? It don't crack. But anyway, I just want to say, Kevin, I am so proud of you. We are also proud of you. And, you know, we have grown up together from here. And I remember somebody mentioned, you know, when your father passed away. When your father passed away, you were at our house. You were at our house with, you know, your siblings and my siblings and everything. And we were one family. We were brothers and sisters then. We were brothers and sisters. And we still are. We still are. But what I want to say is, and I especially want to say this to you, and I want to say it in front of the whole world. My mother and my father died. and my brother who passed away a few months ago, they are so proud of you, Kevin. You know, my father, everybody called him horse. Everybody called him horse, Uncle Horse, Uncle Horse, you know. But he looked up to my dad and he spent a lot of time with my dad and he got a lot of knowledge from my dad. But you know, your Uncle Horse is so proud of you. And your Aunt Claudia, she is clapping in heaven, honey. She is clapping in heaven. And James is probably saying something I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even know. But again, I just want to say, cheers to you cheers to you and you have made a difference in so many kids lives and you have made a difference in this city and it will last kevin forever forever thank you i love you listen one more thing this is my man kevin we've been friends for we talked the other day for 40 years i know he's a product of troy but let me tell you i'm from albany

me and his brother have been rocking for 40 years anything i need in albany i call him up anything he needs he calls me up so when people ask me who i am i tell them i'm the kp of albany i love it i love it come on over let's grab a picture come on now by right out alex so yeah

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

There we go. Great. Oh, wait, hold on.

We're coming, y'all, safety. Go for it now. Everyone, we're going to look straight at me on the count of three.

Ready? One, two, three. Keep holding, smile, straight forward.

Keep smiling. Very good. All right. Oh, yeah. Growth Team, Growth Team, Growth Team, Growth Team, yeah yeah

Thank you, everyone. That was a great moment or two. And I want to thank you to everyone who came to honor KP. We're going to move on with our agenda at this time. As we get our room back together, thank you everyone. Okay, under local laws, we have local law number four.

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

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member Spain-McClaren. Second. Council Member McKee.

Discussion on the local law.

Council President. Council Member Spain-McClaren.

I just wanted to say thank you to Council Member Struber for doing the heavy lifting on this. I know there were a lot of hours involved, a lot of research, and, you know, it doesn't go unnoticed. So thank you.

Yeah, I would like to echo definitely a lot of work in a very much needed topic. We've heard that the mayor is going to be vetoing it. Supposedly, she disagrees with it. We haven't heard from the mayor to indicate what she disagrees about, and we would have been happy to sit down at the table and work that out. But I think the important thing is that Councilmember Struber took the state law and mirrored it in the language of our local wording so that our local emergencies align with what was intended by the state law. They were not intended to be whenever one branch of government disagrees with another branch of government. um as we saw earlier this year uh i'm so so grateful to council member struber for for putting this together and for making our the language much more transparent and making emergencies in the city of troy going forward accountable It's a definite step in the right direction for good government. And again, I echo thanks to you. Any other comments? All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The local law passes. moving on to ordinances ordinance 35 ordinance 35 an ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member mckee second second council member di lorenzo discussion on the ordinance all in favor aye opposed seven eyes zero knows the ordinance passes

ordinance 37 ordinance 37 an ordinance amending the 2026 Capital Fund budget Council President Steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion Council member struver second second Council member Spain McLaren discussion on the ordinance all in favor aye opposed

Seven ayes, zero noes. The ordinance passes.

Ordinance 38.

Ordinance 38, an ordinance amending the 2026 Capital Fund Budget, Council President Steele, Council Member DiLorenzo, at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Motion.

Council Member Favreau, seconded by? Second. Council Member McKee. Discussion on the ordinance. Council President. Council Member DeLaurence.

Just for the public, so everyone knows what this one is. This is an ordinance that's moving $6.5 million into a construction account for the Lansingburg Firehouse. I just want to thank the mayor and the previous council for moving this project along. And I'm excited for the development of the firehouse and also the future development that will be happening in Byrd because of it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

7 ayes, 0 noes. The ordinance passes.

Ordinance 39.

Ordinance 39, an ordinance amending the 2026 capital fund budget. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion? Motion. Council Member DiLorenzo with a second. Second. By Council Member Struver. Discussion? Discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero nos. The ordinance passes. Ordinance 40. Ordinance 40, an ordinance amending the 2026 Miscellaneous Special Revenue Fund budget 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 McKee? Second. Seconded by Council Member Spain-McClaren. Discussion?

in favor aye opposed seven i zero knows the ordinance passes ordinance 42 ordinance 42 an ordinance amending the 2026 general fund budget council president steele at the request of the administration is there a motion motion council member de lorenzo with a second by council member spain mclaren discussion council member campbell cohen is somebody from the administration available to speak on this

Yes, sir.

If microphone on.

Hello.

Welcome. So there's three things happening here. And I'm hoping to just walk through what what is prompting these changes? We've got the overtime for the central garage, the overtime for DPW street maintenance, and shaven off about $83,000 for utility streetlights. I'm hoping to get walked through what's prompting the need for this substantial increase to overtime and why we don't need it for streetlights.

That's a pretty joke.

The utility line is to pay national grid every year. However, we have over a 1M dollar in credits. So all those monies are being allocated to each of our accounts for. So that's how we have salaries. That's why we have savings in that account past years. We've had to do a transfer in the street maintenance line, such as the 4 a.m. run holidays. Gilded age was a big part of that. the one that we usually do not do a transfer for is a central garage but uh the supervisor there has been helping out with dpu uh so whenever he's a call for dpu alcohol whether we're having machineries there's no other mechanic to go out there so he's taking that and with our sanitation trucks around on the holidays if those trucks break down he's getting called more and more on those days as well and when that's happening

in the instance that you just gave of the DPU is that getting billed to DPU so that because they're in separate funds it should be I can double check for you okay that's my assumption why it's so high okay so I can get back to you on that Okay. And so for what remains of the streetlights, the 217,500, that cannot be touched by the national credits, right?

For the next two to three years, it's about $25,000 a month to pay for our streetlights, and we haven't paid a dime yet this year.

Okay. But we are anticipating needing the rest of this.

I anticipate this as savings for the rest of the year.

You, the entire line.

Yes.

Is this maybe what you were alluding to earlier today as a line that we might be able to pull from?

No, because that's the CL line. So I can't, I can't, this is a general fund. I can't do a transfer in general onto the CL line. I might be able to do something else.

Okay. But do you think that's going to be reflected in the budget proposal that's put before us?

I can explain that to you.

Okay.

Yes.

Perfect. Thank you.

You're welcome. Joe, while you're up and we're talking about streetlights, we had a gentleman come before us who was very concerned about streetlights on Hoosick Street. Can you speak to us about the situation there and what can we be doing to rectify that?

So the very next day, he actually did get that streetlight up. We work with two great contractors, DLC and executive. They also work with other municipalities. It can be timely, but we try to rush as much as possible. That was actually the second time his poll has been hit within this year, so I understand his frustration when a poll is hit we try to do our best to get it up but when the base is broken and we are out of basis we have to order basis so it takes some time to maintain these street lights are all the street lights on and on whozik at this point in time there's probably three that are not installed at the moment but I do I may have those polls to repurpose them to put on whozik Street okay thank you you're welcome Council President Council Members Bay McClaren

while we're on the subject, if I may, the same gentleman made a suggestion, and I've had someone else make a suggestion to me, and I don't know if it's a possibility or if it's been looked at, but before those sidewalks are all, because I believe they're right now still the stone, they haven't been redone yet by grid. Is it possible to put a conduit there so that in the event that the whole base gets knocked out again it could be put on the other side of the sidewalk

So the conduit probably is the same conduit going all the way down from 9th Street to South Lake. So I don't know.

They all have to be redone. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Once conduit's on the ground, it makes it extremely difficult. Once it's up above, it makes things much easier. But when the conduit's on the ground, that digging has to happen. That's when things get much confusing because you have to find them.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, the last couple of years, we've averaged about four to five hundred streetlights out. And currently this year we are under one hundred. So we are making some very high progress. The portal that was nonstop last year of people complaining or people requesting that has since quiet down the last couple of months. So things are moving along. It was. It was just getting everybody on the same page of what the city is looking for. And I think everybody's playing ball.

Okay. I appreciate, I know that one, that one in front of his house and the one down in front of, uh, what used to be Rite Aid. Yeah. Yeah.

And the truck drivers. And honestly, we try to go after the insurance, but it's most likely a hit and run and there's nothing we can do. So those poles, those bases, the Cobra heads and the lights, they're close to $17,000 to replace.

So thank you.

Yep.

any other questions um I had a question it looks the can you explain the addition in to the mayor's office please that's the next resolution that's the next resolution oh sorry about that we'll save that question for next time okay very good with me we're good with you okay thank you Okay, no other questions all in favor. Aye. Aye.

Opposed?

7 ayes, 0 noes. The ordinance passes.

Ordinance 42. No? 44.

44. Well, that's what I thought.

That's why I thought I was asking the right question. Okay. Ordinance 44.

Ordinance 44, an ordinance amending the general fund, garbage fund, water fund, and sewer fund budgets. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Okay.

Do I have a motion? Motion. Council Member Favreau, second. Second. Council Member McClaren. Discussion? Council President. Council Member Favreau.

Is there anybody from the administration that could answer a finance question? Looking at the first line for the mayor's department, permanent salaries, looks like there's a $79,000 increase from $375,000 to $454,000. Can we explain that?

So the non-rep policy was approved with the council after the budget was already approved and there were salary increases in the non-rep policy. And there's also an additional position that's in that office that was also approved through the non-rep policy.

And what is that additional position?

It is private secretary to the deputy mayor.

And when has that position been filled?

It's filled. Yes.

Okay. And when did they start?

Um, I don't know the exact date off the top of my head, but it was in January. Okay.

I think I'm good for now.

Council president council member Campbell Cohen.

If a new position was added, why are we hearing about it in September?

Because just like every other contract that we usually settle, we don't do the salary transfer until we look at this. We do this transfer and we see if there's any salary savings or anything in other departments or in that department that can be used to fill that can fund the position.

But if this isn't going to happen, but in the event that the council did not approve this transfer, what would then happen in that budget line? well if you approved the non-rep policy that had that salary in there i think that was enough for us to move forward okay i'm gonna ask that going forward we got some of these transfers a little bit sooner so that we have a better idea of what is actually happening in the city's budget and not consolidating all of this into a September transfer because these are pretty substantial and I understand that every year every year we have to do this but in prior years there was a lot more of this happening there was there were regular budget transfers happening to reflect changes to the budget there's nothing wrong with having to amend the budget but it should be happening in real time in so far as as it's possible and a position that you hire in January is not a surprise in September in the same way that some other lines can be um I'm curious what is going on in um traffic with the permanent salaries uh what accounts for that thirty two thousand five hundred dollar decrease

Well, I know there are a couple of vacancies in the traffic department. There was a retirement at some point. So when we do the budget, we budget what we know at the time that we're doing the budget. And then we don't know what's going to happen, like if anyone's going to leave or if they're retiring. And usually if it's a retirement, they're at the highest step of the salary schedule. And then when we hire somebody new, they come in at the lowest step.

so that's where you see salary savings which is why we kind of wait until we know what's going on in the department to do a transfer so this is for for the ones like this where it's 32 500 that's swapping personnel within the same position and just what happens within that salary band

Can you repeat that? I don't know.

I guess what I'm asking is, is there a position here that's vacant that's accounting for this, or is it that the same position has been filled by someone new at a much lower starting salary?

I don't know the exact situation for there, but I do know there's vacancies in there, and I know there was a retirement. I don't know if that position was backfilled yet.

Okay. I guess the... obviously it's pretty similar across budget transfers um uh the the other thing I was curious about I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it but um the increases to the telephone utilities that appears in a couple different funds was there a surprise there about what those would look like

So when I was preparing this transfer, I was looking at what was expended up through it. I think it was August when I printed the report. I don't know the specifics of the departments on like their telephone bills, but it looked like they were going to they were either over. What line are you looking at specifically?

There's one in the water funds. I don't know that I need to. It's it's on the last page of the report. addendums the administration line so I was just funding the account so we didn't go over budget right I guess what I'm what I'm curious about is is there a surprise to the utilities contracts that that would require that I I don't have the answer to that okay the department probably would have it I could get back to you on that yeah all right okay that's it for my questions thank you

Council President.

Council Member Favre.

And similarly, in the planning department, it looks like we're reducing a salary or there's some savings there for a total of $75,000. Was that an elimination of a position or?

In the planning department. It probably is the commissioner. Yeah. The vacant commissioner that was funded in the budget. So it's like a combination of all the positions that are in there. And I'm looking at what we are currently spending to date and how many payrolls are remaining and whether or not, you know, and I am also not taking money. Like if we fill the position, but I'm just looking at kind of like a snapshot of where we're at and where we anticipate to be at the end of the year. yeah and funding the positions or if they're salary savings i can take some of that salary to move within the same fund so we break it out in our budget and we individualize the positions which i don't think a lot of places do so it's like it's salaries in 101 for the general fund is kind of like one bucket we're just moving it from one line to another so we're not anticipating on filling that for the remainder of the year so you're using that those funds no i didn't say that no i don't know if they will so i wouldn't have taken that just up to date i would have if whatever savings through i think it was august 12th that i printed the report and then looking forward assuming that we would fill it i know you know then i would take whatever was available from the savings to date, not moving forward. Right.

And so we're essentially using these savings year to date to help the buckets that we are overspending or anticipating on reaching the max. Is that something that you're keeping track of as we move into budget season, the accounts that were under budgeted for and where we'll need to like refill in those budget lines?

Yeah, so part of doing the budgeting is we do look at the trend of the account and see in the past few years, how much have we spent? Do we need to increase that account? Do we need to decrease that account? Yeah, that's all considered, yes. Okay.

Council President, thank you. Council Member DiLorenzo.

So yeah, and that's on that same vein, looking in the water fund here on the contingency line, the original budget was $0 and we put $66,595 in there or we're putting that much in there. Can you explain what that is for or is that simply just for contingencies that have not come up yet?

It was just an amount that was over what we needed for any other line. So we put it in the contingency. Doesn't mean that we're not going to need it for something for the remainder of the year. But if we do, it's in the contingency account.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Seven ayes, zero noes. The ordinance passes. Moving on to resolutions. Resolution 82. Resolution 82, a resolution determining that proposed action is a type 2 action for purposes of the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. Council President Steele at the request of the administration.

Is there a motion?

Motion.

Council Member Faye McLaren, second. Second. Council Member McKee. Discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

resolution 83. resolution 83 a 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 Favreau with a second by Council Member struber discussion

All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? 7 ayes, 0 noes. The resolution passes.

We've already passed 84. Moving on to 86.

Resolution 86, a resolution declaring the Troy City Council's intention to act as lead agency under the State Environmental Quality Review Act for review of a proposed action amending Chapter 285 of the Troy City Code to add provisions regulating battery energy storage systems. Council President Steele?

is there a motion motion council member struber with a second by council member spain mclaren discussion all in favor aye opposed seven eyes zero knows the resolution passes resolution 88.

Resolution 88, a resolution condemning the Russian Federation's military and political actions in Ukraine, and especially their impact on Ukrainian children. Council President Steele, Council Member Spain McLaren, Council Member Favreau, Council Member Campbell Cohen. Is there a motion?

Motion. Council Member Struver? With a second by Council Member McKee. Discussion? All in favor?

i opposed seven eyes zero knows the resolution passes resolution 89 resolution 89 a resolution appointing commissioner of deeds for the city of troy council president steele is there a motion motion

Council Member Favreau, second. Second. Council Member Spain-McLaren, discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? 7 ayes, 0 noes. The resolution passes. Resolution 90. Resolution 90, a resolution commemorating the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks and honoring those who were lost, those who responded, and those who continue to bear in cost. Council Member McKee, Council President Steele, Council Member DiLorenzo, Council Member Spain-McLaren.

is there a motion motion council member Favreau second second council member McKee discussion council president council member Spain McLaren um I feel like the 25th anniversary is a very um somber one because I feel like we I want the world of September 12th back. September 12th, 2001, when America came together and showed true American spirit and unity. And we reached across aisles, political affiliations didn't seem to matter. I want that back. And I think for a while we had it and I feel like we've strayed so far from it. I'd like to see it back again. That's all.

Thank you. Anyone else? All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Seven ayes, zero nos. The resolution passes.

Resolution 91.

Resolution 91, a resolution designating September 25th, 2026 as Dolly Parton Day in the city of Troy, New York. Council Member Spain McLaren, Council Member DeLorenzo, Council Member Struber, Council Member McKee, Council Member Favreau, Council Member Campbell-Cohen. I would move it forward.

Is there a second?

Second.

Council Member Favreau seconds. Oh, discussion. Sorry. Sorry about that. Council member Favreau.

Seems a little disconnected because Dolly Parton really had no connections, had zero connections that I'm aware of here in Troy. But as somebody who has worked the last nine years in the library system it would be remiss to leave out that despite she has no direct connection here to troy she has impacted the children here in troy and that is through her legacy of the imagination library i know my children have had it i know plenty of other children so if you have any kids in troy You can sign up and receive free books from the ages zero to five. And early literacy was really important to her. It's really important to me. So I'm proud to co-sponsor this resolution.

Thank you.

Council President.

Council Member DeLorenzo.

Council Member Spain-McLaren, you wrote this one up? Thank you very much. I just wanted to echo what Council Member Favreau says about the early childhood reading. Obviously, extremely important and you know, what a great program by Dolly Parton. But one of my favorite things about it is I have a three-year-old daughter and almost every night, you know, we read a book. Many of them are from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. And not only is it giving her a creative mind, not only is it just reading, but it's family time. And so Dolly Parton's legacy is not just about early childhood reading, but it brings families together. And I think that's one of the best legacies that you could ever have. So thank you.

definitely thank you council member Campbell Cohen um some deep Greg lore that most people probably are not aware of is uh I spent a very long time down in East Tennessee um where Dolly Barn is from um and in about a decade ago now there were a series of natural disasters and wildfires that completely devastated uh that portion of the country and it was already a part of the country that a lot of america had forgotten about and sort of left behind and dolly parton came in and brought in tens of millions of dollars to repair east tennessee and has invested an enormous amount of money time and resources into Taking care of her home. One of the things that I find very moving about Dolly Parton is she brought a lot of generosity to her work and her works as well. And she did it without sneering or contempt and saw everyone in need as a peer. I was... um very sad to hear that she passed and um very grateful and very grateful to Council member McLaren Spain McLaren for bringing this resolution forward thank you thank you all in favor aye opposed seven eyes zero knows the resolution passes

that concludes our agenda at this point in time we have a public forum on any topic if anyone wishes to address the council i would ask that you please come forward and give your name and place of residence

Hello everyone. My name is Mark Devette. I am a resident of Troy. So I had communication with the city of Troy's communication director and per FOIL request has had no communication with media record for the first six months of 2025. When the mayor hired Alex Horton in January of 2025, she issued a press release defining his job as public relations, media outreach, digital content, and community engagement. The mayor described him as someone who has a strong commitment to transparent and effective communication. In my FOIL request, I asked for all text messages and electronic communications between Horton and any representative of CBS 6, WTN, WAMC, or Spectrum News from January 1st to July 16th of that year. And any city issued or personal device used for the city business. That request was denied within hours of being filed. The response was a diligent search of the city records returns no relative results to your request, no name, no title. A communication directors with no communications with the media is either not doing his job or hiding what he knows. I appealed. Acting Corporation Counsel Richard Morrissey denied the appeal. His decision describes exactly how the search was conducted and I'm quoting directly. All he had to do was look at his phone or other device to determine if there were any records responsive to your request. It appears that he did so promptly and found none. Diligence requires nothing further. Horton searched his own devices. He reported the results to Corporation Counsel. Corporation Counsel accepted it without an independent review. Then Corporation decided to deny my appeal. So there's two explanations that fit the record. He is not communicating with the media, which means he's not doing his job, or he does not want the counsel to know who he's speaking to and what the nature of those discussions are. I invite the counsel to ask those questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Hello. There you go. My name is Greg Lyons there. I live over 14 2nd Street. So I didn't think I was talk tonight, but then, uh, the puppies came up. So we're gonna have to talk about the puppies here, right? So we should take care of the puppies, right? That's what we should do. I say that, but it's, it's kind of a little surprising to me because there's something that's very highly correlated with pet abandonment. And if you take the graphs for this area and overlay them with each other, they kind of go up in unison. You want to take a guess at what that might be? Evictions, housing instability, right? So here's another question for you. What county in the state of New York, including the city, right, the city, has the number one rate of evictions? Rensselaer, the county that we are in, right? In five years, how much does rent increase on average for a two bedroom room, not a house, a two bedroom apartment for the Albany, Schenectady and Troy area? On average, it's 41%. When's the last time you got a 41% raise? Anybody? And Troy is now number two in homelessness year over year, right? So, I mean, we should take care of the puppies, but it seems obvious to me if we take care of the people, the puppies will follow. So I encourage you to remember that. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg.

Good evening. My name is Sylva Menard. I live on Fifth Ave. I'm here to call attention to the Pocket Park on Old Six Ave. Yesterday, the trees were cut back by the Quality of Life team. And when I asked, it was called Clean Up for a Basketball Tournament this weekend. Four hours late. That was about 10 AM yesterday. Four hours later, my neighbor went by and the quality of life team was still there. And now 75% of the tree branches were taken down. Some of the branches were cut off and ripped, leading to future disease and higher risk of tree death. My neighbor said that the supervisor that after yesterday afternoon told him all branches were dead and quote unquote, it was about time. The photos and video of the branches speak for themselves. I will provide the photo and video to the council and clerk by email. Please note that when we remove tree canopy we increase stress in neighborhoods, we increase violence, we increase heating and cooling costs, all of the above. This is a problem. Why are we removing trees? Why are we removing such quantity of tree limbs when it's unnecessary. When I went by at 10 a.m., the very bottom areas were cut back and it looked completely reasonable, so I walked away trusting that it might be okay. It wasn't okay. That's my neighborhood. I don't need more violence. I don't need the homeless people who live here to feel more stress. It's already stressful enough Thank you. Thank you, Silva.

Seeing no other speakers, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion. Second. We have a motion made by Councilmember Favreau, seconded by Councilmember Spain-McClaren. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned.