Common Council - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll call this meeting to order. It's just after 5 p.m. on May 27th. This is a meeting of the Utica Common Council, Committee of the Whole. We called this meeting today for two purposes. First, to get an update from the Utica Fire Department on the Station 4 situation. And second... uh to further discuss an update on local law number one of 2026 which was committed on 3 18 26 and we'll start here uh with our chief ingersoll appreciate you both coming here yeah deputy chief trusetsky he's uh chief in charge of facilities and um he's running point on uh

working with the engineering group to get the studies done.

I met with them on Friday so that they, Atlantic Testing Laboratories, they're going to be the testing agency that's going to do the core samples to determine the compressive strength of the concrete and also do some chloride testing. The engineer will take those results, determine to what degree the floor needs to be shored up, And then he'll come up with a shoring plan, which at that point, then it would go out to a shoring company to get the floor stabilized so we can get the firehouse open back up for a period of time. We were kind of hoping by the end of this week, but they're just finalizing their contracts. As soon as we get the contract from them, we'll be able to get that signed, get it returned to them, and get it on the schedule. So I'm hoping we'll be able to get the samples done by the middle of next week, being optimistic. And once that's done, it'll be about a week or two to get results, and then those will be forwarded to the department and also to the structural engineer involved in the project.

All right, thank you. Does anyone have questions on that piece? I do.

Is the structural engineer, where are they from? City of Utica, or are they from another company, or is it through Atlantic Testing?

Wendell Associates.

Okay, and they're the ones that are handling it.

Yeah, Wendell Associates is an architectural engineering firm that City Engineering selected as an agency for public safety facilities. doing a bathroom remodel at the fire academy they're the ones who drew the plans up they also have a full suite of structural mechanical electrical engineers all on staff so when this issue came up we reached out to wendell associates and they looked at one of their structural engineers

And the last point I want to make, and Chief, you can kind of hit on this. I mean, this is an issue we have known for quite some time, and I think that yourself and many members of your department have brought it up that at some point in time, the foundation of that firehouse was not going to last. Yeah, yeah. So can you kind of touch base on how the history has gone on that? And, you know, I know I've sat in this room with you where we fought for extra funding for some of the firehouses, and that was... Again, one of the things that were left out while millions of dollars were spent elsewhere.

So the floor issue that we're having is just a repeat from 2001. So in December, I believe it was December 6th or 7th of 2001, to February of 2002, that fire station was closed and the apparatus were temporarily relocated to Oneida Square. The old light duty rescue, rescue one, was relocated to South Utica at that time due to the same issues with the floor. At that time, a structural engineer was brought in They did, use loose quotations here, a temporary shoring of that floor that 25 years later, we're seeing serious issues with that. It was never meant to be permanent. reports dating back to the 70s and 80s Requesting repair replacement of that station. Obviously you guys are aware that the city bonded for replacement for that station in 1986 Over the consecutive five years after that Station was never built and the problems continue on we have reports from early nineties requesting that this station be demolished and either repurposed, updated or our new station be built. Report from 2014, basically the same thing, was to put that station up for sale, build a new fire station in South Utica. And obviously, over the years, the mission of the fire department has evolved, but our main responsibility is still fire protection. And it needs to be not only for South Utica, but for Central Utica, parts of West Utica, and parts of East Utica as well. And the station's really important to that neighborhood. Um, we've outgrown that facility. That's 112 years old. Um, you know, uh, at some point we have to have a real discussion about what the future is. We have a near term discussion of how we can get that station open and, uh, providing service again to the community. But, um, we have to have a long term discussion on, uh, a path forward after that.

and chief can you kind of touch on the fact that i know over the the discussion over the years of trying to get extra men especially um trying to staff the the firehouse in south utica to the fact where they could have a pump truck back and stuff like that can you kind of hit hit on what's there now and and what the possibility of the future looks like adding an extra um in addition to manning but rebuilding a firehouse and how that could be staffed and so on and so forth yeah so uh right now there's a uh

truck there but it's called a quint and that's a combination of a ladder truck and an engine that concept was implemented in 2012 in South Utica yeah so prior to 2012 going back to 2002 there was an engine and a truck there That engine was relocated from Woodlawn Ave in South Utica in 1996 when the fire department was caught substantially. It was relocated from Woodlawn Ave to Shepherd Place. The engine that was at Park Ave was taken out of service. That lasted like that until 2002. At that time, Engine 4 was relocated to Oneida Square. The old rescue company was taken out of service. And for a short period of time, I believe it was about two years, the personnel assigned to the truck company crossed half an engine. So depending on the type of call, they would either take an engine to that call or they would take the truck to the call. It wasn't a very, you know, That evolved over some time. We got some additional daily staffing. We were able to put what we called a tactical unit in service. So that was an engine, but I had two personnel, and there was three personnel assigned to the truck, so there was five people at that station. That ran successfully for a number of years up until 2012. We had some more cuts. Obviously, during that time, we put... Ambulance is in service. There was six personnel assigned to Station 7, so the personnel that staffed the ambulance, they cross-staffed the engine as well. It's worked for us. The bulk of that truck's calls that they respond to, a lot of them are in central portions of Utica. However, that firehouse is the first line of defense for any fires that happen in South Utica. That travel time we have to make up. There's parts of South Utica that are almost three miles from that station, parts of Victoria Drive, things of that nature. So it really is a key point, a key area of protection. Moving forward, is there something that we want to see? We would love to see more personnel. It's a matter of where we staff those personnel. We'd love to see more personnel at Station 7 just because it's so mutually supportive to the entire city. But I also think that South Utica, there was a solid look for at least one extra day.

And what was the estimated cost? Because I know that this was discussed, I don't remember what year or whatever, what the cost was to rebuild the floor of what we're looking at for the engineering restructure now. um and i can't remember what year that was but i know that that cost was given to us and i think it was i mean i i'm talking approximate maybe 500 to 700 000 um maybe i think probably maybe 10 years ago now um that cost could have been about that but i mean if you don't have it off the top of your head i just know that at one point in time we did talk about that Yeah, but it wasn't just the renovations because I remember that at one time they spent like $80,000 on a study to remodel all the firehouses and what we had to do. And I know that that was the cost that was compared to that. And I don't remember what year that was. I know Chief Brooks wasn't the chief at the time, so it had to be some time ago. And I guess that goes back to my point is that this isn't something that you've been asking for or the department has been asking for for quite some time.

Yeah, and you know, like you really have to balance, do we want to put, say it's, everything that we do adds up costs more money, right? Like you just find problems, even with the station one remodel, you know, we start at one budget point, due to cost overruns, due to the age of the structures, we find issues. There's a cause and effect to everything that we do. So let's say, do you want to put $2 million into the 1914 station? And I'm just using that as a figure, is that, good way to move forward is that gonna is that gonna get us 20 more years is it better to move forward with a more solid plan to rebuild the facility that's more useful for a modern you know for a modern city because you know but that firehouse was built in 1914 there was most of South Utica was dirt roads You know, I like, you know, again, it was the first station built in the city for motorized fire apparatus. So as, as trucks have gotten bigger, uh, you know, that our gross volume weight volume back then with maybe 15,000 pounds, you know, that truck that we pull in and out of there, you know, that truck goes over 3000 calls a year. Plus all the other ancillary stuff in times it's in and out of that station, uh, 62,000 pounds. We wear out tires constantly, front end suspension issues, because everything that we do is a sharp left or a sharp right turn out of that station. Every call you go on. So if you're going to that part of South Utica from Sunset Ave, you're cranking the wheel all the way to the left. You're cranking again. We work out tires a little more with some more frequency. It's a tough corner to get in and out of as well. There's no apron, so we can't pull that truck out and do our checks. We have to go to the parking lot across the street every day. They put that ladder up, you know. So yeah, there's a lot of operational things. There's no place to store the turnout here. We have no ventilation on that red spot. It hangs on the wall, where it has for 112 years. We know in modern fire facilities that we want separate turnout gear storage, because we don't want that off-gassing to occur. We want a place that we can do decontamination. We want a clean and dirty area in the fire station. So we want that apparatus floor to be the dirty area, then we want some buffer before we get into the clean area. That's just how we design facilities now. you know, quite frankly, that even with renovation, we're not going to have that. We're not getting ahead on this.

So right now we're just looking at fixing this floor with hopes of... We're looking for a near-term solution to get personnel back to that station.

And then we really have to drill down and see how we want to improve that facility and the fire department. You know, because keep in mind, we're laser focused on this issue on Shepherd Place, but we have other facilities. On Sunday afternoon in Menards Fire Department outside of Albany, major fire, a fire truck caught fire on the apparatus floor. Major fire, the fire truck is incinerated. The fire truck next to it's heavily damaged. All the equipment in that building's heavily damaged. They're looking at a multi-million dollar loss. Station three, we don't have a secondary means of egress for our personnel that are upstairs. You know, one fire, FDNY back in February. The firefighters literally were going to have to jump out of the building of their fire station because the fire truck caught fire downstairs. No secondary means of egress. Station 3 is on Mohawk Street. That's a normal. What's that? Station 3 is a normal. Yeah, Station 3 was built in 1976. So the last two stations built in the city were built in 1976. You can't put a fire escape on the back of that? No. We have to get it engineered. We need the funding to do it. And that's something that we're requesting in our capital improvement. But these incidents happen. But like I said, we're laser focused on Shepherd Place, which we should be right now. But we have other facilities that we also have to manage and take care of. And it's substantial.

And Chief, it's almost like we had $60 million to help you out, you know what I mean? I mean, that's the really frustrating part to me. But besides that, can you kind of explain what's going on at the United Square Firehouse with the apparatus being there, with the response time, so on and so forth, how many people are stationed there? And lastly, and this is kind of a topic of discussion I know for some odd reason just keeps getting brought up. I mean, it's exhausting as far as the ambulance service goes. Is there any intention to dismantle the ambulance service and what is the intention of the fire department long term with the South Utica apparatus being there and those stationed there?

Okay, so I haven't heard anyone talk about ambulance dismantling.

It just keeps getting brought up to me, to multiple people on the radio. Is this the reason that the fire... Trust me when I tell you, this is probably the third conversation in the past month that I've had that somebody has brought that up to me. And it's not just people... that are asking off the street. It's people that are in political positions that are adamant that the ambulance service is just a waste of manpower and a waste of time.

Totally insane. The ambulance service, anything that talks about dismantling the ambulance service would be a complete public safety disaster for the city of Utica. Anybody that says that the 12,000 calls a year that we do, the 8,000 plus patients that we care for in our city is not worth the dollar, you shouldn't get a vote.

So how safe are you right now? They keep reiterating the fact that you still have to respond with a rig. um even with the ambulance so can you kind of explain that and i guess that would be probably more important and i know you've been on the radio to a point that's exhausting um explaining this point but just to keep reiterating that you know it's been the same sentiment for a number of years in regards to this issue we follow a national response model we don't do anything that's unique in the city of utica when it comes to our response model

We follow national models. So we send, depending on the call type, so when you call 911, if you're saying that you have chest pain or having a heart attack, you will get the closest available district rig. So if you live in North Utica, it would be Station 5 would respond. It has a paramedic. It has at least an EMT and at least a paramedic on there. they will begin care when they get there, right? The concept is we send the closest apparatus to the person having the problem, and then the ambulance responds at the same time. But the hope is, and the data statistics show that the district rig, for the most part, arrives first and starts to run the care. That's just a national model. For a lower acuity call, you may get an ambulance only, and that depends, again, on the call type and what the person is saying on the phone and what their complaint is. Sometimes you just get a district apparatus. So to go away from that response model, I mean, every call you know if if calls didn't take a bad turn i guess like you would just send an ambulance all the calls but it's just not reality you know and um the personnel that we send are highly trained and able to render care immediately just just if i can add to what the chief is saying it's not only just about geographic proximity to where the call is if you take

A call that comes in that's potentially advanced life support, so chest pain, shortness of breath, somebody having a seizure, a cardiac arrest. Those are calls that typically, well beyond the scope of what two people can handle. We'll take a cardiac arrest for an example. Somebody has to do chest compressions. Somebody has to secure the airway and ventilator. So if you just send an ambulance, there's two people. Now, who is going to hook them up to the monitor and the defibrillator? Who's gonna start the IV? Who's gonna get the medications going? Who's going to get the stairshare or the stretcher or the backboard to get the patient extricated from the house to the ambulance? So it's not only a tiered response model so that we have somebody getting there a little bit quicker, but it's also because a lot of the calls we go on require more personnel than just two people. And you're more involved calls, and we do, dispatch accordingly. So it means somebody that's complaining that they stubbed their toe is not going to get a fire truck and an ambulance. but somebody's complaining of chest pain, trouble breathing, unresponsive, cardiac arrest, seizure, you're going to get that district fire truck that is equipped and staffed with paramedics in addition to the ambulance. So hopefully that kind of cleared it up.

First of all, if you've got a problem like that, you want as many people there as you want, if you're the person. Also, I can't even count how many compliments I got on our ambulance service. I get more compliments on our people that go to calls from our ambulance service It's unbelievable. I can name names.

And I think the point is, WT, that I was trying to make, and even Chief, is that people are saying, well, what happens if you didn't have the ambulance service? How does the fire department respond? You've always responded to those calls. We'll still continue to respond. If you can, the thing that I want to hit home is that you've always responded to the fact that you now have... You know those on the department that have that advanced care to offer those services as well as the most important part to where the ambulance You know was started, you know, and I'm sure you were on the department. You were a firefighter. You weren't an empty I mean, I know you as well, you know, you were just a firefighter Yeah, and just to see the advancement and what you guys have been able to do I On the department at the time. But you know what I mean? At the time you got on, though, the fire department was for firefighting purposes. And you still had to respond.

If it's your father or your kids or somebody at that call, you're not going to complain how many firemen are there. You're going to be happy whatever you got there.

You know, and to do, you know, the blanket statement's like, if anybody's ever had a real, true emergency, even when you go to the emergency room, To act like there's not a team of people working on a single person is just uneducated. Everything we do is a team-based thing. What you guys are doing is a team, right?

Well, you guys work with one another. You guys aren't just party paladins.

To send individuals or just two people when... Okay, four minutes. Four minutes is what you have to get oxygen to the brain to save a human being. Four minutes. That's it. You got four minutes. That's the window that you have. So for us to not send the closest, most capable people and then send an ambulance as well. And now get to the ambulance. We talk about the system being broke, right? The EMS system. We know that there's a big issue with the EMS system, right? to even consider taking our ambulances out of service.

You mean the shortage of them?

The shortage, the complete shortage of trained paramedics, of which the Utica Fire Department has the most paramedics in the central New York region. Train shortage of basic EMTs. The shortage of vital resources such as an ambulance. We went overnight last night, does anyone know where Lake Julia Road is in Remsen? Our ambulance went there last night because there wasn't any other ambulances closer. You know, so we are all over the place. We are not only in this community, but we're mutually supportive to the rest of the area as well.

Just my last point, and then you can have the floor. The only point that I want to make to that, and somebody might say, hey, Chief, you're taking our ambulance out of service to go to Remsen. and i think what's more more important to realize is that sometimes even with our apparatuses we don't have enough support hence the reason that at the john street fire you know mutual aid was provided so it's not like you know it's it's you know we're trying to you know take service away from other people it's just that sometimes a need yeah it's it's mutually supportive thank you chief thank you

support of the ambulance service I just want to back up a little bit sure because we're not in the same room as you guys we don't get to hear a lot through the conversation that's going on are there talks on what a capital plan would look like or the possible of the getting some of that grant money for South Utica has there been any conversations on what that looks like or anything you can tell us yeah we submitted a capital plan

Chief, you gave us a cable plan that I enjoyed.

I did. Actually, in the report, so we have a vehicle replacement plan, and then we also have a facilities plan. So it's a matter of how much funding we have available. I'm just waiting for the clarification on that. You know, again, we're trying to list, you know, obviously critical life safety things and improvements to our facilities. You know, Again, we don't know, we don't have a number on how much station four is gonna cost to repair at this point. So, yeah, but we've certainly asked for additional funding. if you follow the vehicle replacement plan, we have everything.

And I've seen that. I'm just curious if there's been more conversation on that or if anyone talked about the large grant that we're getting in South Utica. You fall in that. So that could be used towards a bigger grant for you guys or anything of that. I just wasn't as curious. What grant? The $4.5 million.

May I? Yeah. The New York Forward Grant. South Utica was awarded $4.5 million. Right. between this specific corridor of essentially lady lord school down to memorial parkway so there's a question of whether public safety would fit into utilizing a portion of those grants i think that grant money the grant i mean knowing that the issues that should have been a top priority of everybody on the council i mean but how many times could you reiterate it because we did wait could you repeat that we did approve that we passed the resolution to submit yes correct

But, I mean, everybody's been on the council knowing that these were the issues. I mean, now, obviously, the firehouse is closed. It should have been a discussion. But we get to reply. We do get to reply.

The point is the New York Florida grant's more utilized towards small businesses and more economic development.

So I'll take the $2 million. No, what we're trying to say is, no, we're going off here.

So the $4.5 million was awarded for small businesses and economic development, but the question now, given the situation, whether or not a portion of that can be utilized for public safety purposes.

The point was, if you were to go for a bigger grant, and that could be used a portion of like $200,000 towards that. South Utica, and a lot of residents in South Utica were not disappointed when asked that question, just so you're aware.

I've got to be honest with you. I don't know how you're taking economic development and replacing it with public safety.

You can use it for that.

So the question was, is that... Then reapply for the application. I know. I put in a resolution right now denying the application and reapplying it because I think public safety is more important.

There's a whole committee that goes along with this and everything. So then why are we talking about it? we're asking if they've discussed it at all why is that a big deal why is that hard for you and the question the question is whether or not public safety falls into the purpose of the grant the the question is whether or not public safety falls within or is captured by the purpose of the specific grant well that's the question that's the that's the point how's that conversation happen and now wasn't that money already no it has not been they have to reapply again

if they want it for public safety.

Yeah, I can't speak to the 4.5 million award itself, Utica. What I can say that there's opportunities out there to pursue funding for fire stations. I definitely think that we should explore all those avenues. you know but again uh not only do we have that building but we have a building in the night square that needs issues or that needs uh things addressed we have other life safety things weisbrook street is pretty good for now again though weisbrook street was built in 1906 so if we're not gonna if The next chiefs are gonna have to talk about Whites Row Street again, but at some point, that 120-year-old building will be 150, and they're gonna have to do something about that as well. We have aging infrastructure everywhere. So it's one of the things. We're in dire need of a fire training facility. You know, so it's a balancing act for you guys on the council, for the taxpayer, for how much we can pursue grant funding. You know, grants don't grow on trees, obviously, and there's a lot of legwork that goes into grants, but they are worth it in the end.

Who do we have right now? Do we have someone to write the grants?

Yeah, so we've been pretty successful with pursuing grants. Obviously, that's safer grants.

Do we do that ourselves or is it an outside guy?

We have an outside person. We have a contract with an outside group that's been very successful at writing grants. We've gotten millions of dollars in grants over the last few years. We're continuing to pursue that, all avenues for that.

Do a great job on that. Where are we with, I want to make sure I say it the right way, is it called well transfer? You know, where a lot of people need to go to a doctor's appointment.

Okay, inter-facility transfers.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen in the past that that was a subject that was brought up. It could have been a big moneymaker for us, and it always seems to get pushed away.

It does, and the reason why is that We have yet to address the fact that we're probably missing somewhere between 120 and 160 emergency calls a month. So not only do we, we get to the calls that we get to and when we have resources available, we have them respond, right? But it doesn't count the fact that we're missing a bunch of emergency calls every month. And the other thing is the additional workload. So I have concerns about our ability to continually staff more and more. So that's probably my single biggest concern is that how much more can we pile on? Because when I look at that extra workload, so if we commit to something, like we commit to that inner facility on a schedule, how do we... you know we have emergency say we have a big fire do we cancel that in our facility transfer do we still can't stay committed to it uh if personnel have committed to that day but something comes up right they get sick their kid gets sick something they have to cancel that uh that uh overtime like then it trickles down we have to order some people in so you know our primary focus and mission is on emergency response anything outside of that If we have enough personnel, if we didn't have the call volume that we had, we're still 17,000 calls a year. We're still cross-staffing with Engine 7. From my point of view, I feel like while economically it could make sense at some point, I just don't know if I got the personnel to do that right now.

All right. And then one last question. It's probably an obvious answer, but I really don't understand it. So I'll ask the question. So we have, you have a firehouse in North Utica. You have one in, you know, in Park Ave. You have South Utica. You have, why with the ambulances? why wouldn't you have an ambulance how many ambulances do we actually have go out all over we have three three yeah so why would you not have one in each not each but like say central maybe one on west utica one in north utica instead of all of them coming from park ave yeah so uh that model was implemented when we started the ambulance on august 1st 2005. um it

Is that a bad question? No, no, no. It's a great question. It's a very valid question. So when we implemented that model, the center of the city made the most sense because it was the least amount of impact to the outer apparatus. So engine four at the time, which is engine seven now, we're able to cross-staff that. So we get the value of having that engine in service when there's four personnel on it. And we also get the value of those four personnel being able to jump on an ambulance as well, if there's an ambulance call. And that cross-stabbing, so I look at other models, other cities, so they take, they got four personnel at a station, two of those personnel go out on an ambulance, now we're left with a two-person engine. So if we put that, if we push those ambulances out into other areas of the city, we would be left with two personnel and a bunch of engines. instead of just one station being impacted we'd have three stations impacted at that point and it's just it truly uh you know it's a it's a daily staffing uh issue um you know and honestly That station, in any iteration, is truly the hub of the entire city. You can get to West Utica, South Utica, East Utica, North Utica, Lower East Side in such a good response mode and model that it truly is the center of the city when it comes to that, and it gives us the best response time.

I did I did I know that New York forward grant that they were talking about that they did ask if you could apply for anything towards public safety in that corridor and they were given the answer no So I don't know, that was from Mayor Guglielmi's office. They were just speaking on that. I mean, I don't know if you had applied for that or had any discussions with them. No, no, I didn't. Okay, all right. But they did state that to me. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you for your time. I apologize, I have to leave.

Who stated that?

That was from the administration.

Mentioning that?

Stated that they did ask if they could reapply or involve the public safety department, involve the fire station, so on and so forth.

Since the South Utica station closed?

When was that? Yes. Are they telling you that now? Where did you get, where's the information? I won't get it to you.

Just like you put out information online and you just give annotations.

Councilman Lamedico, you had some questions.

First of all, Mike, thank you for the great job you guys do. And I was thinking about the two firemen that were hurt the other day. Can you give us a little update on those?

Yeah, so both firefighters during the fire at 709 and 711 James Street were Josh. or I'm sorry, yeah, John Street. Street's messed up here. They were both injured when they fell through a staircase. Luckily, they did not fall all the way through the staircase because that particular staircase went down into the basement. It was going from the second floor into the third floor. They were conducting fire operations and search operations and they were moving up the stairs and they narrowly avoided more serious injury. they are both recovering right now um we hope to see them back uh yes yeah they're good they're both very good yep yep so uh again our uh thoughts are with them and their families and uh it's nothing it's not the phone call you want it's not what you want you certainly don't want to see uh our guys hurt at all.

And you had given me that information earlier, but this was more for the public, so they could hear who was ever listening. The second question I have is, and we sort of hit you on this one all the time, is your holdover when you do go to the hospital is trying to free yourselves after you pass the patient off. Has that been becoming a little simpler lately? It's been better.

Two weeks ago, we had another meeting with the Wynn Hospital, They've been receptive. They've made some changes internally. We're still going to deal with some backups. It depends on how many sick people they have. That's right. Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be still a consistently busy day for the ambulance.

What are your normal turnarounds once you hit the door there?

I mean, average should be about 22 minutes. We see it as quick as five minutes. We see it as long as, you know, during the winter months we were dealing with 120 plus minute waits. But we haven't seen it as of recently. Again, it goes to how many people are sick and what the call volume is.

And right now, the way you're talking, it's almost like putting good money into a bad building. But is there any ongoing discussion right now with the administration to maybe find another place or to add on to it or anything like that, an active ongoing conversation?

No, we've had some talks about that. I think that, again, our focus is on getting a near-term solution to that, and then we have to work together and figure out a long-term solution and what that looks like financially for the city. you know, what everyone's comfortable with doing.

Yeah, can you tell me what would entail into you guys designing something new like that? What do you think you could, you know, you and the administration probably could come up with at this time that you're mowing over?

You know, anything... whether it's in addition to the existing firehouse.

There's no room, is there?

There really isn't. There isn't. And, you know, there's potential locations for a new fire station.

How about right across the street? That parking lot over there has been vacant forever.

Yeah. I mean, it's sitting there. There's spots around there. you know, a new facility that's two to three years away, you know, even if you guys made a decision tomorrow, it's still going to be, you know, there's going to be a planning process, there's going to be a public impact process, you know, there's going to be public comment, there's going to be, you know, we have a, rough idea of what we want that facility to look like. We need it to be three bays. We need them to be double-depth bays so we can solve some of the room issues that we have in the fire department because we're currently renting space to park additional fire apparatus because we have a fire academy that's active. We've run out of space. We've got to address some of the space issues. We're not looking for Cadillac buildings. We're looking for essential facility that's going to last this city 100 plus years that we're not going to outgrow.

When you build a facility, if you had the space, instead of going two tiers high, just flat, one level, and you'd have your three bays for your trucks in the front, maybe in the back you have a kitchen and a sleeping area, instead of making a big, complicated building, I mean, I know, like, I know it's volunteer, but look at like in Barneville there, the firehouse collapsed. And I know we'd have to be a lot bigger and stuff, but those type buildings, I mean, I think the main thing is the space.

So the main thing is the space, and it's got to be a resilient facility. So it has to be built to a central facilities code. You know, we need generators. It's got to be able to... You guys, people laugh, but there's got to be seismic protection. There's got to be protection against natural disasters. You know, there's...

there's thought and process that goes into it city of troy city of troy so we really don't have be similar to what we would be we really don't have as much as you know um we we want to do this temporary and in in the long run, build something new or something like, like our discussion here, it seems like there's no real, the answer is we got to come up to money and fix it now to get the truck back. You know, hopefully it's a month once we find out what it is, hopefully it's six to eight weeks or even sooner to fix what we have and then go with it from there.

Yeah. We need to stabilize it, but you know,

Much as you don't want to spend that money on that building, you almost have to do that.

Yeah, I mean, I worked the majority of my career out of Shepherd Place. I worked 12 years there as a lieutenant. I worked there for four years as a firefighter. It's an extremely busy house. It's one of the busiest companies in the city. It's part of the reason why I stay there. You have great proximity, north, south, east, west. You can get into the downtown area, the area between Oneida Square and Burrstone Road and all the side streets there. You can get into the west side, you can get into the east side. The location, that general area is very strategic to our operations. Going back to the condition of the building, I mean, again, I watched the deterioration of the building during the course of my career. And beyond just the floor issue, you've got issues where back in 2022, when we were doing the other firehouse renovations, we had an architect come in and just start looking at it. And to basically do a surface lipstick renovation was about 3.5 million, somewhere in that range. The chief had sent some plans around saying, hey, do you guys have any recommendations? I said, yeah, why don't we put the hot water tanks here? Why don't we move this around? And the architect happened to come by and he said, hey, did you happen to get those suggestions? He's like, yeah. He goes, but we're not touching any of the plumbing or the electrical. I said, so we're going to be opening walls in a 100 plus year building. But that dollar amount didn't even include touching the original plumbing and electrical. He's like, no, because that would just increase the cost way too much. So we've got asbestos in that building. We've got 100 plus year old plumbing, electrical. We don't have a second means of egress, which will have to be added to the station. Once we get this floor issue resolved, you're going to be putting a lot of money into the building and you're still not going to be having storage area for turnout here. a decontamination area. One of the biggest things is we pull out of that firehouse, and I can't even count the number of times we've almost gotten hit by a car coming around that blind corner. Doesn't matter how many lights you got, how loud you're wailing that siren, when you're coming out and you got a car coming around a blind corner, several times cars were just slamming on the brakes because they didn't see us and they didn't have the time to react. Uh, same thing when we go to back end, you go to stop traffic and people aren't paying attention. They don't see the big red truck with the flashing lights and they're, you're like, put your hands up to get them to stop. So there's, there's, there's a lot more to the station other than just the floor to reiterate, you know, just to kind of the train of thought is where's long-term what the plan should be.

Right. But what you're, what we're talking about here for this meeting right now is nothing to do with that stuff. It's to fix the floor, to get it back operating. Okay.

Perfectly how long before it would be ready in a perfect scenario? We estimated, again, if we get the core samples done next week, the engineer another week or two beyond that for the engineer to get the results of the concrete strength. Then he can develop the shoring plan, which I'd estimate be another couple of weeks. And then we need to source out a shoring company that can come in and they have to source the materials and then get all the shores in place according to his plan. So you're looking at a couple of months. These are all estimates, obviously.

I would say somewhere between three to six months.

So earlier in this meeting, you guys talked about back in the day, the city bonded for a new firehouse. What happened with that money?

I was 10 years old. I was nine years old, I think. It was well before I was 86. It was late 80s. There's a variety of old editorials and newspaper articles that I've found on regards to that. There's a lot of arguments over where the station was gonna go and what it looked like and everything.

So they bought it for the money and spent the money or they never spent the money? I couldn't tell you.

I don't know who asked that question. Yeah, there's one article that asked that question and I don't know if they ever got an answer for it. It was well before all your time at the council and my time on the fire department.

So chief, thank you. Um, just wanted to follow up on a, a couple of things. So you mentioned, I think it was 2001, early two thousands when the station was down prior, how many was it down for three months at that time in there?

It was like what December 6th. Yeah. You remember that article, December 7th, was it or January? For a couple months. Okay. Yeah. And again, that shoring that they did at that time was just meant to be temporary.

And at the time, there were big hatches in the floor. So they were able to get the long pieces of steel down through those open hatches. Those, literally, it's a big hole in the floor with a metal plate that went over it. Those hatches have since been sealed up. So that'll also be some of the other

I just had one follow-up question because there was mention of this safer grant and for 2026 is there an application process currently open for this cycle there is the safer grant application process is open is there an appetite within the city to apply for that grant that would be up to not only the mayor but you guys as well

Something that I think to consider as well. Yeah.

But a safer grant is for employees, right? Or you can't use that money to get a grant to fix the firehouse.

No, sorry. I was just transitioning to personnel just because it was brought up. Yeah, personnel.

Yeah, it's strictly a personnel. We are applying for some American Fire Act grants for training opportunities and for training funding. Another similar sized department in New York State Got an AFG last year for professional development to get officers more training, firefighters more training. So that's something that we're heavily pursuing in this round of grants. We have firefighters going to water rescue training. We have upwards of, we're hoping to get upwards of 30 people trained to that.

Can I get these built in New Orleans?

City of Troy's building a new firehouse right now.

Where did they get the money? Have you looked into that?

I'm looking into it further. I don't have a great answer. I don't have a great answer for you on that, but I will absolutely get one because it's a topic of discussion. It's something that we certainly want to look at.

What was the dollar amount? Do you have an idea?

Somewhere between $10 and $12 million.

don't and it's thanks chief yeah it's only two years the bottom line is anybody that drives around the city or goes around the city they question how hard our firemen or policemen are working just open your eyes and watch yeah what's going on the fires lately the crime the lack of police it's just anybody just questioning that right now the fire department's had a busy uh first half of uh 2026. uh don't forget thursday night there was a

You know, another major fire, nine people displaced on Lansing Street. Again, I got short T-Rex arms, but the space between the two houses, I couldn't even extend my arms. Now we've got two good firemen in all those houses. And now we've got a couple good firemen that have been injured as well. You know, we're certainly taxed.

Well, this is great. We appreciate you coming in. Thank you.

Yeah, and just to float something, I think the chief mentioned the application deadline for the SAFER grant is June 22nd. Yeah. I think it's maybe something we should consider a resolution in support if there's a plan to submit the application for the grant application. I think that's something maybe we could all get on board with. Okay.

Is there any kind of, I mean, I don't have no problem with that. That's a good idea. But is there any, before then, is there any kind of grants we can do a resolution to get money to fix the house?

I am not aware of that. Not something that short term.

And long story short, once we get the shoring plan from the engineer, the next step is get ahold of a shoring company and get them to come in, even if it's got to go out to a short, a short bid through the engineering department. Um, but obviously if we have to wait to try to find grant funding, that's going to delay. Right. So we can get that. Right.

But we can try to find and then get the grant money after while we're doing the work.

Yeah. Um, we'll say the mayor's indicated that he will do whatever he can to, uh, you know, we, we want that station open. Right. And, uh, uh, The fire department certainly wants that station open. We want South Utica to have their fire station back.

They probably want you out of there too, don't they?

You know, we're making things work. We always do, but it's certainly not an ideal situation.

I mean, you think about it, come wintertime, you don't want to be parking those rigs outside either.

We do not, no, no. That's a disaster for the trucks, yeah. Right, so we've got to get moving on that. Yep.

All right, anybody else?

Bonded for a 30-year, probably a 30-year bond. I don't have your positions at all either sometimes.

Here's the thing from a construction standpoint. You're a taxpayer. You actually live in the city. 20, you know, Shepherd Place was built in 1914. We got over 100 years worth of use out of that building from the way they built them way back when. We build a 75-year building now with modern construction materials and modern construction techniques that's going to last the city quite a while, especially if we put the TLC into it.

Yeah, you know, any building that we look at, I want my great-great-great-grandchildren to, you know, I have to worry about the next one. So, like, We don't wanna, any building that we look to do needs to last over 100 years. Yeah, it's the Northeast, articles in Charlotte Fire Department, they're building, their population is huge, but I mean, they're building two fire stations a year. It's just, know a lot a lot to think about and I think I think that was a great point a new station it's gonna affect the community for over a century so

What else we got on the agenda? All right.

Thank you both.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it, guys. Stay safe. Thank you.

So specifically, second from the bottom, local law number one.

I didn't hear anyone talk to you. Yeah, they would say.

They'd kind of talk at a time.

We're on Facebook. I don't want any of that. I haven't had any calls either. I've never had any.

I'll get more though.

No, they're out there. I never had any complaints about anybody wanting to use the bathroom.

Joe, what's going on? I'm getting pictures of people sending me that they went to the bathroom.

Yeah, that's nice. But I've never heard from them. It's true. 60,000 people. So you can hear about the angels. It's true. It's not impossible. Right?

so we have local law number one of 2026 committed 318 2026 second from the bottom in the packet second from the bottom One below 14, the local law. And this is the expansion of property tax relief for qualified senior citizens. So this originally came up, I was looking at a Sentinel article regarding the state looking to provide additional opt-ins for municipalities to expand their property tax exemptions for seniors both in percentage so if we look over at the chart percentage assessed up to 50 the state allows up to 65 but what i introduced was an income threshold to raise it to match the county so in 2023 i think the board of legislators amended their senior tax exemption and these numbers that we see in yellow it matches the it matches the county levels And I spoke with the assessor. I spoke with Tina from the assessor's office. They're looking at numbers and looking to have something concrete for us in terms of what effect this would have on the tax levy. Now, roughly 600 households currently qualify for this exemption in the city of Utica. And just comparing it to other municipalities... I have a few numbers here. So Troy, for example, Troy came up with the new fire station, bonding $12.5 million. So we look at the cities that are similar to us in size, population, demographics. And Troy, for example, their top income threshold is $40,000. Our current top income threshold is $26,900. So we're behind a lot of our sister cities in terms of the top level of the income exemption of who qualifies. And even this, as proposed, again, matching what the county has done, is $37,900. So we're not looking to propose something that would deeply impact the city financially. We're looking just to catch up with what other municipalities are already at so we can give seniors who qualify more tax relief.

Did you actually see how many residents in the city that actually would qualify that actually owned it?

So currently, I'm told that roughly 600 households qualify at the current levels. And when I spoke with the assessor's office, they're putting the numbers together to project, based on census data and different things, how many additional households would qualify. And part of the... yeah so yeah up to the 37 900 and we we talked about troy being at 40 000 um now of course bigger cities such as rochester and syracuse they have higher top income thresholds because they have higher median incomes but i looked at it of okay what percentage of seniors qualify in each of these cities so for example in rochester over 66 percent of seniors qualify based on the top income levels. Syracuse, about 59%. Troy, 43%. And you have to go all the way down to about 33% in Utica of seniors currently qualifying. This is all taken from census information, median income, different things. So we're looking just to take that 33% that it's currently at who qualify in the city and bump it up to about 41%. So again, it's very reasonable. We're not looking to hurt the city financially, just give help to the people who need it most and the seniors on fixed incomes.

So a senior age of 65 and anybody over the 37,000,

Grant and currently as it is it's that numbers under 27,000 so right now you'd be saying as on the books anyone 65 plus making over 26,900 as a household wouldn't qualify and that's again with we talk about costs that's a very low threshold is it currently stands standing alone and in compared. So those numbers that you see that have the strike through, that's what's on the books right now? For us right now? Correct. increasing the threshold limits so i think that as far as i can tell the last change to this was in 2022 when these numbers were brought up and then the county a year later in 2023 increased their county exemptions to what we see highlighted so those highlighted numbers are exactly the same limits that the county allows for their income exemption levels so usually if usually if a spouse owns a home it's in both of their names that's tenancy this is a legal term tenancy Well, the point is here, I'm trying to think of that. The point here is that it could be a single person with the income level of $37,000 and a married couple with the income level of $37,000. So that doesn't double like when we file our taxes.

A single person could own the house and make it $37,000 and his wife make it $100,000.

So they wouldn't qualify because usually when a couple gets married, it's under both their names. So it would be both those levels. Well, before they're married. Well, right now that could be the case also. It could be happening now. Well, I mean, that's part of what the law requires, though. Like the assessor's office requires those tax documents by March 1st of each year to make sure someone qualifies. They have to look at IRS tax returns. They look at state tax returns. They confirm these things through the city, the county, and the state. Correct. I mean, the assessor's office of each of those... so that's what that would are that sort of our assessor's office is figuring out now but it's taking essentially 32% of qualifying seniors and bringing up to 41% so we're not looking at you know 33% qualify now and now 90% is gonna qualify it's just less than 10% but it's those who fall in the category of really needing the relief Yeah, and when I spoke with the assessor's office, they made a good point where each year when they're figuring out the exemptions, they have to say, okay, this person qualifies for the county, but not the city. This person qualifies over here, but not here. So this is just another example of it would also streamline it because we're using the same numbers as the county. So they'd be able to, in their office, say they qualify for the county, they qualify for the city, and vice versa. Now they don't have to kind of go back and forth and figure out who may qualify over here, who doesn't qualify over here. yeah so i mean that's the and that's the and that's the point it affects such a small number of seniors we're we're talking about a minimal increase in number of seniors that are going to be affected but to those specific seniors it's going to make a big difference in those savings he just wants to see a figure Yeah, and so when I spoke with the assessor's office, they are putting everything together, and they wanted me to mention yesterday was grievance day in the assessor's office, so they were working until about 8, 8, 8.30 p.m., so they were, when I spoke with them today about this, they were still regrouping from that. Before next week.

Okay, good. So, Joe, one last question, though.

For the most part, anybody making that kind of income is probably renting an apartment.

No, because a lot of Social Security, I mean, if someone right now, as it currently stands, let's say they're making $32,000 a year on Social Security alone, that's it. They would not qualify for a senior tax exemption. They're paying full. And who this really affects, Joe, are seniors who they're married later in life and a spouse passes away. And they go from having two incomes to one. And now it's a question of... can't keep my house i have to decide whether i can pay my taxes pay my groceries or i have to move and sell my house that i've been in for 50 years this is also something that protects that group where someone wants to stay in their home and stay in the house they raise their kids but they can't because they just lost a spouse in that income we're already doing it you're just bringing the amount up to to match 2026. Well and with one with this I'll provide updated numbers from the assessor's office I had a good conversation with both Dave and Tina about it so with that motion to adjourn