Utica, New York Common Council Meeting Records

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Common Council Meeting with Committee of the Whole Meeting February 4th, 2026

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Common Council Meeting with Committee of the Whole Meeting February 4th, 2026

8 matches · 5 unidentified
Unidentified speaker 1:37:05
Yeah. And, and to be clear, there are, you know, much like other, you know, wind, solar, you know, there are a lot of concerns with, you know, having these systems in place. Um, again, we just said, um, you know, you can't put it out with, you know, regular, you know, water. So the fire department has to figure out, you know, how to handle that. And they're— so the last piece of legislation that I sent down is the actual regulations, um, which would require again, the special use permit, and there are specific things that the applicant would need to provide. A lot of those include, you know, providing, um, not just information about, you know, how it's going to look, but, you know, noise regulations, um, you know, their safety information, and providing that to the fire department, police department, codes, um, you know, inspections, site access. You know, there's a lot of different regulations for them. That they not only have to apply when they do their site plan approval as part of their special use, but as an ongoing, you know, changes in ownership has to be shared. So there's a lot of things that govern that. Again, we're not asking for the Council to act on this tonight. You can't, it has to go to a public hearing. And I know that I just sent this down today, 'cause I was waiting for clarification that we could get it on the calendar for Planning Board. But take a look at it, we can answer more questions. It is very detailed. Again, I took, you know, the model system from, you know, New York State as to what they recommend for their regulations. I tailored it ever so slightly to fit the City of Utica specifically. Um, but, um, you know, review it, and then if you have specific questions, I know one of the things I talked about with fire, um, and urban, um, was adding a, um, you know, distance from any residential uses, um, between the structures to prevent any fires. Um, so fire is still weighing in on, on the distance that should be between them.
30:01
No, the only thing I wanted to say is, I mean, Marcus, I think that with 6 guys patrolling the whole city and doing what you do, I think it's a lot, especially considering the fact of ticketing sidewalks for not being, you know, shoveled or things like that. So I mean, it is kind of difficult to take in all those tasks in one day. So I mean, is there anything from your standpoint that again goes back to the fact that you think you can— we could help and kind of streamlining, um, any violations through? I mean, I personally, I would like like a system between, hey, if you have the fire department, police department, Codes Department going around and we see something wrong, like I wish there was a system that we had that we could report something to go back on other than that 311 app.
Unidentified speaker 54:21
I'm stating what you said. What I'm saying to you is that $35 a day is a lot of money for people who want to go ski in the city and have a city facility, just like you You can't make Valley View Yanadasis because that isn't what it is. It's a municipal golf course, and even then they complain. But I think the rate that we pay there is pretty competitive, and it seems to be running all right. It's always well kept every year. It's a great golf course for those of you who play golf or don't. And it's one of the things that I'm very proud about Utica. Now we have a skating rink. We always had a skating rink when I was growing up, and then Mr. Hanna decided to build a basketball court up there instead of a skating rink. Well, thank God we now have a very attractive skating rink. Utica is a heck of a place. A great place to live in. It's got a good police department, it's got a good fire department, it's got a good public works department, and it has facilities that very few cities have. But you can't— but we can't price the poor person out of having access and being able to use use these facilities. Now that's just— it's my opinion. I'm not— I'm not telling you how to legislate. That's why I don't like to go to committee meetings. I'm just telling you that when it comes to the ski tow, the golf course, the skating rink, all that, I have a lot of experience in that area. And I know money— even when we were making pretty good money, I was making pretty good money when I lived out Barnavel, Russia. Woods Valley was expensive for us, and I think it was $18 a day. It was a lot of money back in 1972, '73. So anyway, I'm just saying that when you set the rate, keep in mind Who you would like to see go there who don't go there, and you want to think of it as you've got to be a well-to-do person.
Unidentified speaker 2:15:48
the chief. Um, obviously, uh, we've had a busy January and a very tragic outcome from one of the fires one of the many fires that we responded to in the past month. Um, through the month of January, the fire department responded to 1,361 incidents. We transported over 600 patients to local hospitals. We had 29 reported structure fires in the month of January. 8 of them were working fires or second alarm fires or third alarm fires. Obviously, when we call a second alarm, that brings all on-duty firefighters to the fire scenes. Tragically, two occupants of a house on Jewett Place lost their lives during one of these fires. Earlier that same morning, we had several firefighters injured at 1014 Bleecker Street. They are all recovering, you know, Thankfully, their turnout gear worked the way it needed to and protected them. And, you know, despite some minor setbacks, everyone, with exception of one person, has returned back to work. Again, busy month. Firefighters have really stepped up. It's been a cold month. I can't emphasize enough, everyone, please make sure that you have working smoke detectors in your homes. Make sure that your egress— and that's how you get out in and out of your place that you live— is free and clear of obstructions. And have a plan if a fire happens. Also, please, if you're using space heaters, give them some distance, keep combustible items away from them, and continue to stay safe. And I worked with Francis. Francis called notified me he had an issue at his apartment and trying to help Francis sort that out. He's been having some carbon monoxide issues, so we were able to get National Grid there and address some of that. Carbon monoxide calls are a pretty fairly common call in the City of Utica, especially in the— during the winter months. Encourage everybody to make sure that they have a working carbon monoxide detector as well.
Unidentified speaker 35:43
it's been years. The only, the only issue I had with that was having a property manager is supposed to be, um, and having his displayed in the apartment, in the apartment. So having a property manager supposed to be there now, if we have it displayed on the apartment, it's cool. The only thing that I kind of worry about, but not really, I think it's a good law, um, it's just that it's going to change over time and it's gonna be— so, so the fire department inspects those buildings, and so it's going to be the task on them to call that number when they do their inspections is make sure it's the same guy, you know, because I don't want the guys to have the wrong information and calling the wrong numbers. So as long as they keep it current and we have a way to keep in touch and make sure it hasn't changed.
Unidentified speaker 29:23
Yeah, so when I meant to say that I had one person, it's not only one person that regulates the code in the city when it comes to convenience stores. It's just I have somebody whose job it is to check on them, right? So if they see something in patrol that they think is wrong, they have every right to treat it like everybody else. Plus we do every 3-year fire inspections on them, um, which our whole department— so convenience stores are supposed to get visited once every 2 years for be in a convenience store, once every 3 years as a fire inspection, and in the daily neighborhood patrols.