Utica, New York Common Council Meeting Records

Search

Meeting
Common Council Meeting with Committee of the Whole Meeting June 17th, 2026

26 results in this meeting.

Sort

Common Council Meeting with Committee of the Whole Meeting June 17th, 2026

26 matches · 10 unidentified
3:29:07
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of John F. Hughes Elementary School, whereas John F. Hughes Elementary School is celebrating its 100th anniversary, marking a century of service to the children and families of the City of Utica, whereas established in 1925, John F. Hughes Elementary School stands as one of the oldest oldest continuously operating public schools in the City of Utica and the second oldest school building currently serving students in the Utica City School District. Whereas for the past century, John F. Hughes Elementary School has served generations of students, families, helping shape an educational cultural community life of Utica and the greater Mohawk Valley. Whereas the school proudly bears the name of John F. Hughes, who immigrated from North Wales to the United States in 1872 and went on to become the respected Utica civic and business leader, Director of the Utica Chamber of Commerce, and Commissioner of the Utica School Board from 1896 to 1903. Whereas, John F. Hughes' contributions to public education and modernization of Utica made his name a fitting and lasting symbol for the school dedicated to learning, service, and community progress. Proclaim the City of Utica Common Council hereby recognizes to celebrate the 100th anniversary of John F. Hughes Elementary School and extends its sincere appreciation to the entire John F. Hughes Elementary School community for its century of service to the City of Utica. Be it further proclaimed that this proclamation will forever be inscribed into the minutes of the City of the Common Council meeting on the 17th day of June, 2026.
Unidentified speaker 2:08:04
So, hello, guys. My name is Ayham Alzanab, and I'm with my cousin right now, Qassam Alteri. So we were having a normal day. We came to Proctor Park to cool off because it was a hot day. And then out of nowhere, we see a girl drowning. So we decided to help because it was the right thing to do. To do, even though there's no— everyone standing there not doing anything. It's still the right thing to do no matter what. If you don't know the person, it's like you have to help.
Unidentified speaker 2:11:02
Well, again, my name is Tim Julian, former Utica Mayor, former Utica Common Council President, and current County Legislator in the 19th Legislative District, and also the County Minority Leader. I'm here tonight to speak out against good cause eviction, which many people on this council may be considering, and I know some people are looking for. I will cut to the chase and go past the point where I state that landlords are small businesses and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into the economy each and every year. I'm just going to talk quickly about the eviction process as my time here is limited. And as you know, we already endure several-step process to evict someone, a process that takes months and costs us hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in service fees, legal costs— and we pay our own lawyers, not free legal aid attorneys— and lost income due to failure to pay rent. Most times after an eviction is finalized, we walk into an apartment that is no longer habitable and requires thousands of dollars of repairs. Good cause eviction will add to this time period and stretch the eviction process out longer, costing landlords, uh, small business owners tens of thousands of dollars each year. A quick example: I was in court on May 26th for an eviction of a person that has only rented since February of this year. He has threatened the lives of my employees. He has threatened to destroy the property. He has used racial slurs against his ethnic neighbors. He has thrown lighter fluid on police officers. He has threatened suicide, amongst other things. I started the eviction process on March 16th of this year, and when I go to court on May 26th, I was told he wanted to stay until June 30th. I stated I wanted him out on the 15th. I was then told, told if I could not agree to his demands, I would have to have a hearing with him, and the soonest date for a hearing was September 2nd. So I had to go along with this request or lose 2 more months of rent at the very least. As I stated the last time I spoke, no landlord wants to evict a tenant that is good, and being a good tenant is not a high bar. Pay your rent, keep your space clean, and don't be a nuisance to your neighbors. That's it. As a landlord, I can reasonably say most of my tenants don't know how to turn a screw. That's fine because not everyone should be a homeowner. For that, they pay landlords a fee to live worry-free knowing their needs will be met. Enacting good cause eviction will force more landlords to go out of business and further exacerbate the housing crisis that you state this law will solve. I'll stop there. Thank you.
Unidentified speaker 2:13:52
For those of you who don't know me, I've been the City Marshal for 41 years. I've seen Like I said, for those of you who don't know me, I've been the City Marshal for 4 years. I've seen all the judges come and go, retire. I've seen the mayors go, police chief, fire chief, and everything. I also happen to be a landlord in Utica. I've got 110 places. And it's hard to follow what Tim just said, but that's right on point. And I happen to be doing the guy that he's talking about. I have to go there and remove him. And the abuse that we take. I handled it easy. But the biggest thing is if we just keep ignoring what's going on— give you an example. A lot of West Utica is shot now. A lot of East Utica, deep East Utica is starting to crumble. What I mean by that is the student body of the city is not holding people liable. For the damages that are causing. I did 13,382 warrants in my lifetime. There's $7.5 million of unpaid rents. The landlords are taking this brunt, not those people. There's agencies out here that get government funds from the government to the state, hand them down here. HELIO, Shelter Care Plus, Reentry Program, all of these programs, Their job is to put these people in apartments. These are not all the people. These are certain people. And when they put them in these apartments, they have no repercussions on what they do. They move in. Now you got the squatters that go. They bring in 5 guys. They all say they live there, but the warrant only has the one person on it. Some of the agents— some of the communities around here put the name of the tenant, And then they put any and all other occupants. We don't in Utica. So when we go to do a warrant and the police have to go there and they say, okay, John Q. Public has to leave, well, that's my friend. He lives here too. He moved in here 3 months ago. You guys don't expect— and when I have to call for support sometimes, they don't back me up. That person lives there. He says he's my friend. He can stay there. Now we have to do the eviction. All over again on that guy. That's terrible that these landlords have to be put up with that. That's absolutely disgusting. So it's a much bigger problem than you think. And if we don't tighten down things on this— there's a lot of abandoned houses. Landlords are in business to try to buy a place, fix it up, rent it out, and make money. And this thing that Tim said about the fact— shortage of housing. No, there isn't. There's no shortage. There's hundreds and hundreds of apartments that the landlords won't even rent because it's easier for them to be in a two-family home not getting rent, but at least their place isn't getting damaged and they gotta spend a lot of money on it to fix it back up. They have destroyed, and again, it's just a certain element of people, and it's the same ones over and over again. I had a couple that moved every 7 months. They paid 2 months' rent a year. They would go there, by the time they got through the system, they'd go find another place. And they boned that landlord. They pay rent twice a year, 3 times a year. That's got to stop. We've got to do something about it. I don't have the answer. I don't know. Maybe somebody can come up with an idea. come up with an answer for this, but we have to stop it. And I want to go into this— 5-star Oneida Square. You got to be kidding me. Major Dunkin' Donuts leaves. Kentucky Fried Chicken leaves. You want to take a person down Genesee Street to go to New Hartford and show what a beautiful city it is, they got to go by there? That would turn anybody off. It really would. I don't— again, I don't know the answer, but as far as the good cause, that's just another branch for them to hold on to that's just going to sink these landlords out here that are trying to do a good job. And it's the same thing over and over and over again. I see it every day they come in, every day. And I don't have much more to say than we've got to start taking care of this city the way it's supposed to be taken care of. All right? Sorry.
Unidentified speaker 2:20:51
Good evening, council members. My name is Jack Santa Cruz. I'm a local property owner and I'm Councilmember Betrus, and also the owner of Urban Landlord Inc., a full-service residential property management company here in Utica. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with all you guys regarding the Good Cause Eviction Law. Today, Urban Landlord manages over 100 apartments between 35 buildings locally. We partner with a number of these local organizations like Catholic Charities, Helio Health, the Community Foundation, domestic violence shelters, the Refugee Center, and many more to provide safe, inhabitable housing for marginalized populations. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I want to start by saying that I support safe housing, fair housing, and holding bad or absentee landlords accountable. Every tenant deserves a clean, safe, and stable place to live. That's the reason I chose to move to move back from Boston and start this business. However, I don't believe this law is the right solution for the city and this community for a handful of short reasons. Number 1, our biggest— our biggest problem in housing today is supply, even with all of our new developments in the city.