Utica, New York Common Council Meeting Records

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

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

14 matches · 7 unidentified
9:19
3, okay. Obviously we have a hard enough time getting trees down that need to come down. So they would not be able to do this. This would be something where, um, a tree would be deemed dangerous and the person's house, the person who owns the tree, um, would respon— be responsible to take it down. If they did not take it down, we would hire an outside person and they would be billed for it. The problem right off the bat is in Rome, I think they have 120,000 put into their budget for this type thing. Am I correct, Marcus?
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 2:28:49
Sparkle Anthony. Greetings, everyone. It's been a while. It doesn't matter if it's a paid lawyer or an attorney. It matters if the person has integrity. And the laws, that matters. How about the community and neighborhood? That still matters, I hope, in the course of humanity, for humanity's sake. How about clearly seeing that there's something rooted with the person. I'm sorry these landlords have to go through this. Y'all are good landlords. No, you know, it's not y'all, right? It's the ones who, you know, evict people when the repair needs to be done or there's something like lead, and instead of fixing the problem, you evict the person and then, you know, it's not for the people who are here, the landlords here, right? So let me stick to the script. People with law and justice for everyone. So with the state of everything going on, how about providing resources? The Community Foundation is rich with resources in this community. How about kindness? It goes further than fear. Or finances. You know, how about working together? You know, it's unfortunate what happened to some of these landlords, but sometimes we have to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. There's a bigger picture in this world. If we open our eyes. If a repair needs to be made, some landlords dodge the responsibilities and put a new tenant instead of fixing the root of the issue. So good landlords, don't be afraid, don't feel like we're attacking you. It's just that if you feel you're a good landlord, hold everybody accountable. Put everybody on the same level. You shouldn't have a problem with saying yes to Good Corps, so that means you're holding yourself accountable along with your fellow landlords because we all have to live in this world together. There's no getting around that. So, and for humanity, open our eyes, think bigger, work together. There's a solution. Just tap into the Community Foundation, which is a wonderful organization here. Thank you.
3:35:44
You sure? Okay, so last week when this— the legislation came out regarding flags and all that I spoke on it, why I was against it. Had nothing to do with Gay Pride, has nothing to do with Juneteenth. It has to do with the wording. And obviously the way I spoke, I must be right, because after our first meeting tonight, we had mad confusion on what it's going to entail. We just listened to the judge say he's going to work with, uh Councilwoman— Councilperson— I'm sorry, uh, Mr. Giorgio. Um, so last week after I voted, I was accused by a certain person that I was against gay pride when I've mentioned that I have gay members of my family. I think I've been on this council for 7 years, and I'm personally friends with all of you— well, most of you— and I think you all know what I stand for. Tonight I was accused that I didn't want to see the Juneteenth flag risen. So if anybody doesn't realize, I have a biracial grandson and I have a biracial grandson coming in 2 weeks. So the bottom line out of any of what I stand for is obviously doing the right thing, okay? Obviously there's mass confusion here regarding this flag legislation. We've seen what we went through tonight, the first week. So I was all set to vote on this resolution because it's a national holiday, until my fellow Councilperson in his district spoke up against different flags. That's what we thought we're talking about. That's what I was concerned about. When we vote for one and the next person comes up, we open ourselves up to saying no to a certain flag, and we open the city up for a lawsuit. So you people need to realize that. So I'm for all the organizations do it the right way, and anybody wants to sit with a stupid smile on their face, feel happy to do that, because I've about had it being accused of stuff that I don't belong doing that. I've never disrespected any of you people on the floor, and I don't need to get disrespected on this floor either.
Unidentified speaker 16:23
Yeah, yeah, but here's the thing. With the arborist, we're putting a lot of trust in that one person. Because what happens with the arborist is, if he says a tree is not dangerous and that same tree falls the next day, we cleared that tree. Right? So you got to trust that arborist that every tree he says isn't dangerous isn't dangerous. Now, he probably, probably, my guess is, errs on the side of saying take the tree down. Which— but then he's cutting people's trees that might not necessarily need to be cut. So, and they're charging them because this is thousands and thousands of dollars. It's not like it's a small charge where we cut your grass, it's $200.