Common Council Finance Committee

1. 0:06Have you ever No, it's it's on the agenda tonight. network volume. Fine. We just have to wait for I made a couple of changes based on feedback from uh from connection um and from So is this meeting now in session?
2. 0:52You guys meeting now in session.
3. 0:54Great. Yes.
4. 0:56Okay. All right. Let me
5. 0:58So while we're waiting for Heather discuss something very changes that you made.
6. 1:05Yeah. I just I'm just going to find the moment. So, um, DBW I removed because the only change that we were going to make there was, um, sorry, are we on?
7. 1:49Linda just said we are on Linda just said Heather is home sick. She won't be in a tennis tonight.
8. 1:54Oh, okay.
9. 1:54All right. So, the only change that I made was um we had this fee schedule that was uh $1,000 a year for haulers and um uh we had proposed last year making that $200 a week. Well, that was based on a misunderstanding of what that fee actually was. Like it we thought that it was um dumpsters, right?
10. 2:21Oh, sorry. So, we thought that that was there's a microphone here. So, we thought that that was downstairs. When I talked to Rob Perry, that's actually the fee that the uh garbage collection companies, eight of them pay per year to come into Hudson.
11. 2:37Okay.
12. 2:37So, he wanted to just leave it alone uh which I hope was fine. Um so, there were no changes in the beginning. So in code um code enforcement is where I think most of the changes were. Um so we had made various changes that I didn't change to residential and so forth. Nick was fine with plumbing things. Uh what he wanted to do was remove the renewal fee, the $200 renewal fee because we this is for resident plumbers.
13. 3:09For res.
14. 3:10Yes. and uh then the non-resident but he's looking at um trying to turn that into a an in Colombia County plumber would be considered resident and that he wouldn't have always pleased to to be uh a resident plumber and it would only be a plumber outside of Tom County who would pay that $300 for a job. And then um then other change he wanted was on building permits. Um the old thing was 5250 for the first 1,000 and then in 1050 uh per thousand up to 50 and 787.5
15. 3:51for the next range and 5 to 25 beyond that. So you want to simplify that make the baseline minimum payment for up to $1,000 job $60 and then $10 for each $1,000 or fraction thereof above $1,000. simplifies a cont that we have to change and um we already discussed but based on discussions with the clerk's office for the um for the auctions uh we changed that to $30 per auction. Uh I will need to make some code changes to change the language for um uh yeah so tell that I would like to
16. 4:44make changes to the code of language uh to change the um requirement that they provide physical copies of their uh of their because they don't actually produce those for any reason. But we just need to put in language that there's you know they must retain online cataloges for up to and I would recommend seven years but basically they keep them in perpetuity at the moment they have more than
17. 5:11so that's that's it otherwise everything was what we had discussed already um the uh fee schedule for the um parking fines uh because that is actually a fine and it's in the code we need to have a local law which means that we have to put it out for 10 days before we vote on it, etc. I'll do that in the next couple of weeks so that we can vote on that in September. Um, someone had mentioned some other fees which we did not have on that spreadsheet such as the satellite
18. 5:45dish that's as well.
19. 5:51Uh, I have a spreadsheet that spreadsheet
20. 5:58it may not there was also a lot of inaccuracies uh in what was in there compared to what the police department actually has and what's in the code. So there were things that were not my reg.
21. 6:10So I can if there are additional fees that I need to look at or we have to do something
22. 6:14or maybe the uh charter group.
23. 6:17Oh yes. Yes. And actually I think these have no place in the charter.
24. 6:23My opinion the charter should be a high level document about the general structure of government. Okay.
25. 6:38That's all I got.
26. 6:43Um, there we go.
27. 6:49Okay. So, do we have a motion to return?
28. 6:52Do we have any other new business? Not for
29. 6:55not for you talk about any any items that are going above and beyond pleasure.
30. 7:02Well, there is one thing I would bring up. Let me turn off my hearing. I'm having trouble hearing. So, um [clears throat] I guess about 6 weeks ago, I sent out a request for estimates for all legal work from now to the end of the year. This was when we did the budget adjustment for $40,000 to cover expenses last month. Um I have not gotten anything back yet from Mr. Ryan's company. Um I will follow up on that and try and get that. They have um charges
31. 7:43associated with planning board. They have charges associated with various mitigations and they have charges associated with um and I talked to Lauren today. We're going to talk uh they have uh charges associated with um the tax uh uh negations negotiations. I've [clears throat] not got any estimates from them. uh in the bills that we paid this month um from the ministry alone it was I think $89,000 that that the litigation bill that portion of their bill
32. 8:17it was8 I think it was $89,000
33. 8:20$89,000 what just this month
34. 8:22just just for most people for this month it was $39
35. 8:26okay say the announce again
36. 8:29the amount
37. 8:30yes
38. 8:31uh I think it was 89,000 it was 39 hours
39. 8:34$89,000 was $11,000 all together from the month of July.
40. 8:39Oh, $11,000.
41. 8:40Right. If you look at the bills that we paid last month
42. 8:44and one of them was for $11,000 for R.
43. 8:49The reason I need to get that information or those estimates from now to the end of the month is that last month when Ken pulled up the court documents, uh there were a series of things that are occurring this month. Um, so we need to expect that we're going to have another bill for this month for litigation. Um, I did not pay didn't authorize payment on the planning board bills because I had questions about some of the billing that I still haven't gotten answers to. Uh and when I
44. 9:22checked with Lyric earlier in the week or maybe last week or last week, uh currently on that budget line for legal fees, which is like that's all legal fees, it's etc. We have only $16,000 left.
45. 9:40$16,000 out of the what? Out of the 40,000 actually.
46. 9:43Yes. When we put in that 40,000, we're now down to approximately 16,000 which is not going to cover our boats next month. So we have got to get estimates from all of these. I did get estimates from some we need to have estimates so that we can sit down and make a realistic assessment of how much we need to take from the general fund to fund legal expenses. But that is going to be um an overall again look next month we are going to have to do another budget adjustment.
47. 10:12Right. All right. finance for next month. That'll be on the finance agenda for next month, but back sooner.
48. 10:24Yes, informal.
49. 10:26It it'll come up soon, Mark, because it will come up uh at the informal meeting when we have the bills,
50. 10:33right? To do a what? A budget cut. What are you saying? I'm sorry.
51. 10:38I'm sorry. What's
52. 10:39No, you're asking. So, it's going to come up in our next meeting and I'm sorry. is going to come up in our next informal meeting. I believe
53. 10:47because we we paid the balance on two informal meet. We we had initially we did they uh there was a ask for $100,000 extra, right? We scaled that back to $40,000,
54. 10:59but you could cover one month.
55. 11:02But we're going to realize that we're going through that 40 grand already. So I guess
56. 11:08and also when we asked when we said let's make a couple,000 I sent out a request for estimates from all of the firms that are doing legal work for the person to give me an estimate from now to the end of the year so that we could make a realistic adjustment to the budget to cover legal events from now to the end of the year. But I did not get responses from the company that does most of the legal work and we need to get that.
57. 11:35Sorry. I'm sorry.
58. 11:38But okay. So, so that's an issue.
59. 11:40Yes, it's an issue.
60. 11:41It has to be dissolved before.
61. 11:43Yes.
62. 11:44So, we because we're already over budget and it's going to have to come out and that much money,
63. 11:52right?
64. 11:54So, yeah. I don't know. the only
65. 12:01and for the um
66. 12:08is this uh for the um park grant $110,000 for the park grant for tonight has that been allocated in which
67. 12:17there is no the thing that is that Peter Frank is presenting tonight has not got any margin funds associated
68. 12:24it doesn't
69. 12:24no
70. 12:25I thought on that last sheet of the presentation it shows city 100 pound.
71. 12:31Uh I was probably there was not matching money on this. That's a question you're asking.
72. 12:40Yeah. I think I think though uh Rich that that is um that is something that was decided maybe two years ago and then it was it came back up again sheet behind the back sheet.
73. 13:05Yeah. Yeah. But about 110 is associated with the EPF, not with the quest. What he's talking about tonight are the quests, right?
74. 13:17They do not have and we've already voted
75. 13:20to uh approve the 110.
76. 13:23Right. So
77. 13:24that was last year.
78. 13:25Okay. So So that 110 is no longer in the it's been allocated. It's not
79. 13:30That's a question for Heather. I don't know whether she's on
80. 13:37but the questions do you know if I change okay that's all the question there
81. 13:47okay
82. 13:48all right anything else
83. 13:51com anyone public comments yeah you have one okay films Well, okay. Motion Motion to Motion to second. All in favor? I I thank you very much.

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