Paul Szmal: And FLX Morning continues on Finger Lakes News Radio, 840, we're at 56. Friday morning means it's time for us to chat with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason who's on with us. Chuck, good morning. How are you?
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Paul. I'm good. How are you doing?
Paul Szmal: Doing well. Doing well.
One of the things that came up on the Auburn City Council agenda last night, as a matter of fact, one of the first items on the agenda was a continuance in a series of what has been a successful program of the sale of real property, this time a parcel at 12 Arch Street in Auburn.
Chuck Mason: That's right. Success is what has happened in the last couple of years since we switched to this process of putting these properties that the city acquires out to sale through a real estate agent. Last night, property down on Arch Street will be sold to a person that's going to fix it up and get it back on the tax rolls and get it back to productive use for the neighborhood. The sale was for $25,000 and the council put in its stamp of approval on this last night and we look forward to another property in a residential area here in Auburn getting back to productive use for the neighborhood.
Paul Szmal: It seems like there are more and more parcels. Every time we have a go over of the City Council agenda from the previous night, it seems like we're talking about at least one or two of these sales almost every week.
Chuck Mason: We are, yeah. The real estate agency, that's their name, they're the real estate agents that handle us. Steve Beyer is the agent and he works really hard to get these city properties out. You can see when you're driving around the city, if you see one of those real estate agency signs in a property, there's a good chance that maybe one of those is one of these city-owned properties that's being marketed out there. We've had a lot of success with this program, so it's been great.
Paul Szmal: And then there was the acceptance of a CRESH grant for replacement flowerpots in downtown.
Chuck Mason: That's right. This is a grant that's been secured by New York State Senator Rachel May for the City of Auburn and the Auburn Downtown bid for what's known as the Flower Power Program, the beautification efforts in downtown. And these self-watering flowerpots, Paul, I'm not sure if you realize this, but we use earth planter self-watering flowerpots and basically they are made right here in Auburn, New York, so it's a very exciting project.
The State of New York Economic Development Agency is having a competition right now and the earth planter company is in contention for coolest product made in New York State. They're one of two finalists in this overall competition that people can go online and vote and that vote is happening during the month of September and it's great. The flowers in downtown Auburn, our people really notice them. They help us to keep downtown looking beautiful and attractive for locals and visitors alike and the earth planter self-watering flowerpots really help it out.
Now we also have a lot of people behind the scenes that make it work, our city DPW and folks over at the downtown bid. Our bid maintenance person is one person that takes care of the flowers all summer. His name is Tom Corey. He's out there every day very early in the morning watering our flowers and stuff but right now we use about 50% of these waterpots and then some of the other 50% of the waterpots are these older pots that aren't the self-watering pots.
So this grant that's been secured by Senator Rachel May will allow us to take the baskets and pots out of the mix that are not in the self-watering category and get 100% pots that are in hanging baskets that are self-watering. And with this company being right here in Auburn, the fact that these pots are made right here by a company in Auburn is even a plus-plus for everything. So this is great news for future beautification efforts of our downtown and we'll probably see these pots in action next summer.
Paul Szmal: And then the next item on the agenda was the awarding of bids for construction in Wall Street Park. This is phase two of this project.
Chuck Mason: That's right. And a lot of people are very excited and really appreciate the new Wall Street Park. But it's only phase one that's been completed. The playground equipment that's been installed already has been enjoyed all summer long. But there's still quite a bit of work that's going to happen down there this fall to complete that project and some more equipment going to be installed and amenities at the park as well.
The council last night awarded the contract for this to local contractor Paul F. Vitale of Auburn, New York here and this work will be done in the fall. As soon as we finalize the paperwork from the United States Department of HUD, as soon as we finalize the program year 2025 CDBG annual action plan paperwork, this project will be underway. So more improvements to come at the Wall Street Playground, which is down on the west end of the city. And I know the neighborhood down there has already provided us with some positive feedback of the changes that have already been made to the park and this will get the job done and complete that work this fall.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning reviewing last night's City Council agenda. The next item was a lease purchase agreement for a replacement fire apparatus.
Chuck Mason: That's right and this is a piece of equipment that's going to replace that was originally secured by the city in 1993. So we have had well over three decades worth of service out of our fire pumper that's going to be replaced, the 1993 Spartan fire pumper and we are going to be replacing it with a 2025 KME Panther pumper, cost of $790,000.
This is an anticipated cost, it's within our five-year capital improvement plan for the city and it's basically accounted for in future city budgeting. And the mayor last night asking the Comptroller to discuss, you know, why we would decide to go with a lease program as opposed to, you know, in the past we've sometimes bonded to finance these larger vehicle purchases and her answer was that with the analysis of current market and interest rates and things, the lease option, the lease purchase option was the most affordable option moving forward for the city. So this is great news for our Auburn Fire Department. The council unanimously supporting this action last night and we definitely got our money's worth out of the 1993 fire pumper and we'll retire that vehicle as soon as the new pumper makes its way to Auburn, but there's probably still some time. I think what happens with these is once the order is placed, you're basically, you still got several months that you're waiting for the equipment to actually arrive. So this will be forthcoming for the Fire Department, but the good news is it's got the ability to get the piece of equipment ordered so that it can get to Auburn as quickly as possible.
Paul Szmal: And then the final item on the agenda was authorizing the Auburn Police Department's renovation project.
Chuck Mason: That's right. This was a change order for the renovation. We've been working down there this summer. Police Chief Ben Androska was on hand last night to report to the council that things have been going really well with the renovation project down at the Police Department. They're renovating the old cell blocks and other underutilized space down there to create some offices and they're replacing windows.
And however, as the summer went on, it is a 94-year-old building and they did come across a couple of other things that they want to get taken care of. So what this change order is going to do is going to free up some additional funding for the Police Department to get a little bit more work done. The amount of the change order was $22,330, bringing the total project down to $177,330 for these renovations down at the Police Department. And according to the Police Chief last night, they're very happy with the progress that's been made down there and like the end results that they've seen so far and look forward to this project wrapping up here over the next few weeks.
Paul Szmal: All right. Chuck, as always, we appreciate the conversation. Thank you and I'll check in with you next Friday. Have a great weekend.
Chuck Mason: Thank you, everybody.
