Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.37 FLX Morning, the Auburn City Council got back to it after a fifth week of the month and no meeting last week, so we're joined as we are almost every week by Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason. Good morning, welcome back.
Chuck Mason: Hey, good morning, Ted.
Paul Szmal: At last night's meeting, Mayor Genitino unveiled the ceremonial proclamation for Veterans Day, so tell us about the city's observance that begins Monday at 11 a.m.
Chuck Mason: That's correct. The annual tradition of the community Veterans Day ceremony will be held this Monday on Veterans Day. It'll be 11 a.m. at Veterans Memorial Park downtown next to the county office building. The event will be held rain or shine. Right now on my phone, it looks like the weather will cooperate with temperatures being in the mid-50s on Monday at about that time, and Mayor Genitino will be on hand.
Terry Winslow will be there to provide the emcee through the ceremony. One of the mayor's uncles, Tom Genitino, is an Air Force veteran. He will be a speaker. Kevin Schwab from the Kew County Veterans Service Agency will be on hand, and Kevin will be presenting the Kew County Veterans Award to United States Marine Corps veteran John High as part of the ceremony as well. We invite the public to come out and, you know, show your support and thanks for our community's veterans. Very important day, always one of my favorite ceremonies that we have throughout the year.
And then a second thing that's going on this winter for our veterans that I just wanted to point out is our Open Skate has started down at the Casey Park Ice Rink for the winter season. And Open Skate hours are Friday nights, Saturday nights, and Sundays in the afternoons. And thanks to the efforts of the Kew County Veterans Service Agency, they're running a program with the city to provide free ice skating all winter long for veterans. So a great opportunity for veterans to come out and enjoy the ice rink in the wintertime at the Open Public Skate. And that's a program that's being coordinated by the Kew County Veterans Service Office. And again, the ceremonies begin Monday at 11 a.m. Veterans Memorial Park on Genesee Street in Auburn.
And we've got another land sale, another property. In this case, it's a, I believe it was a multifamily home that's going to be rehabbed and put back on the tax rolls on Nelson Street.
Paul Szmal: That's correct.
Chuck Mason: And in this land sale at 10 Nelson Street, the city received a couple of offers on this one. It's a house that's been on the market for this year. The city foreclosed on it last year in December. And we did receive a couple of offers and the city decided to sell to the one offer that was actually lesser money. But there were some conditions with the offer that was for more money, which was asking the city to hold the mortgage for a couple of year period of time to see whether or not a grant opportunity would be able to come in to help the people restore the grant.
So the council, the city staff ultimately recommended to the council that it be sold to the buyer that was just going to buy it at the slightly lesser cost or lesser amount and get ready to work on the renovations of it. And so the decision was made last night by the council to sell it to that individual and try to find the Michael urban is the name of the person that's going to be buying this property. Now, a couple of things that I'll tell you about this property. It is a very, very, very big residential house in this in this neighborhood, very big. And it's got some structural issues with one particular wall in the house. So the council really thought it was in the best interest at the staff's recommendation to get this into the hands of somebody that was going to be able to get right to work on it. And that's why they that's why they made the decision ultimately to sell it. I believe one offer was for $36,000. The second offer that they went with was for $20,000. But the $36,000 offer would have been in the city has never before on any of these projects held the mortgage for anybody while they're waiting for things to line up. So council making the decision accordingly.
There was in some routine bookkeeping, the city staff found some unspent bond funds from a bridge project. And so those are going to be put into what's called a debt reserve fund. And then in the future, if any money comes in like that, it'll be used to lower future debt.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: As well as there was another resolution last night that we closed out an old project from the fire station, which we bought some new fire station equipment, closed out that bond, it was like, only $13 remaining in there. But a lot of these resolutions, they'll come up from time to time will be will be kind of routine when we're at the end of some of these projects.
But our city controller, Mary Beth Leason, she has been working hard over the last year that she's been on board with us. I think she's over the year mark now. Heading into her second year here where she's really tightening things up and cleaning things up for us and making sure that we're doing everything according to, you know, state and federal rules and regulations and how things are to be appropriately done. I know that our annual independent audit is underway. Auditor's been at city hall for the last couple of weeks. So very important that we always have the council take care of the business that the council needs to be taken care of.
And then part of that, especially as we get towards the end of the year, is just some routine transfers. If one account has more than it needs and another account has less, you can move that money around.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: One of our budget resolutions last night was pretty much the final budget resolution for the 2023-24 fiscal year as we kind of close out that year. That's the year that is under audit at the moment. It's the healthy audit, the independent audit in which we, you know, review our own internal procedures and that audit result will be reported out probably come January.
Another resolution last night was to approve a couple of in-kind gifts from two local businesses, Nucor Steel and JD Statewide Restorations.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: And you know, it's amazing how sometimes the community is just sometimes generous and it's amazing how sometimes people will just step up and help the city out when we've got certain projects going on. And we've replaced the scale house down at the city transfer station, the old landfill, new project that came in and we needed a little bit of steel to get that project done and Nucor stepped up and made a donation of the steel. And Nucor, obviously, our biggest steel manufacturing employer here in town and the long history of Nucor Steel, the old Auburn Steel Company.
And then JD Statewide Restorations helped with some roofing repairs down at the Auburn Police Department. The Auburn Police Department building, you know, about 93, 94 years old now and has one of those old slate roofs and it's kind of a tricky building. And so we thank Nucor Steel and we thank JD Statewide Restorations for their generous work and working with us on these two projects. And it's just a good way to recognize them at a council meeting with one of these resolutions to, you know, thank them for their support.
So we've been hearing about this in the news this week, the stone wall that goes around the pond at Hoops Park is about 100 years old and showing its age. And so Mike Talbot did a presentation last night on the plan to fix it up.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: We wanted to get this presentation out because this is a construction project that's actually better off to do the work in the wintertime when usually the pond, the flow of water into the pond is a little lower. It's usually not as much going on at the park in the wintertime, although people will still use the walking trails and stuff on a daily basis. But there will be plenty of construction activity around the pond this winter. There'll be dredging work and then repair of the pond wall.
And so Mike Talbot last night very kind of carefully with a lot of pictures showing the council the current conditions of the Hoops Park pond wall and kind of explaining to them all the work that will be done over these next few months. And a couple of things. We will be working in partnership with Kew County Soil and Water Conservation District. They'll be doing some of this work when it comes to the dredging of the pond. And then this project received a New York State grant and it actually received a New York State grant from Senator John Mannion when he was our senator three and four years ago. So $150,000 state grant going towards this work.
And with the election that was just held, Senator John Mannion is now going to be Congressman John Mannion and he will be back representing us here in the City of Auburn just at the federal level rather than the state level. So we thank him for his efforts when he was our state senator three and four years ago to secure this grant for us. And we just want to get the word out to the public that this construction activity, which has been well planned out, we've really had this project on the books for three or four years now planning this thing out and it will actually take place this wintertime. And we'll have a shored up pond wall and things will be spruced up up there looking good for the spring.
And then we're getting close. Time to start making plans to attend the annual holiday parade.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: The holiday parade and the city's tree lighting ceremony, believe it or not, everybody is only about three weeks away. It's hard to think that we've got to start thinking about this kind of stuff. But we do.
Paul Szmal: Oh, actually, good news. One, two. Yeah. Oh, shoot. Yeah. It is only three weeks away. Three weeks and a couple of days away.
Chuck Mason: Right. Yeah. Whatever. So anyways, I'm looking at my calendar here. November 30th.
Now, the Auburn Downtown Business Improvement District is the sponsor of the parade. The city will help them with the logistics of the parade and stuff, but they're the organization that really heads up the holiday parade. There's going to be all kinds of activities that afternoon downtown at the Heritage Center and then at some of the businesses throughout downtown. They'll be publicizing widely all the details of that afternoon, but the parade will come through downtown at 5 p.m. and then at 6 p.m. following the parade, there will be a tree lighting ceremony.
And the tree lighting ceremony this year is going to be held in the courtyard of the Equal Rights Heritage Center because we wanted to pull people out of the road. When we would hold the ceremony on the steps of City Hall, people would kind of spill out into the street, and we just want to get away from using the street. So we're going to have the ceremony up on the courtyard of the Heritage Center. There's going to be some singing groups this year. It's going to be a much bigger tree lighting ceremony. We've got the Genesee Street Voices coming down, and they'll be doing some songs at the beginning of the ceremony.
And then the Auburn High School Marching Band will be there to play some holiday music. The band had asked to participate in the tree lighting ceremony rather than the parade because last year, there were some safety concerns with the large crowd on the street at night in the dark, you know, marching down the parade. It was hard for the band to get through some sections, so they're going to play for a stationary at the Equal Rights Courtyard. And then, of course, Mayor Genetino will be joined by some very special guests, Mr. and Mrs. Claus, as they light the tree.
And this will be the first year that we hold this thing over at the Equal Rights Heritage Center right across the street from City Hall, but we're really planning a bigger and better tree lighting ceremony. And we invite everybody, as soon as that parade is over, come on over to the Heritage Center. There's going to be great music with these two musical groups, and then there's going to be the tree lighting with Santa Claus, and it'll be just a great night to be out and about in downtown Auburn on Saturday, November 30th. Just three weeks.
Paul Szmal: Sounds good. Three weeks and one day away. Make your plans.
All right, Chuck, thanks for everything, as always. Appreciate it.
Chuck Mason: Thank you, Ted. Have a great weekend, everybody.
