Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning. It is 841. We're joined by Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason to recap last night's City Council meeting. Chuck, good morning. How are you this morning?
Chuck Mason: I'm good. As soon as we get these thunderstorms to roll through Auburn, we'll be much better.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. Hang tight because they'll be through pretty quickly.
The meeting started off yesterday with a couple of proclamations.
Chuck Mason: That's right, and a big one this month is National Historic Preservation Month and last night we were joined by Seward House Museum officials. Billy Chabot, the Executive Director, and Mitch Manisha, the Facilities Manager. It's a big day for the Seward House Museum as they will be cutting the ribbon today on their new barn and carriage house restoration project at the site of the Seward House and this was a great project which had support from the City of Auburn, DRI, Downtown Revitalization Program, American Rescue Act Program, a Save America's Treasures grant from the National Parks, and an EPF Parks grant from New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, along with numerous foundation and individual donors. This was quite an accomplishment for the Seward House Museum and a perfect project to illustrate the power of historic preservation. It puts the barn and carriage house back into use after basically a hundred years of sitting vacant and it will soon house the barn and the carriage house will soon house the restored carriage that was owned by William Seward back in the day and that'll be arriving probably later this year. But there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony today at the Seward House Museum 11 a.m. and hopefully the rain clears out by then and it'll be a great way to celebrate not only their accomplishment of this significant project, but to show the world that Auburn takes historic preservation seriously and what a great way to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month.
Now the second proclamation was for the Harriet Tubman Pilgrimage Weekend, which is this weekend the AMA Zion Church 51st Annual Harriet Tubman Pilgrimage brings hundreds of people to town from from far out to usually people travel up from down south quite a few people and they'll be staying in the hotels over the weekend in Auburn and celebrating all the events. There is a lot of activities planned for the Harriet Tubman Pilgrimage Weekend. We recognize and thank the AME Zion Church for their efforts to organize this every year and mark a significant, it's a significant way to celebrate the legacy of Harriet Tubman and to keep her story going. And there will be events at the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park site, Thompson Memorial AME Zion Church down on Parker Street. There will be events at the Fort Hill Cemetery at the grave site and the big event is up at Auburn High School on Saturday where there will be some guest speakers and a major ceremony to mark the weekend. So the mayor last night recognizing the officials from the AME Zion Church and thanking them for all of their efforts.
And third and finally Paul, it's National Tennis Month as well. So we had the proclamation last night for National Tennis Month and if Mother Nature cooperates we will be celebrating National Tennis Day here in Auburn on Saturday tomorrow at Clifford Park 9 a.m. Till noon in the morning. If you're a tennis enthusiast come on out and join some other tennis enthusiasts here in Auburn and celebrate the sport of tennis at Clifford Park that's on May 17th 9 a.m. Till noon to celebrate National Tennis Month.
One of the centerpieces of the meeting last night was the Cable Franchise Renewal Agreement with the, between the City of Auburn and Verizon New York.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: And the current agreement in place with Verizon was a 15-year agreement which was adopted in 2010. That agreement expires this year. So Verizon reached out to the city with the desire to renew the agreement. It has now been renewed. There was a public hearing last night. There was actually no speakers at the public hearing but the council after the public hearing considering the approval of the renewal contract and the contract has now been renewed for a five-year period with Verizon. Verizon is one of two cable television providers here in the City of Auburn and the franchising agreement allows them to use the public right-of-ways and subway tunnels that we have for utilities down here in downtown Auburn for the next five years.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason here on FLX Morning. There was also a resolution to improve salary increases for the Auburn Housing Authority last night.
Chuck Mason: That's right. And this is written into state law. The Housing Authority is its own entity and organization. However whenever there's decisions with the employment there, it does need to get the approval of the Auburn City Council. We usually see one of these resolutions annually from the Housing Authority. They have a small staff but it does not affect the city's budget. They are their own organization and they have their own funding and their own budget. It's just there's a technicality in the law that says that any increases for the job positions within the authority need to receive the approval of the Auburn City Council. So the council last night unanimously supporting the efforts of the Auburn Housing Authority to conduct their business. And like I said, Paul, that does not affect the city finances at all. There's no zero impact on the city's budget for that.
There is also the authorization of some equipment sales and some miscellaneous items as part of the procurement and surplus policy.
Paul Szmal: That's right.
Chuck Mason: And this is the second resolution that we've had in the last few weeks as we do some spring cleaning around city buildings and stuff and there's a list of about a half dozen city vehicles. Some have just been acquired through probably some police arrests and things like that. The list is going to be on the Auctions International website. The council approved last night for these and they are definitely older vehicles but to do our due diligence and make sure we get our best value, we usually put these types of items out for a public auction and try to recoup some revenue off of these even though they're pretty much they're vehicles that are pretty much at the end of their useful life, but there's always somebody that's interested in purchasing these things. We've deemed them not useful for anybody within the city organization. No city department claimed any of these vehicles, so they will be out to auction and it's all being done in accordance with our city's procurement and surplus policy, as you said.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and there is also the sale of some real property at 25 Lafayette Place that was on the agenda last night.
Chuck Mason: Right, and we've it seems, Paul, that we will mention these real property transaction resolutions frequently in our discussions. This is a program we started over a couple of years ago where we retain the services of a local realtor happens to be named the Real Estate Agency and Steve Byer is the real estate agent that works with the city and he does a great job of getting these properties that the city has taken ownership of and you know, the intent is to get these back into the useful life in these neighborhoods that they're located and this property on Lafayette Street is being sold to an individual that intends to renovate the property so that they themselves will live there in the future and it's a great another success story under this program of returning this property that's off the tax rules now back out to the tax rules.
And the final item we want to talk about this morning is the setting up of the public hearing for the annual budget.
Paul Szmal: That's right, and that'll be next week at the council meeting.
Chuck Mason: This is kind of a final reminder resolution, you know in the in the process we started out the year by adopting the budget calendar which basically set the date of May 22nd for the public hearing. The public hearing has actually been advertised in the newspaper for the last couple of weeks. It'll continue to be advertised through May 22nd but this resolution last night being kind of a final reminder and that budget the final version of the budget as it stands will be posted for next week's agenda. So that'll be forthcoming and the council's done a lot of work as you know since the beginning of April the last several last half dozen council meetings have been dedicated very thoroughly to budget presentations and budget discussion. And state budget was a little late this year, but now we've got all the numbers from the state budget and there was some good news in there for the budget. So the council next week will hold the public hearing on the budget and as well as the public hearing on local law number one, which is the consideration of exceeding the state tax cap. So two public hearings at next week's council meeting all budget related and next week on May 22nd also just happens to be city manager Jeff Dygert's final city council meeting. So it'll be a a heck of a night for him to go out with two public hearings and some final thoughts and decisions on the the annual budget for the next year. But after his tenure of long tenure of service with the city over 30 years and close to 10 years now as city manager city manager Jeff Dygert will be retiring at the end of the month and May 22nd will be his final council meeting.
Paul Szmal: Well, we certainly wish him the best. As always Chuck, we appreciate the insight. Thank you, sir.
Chuck Mason: Paul, thank you. Have a great weekend everybody. It is 8 52 on FLX morning.
