Life22

Day 13,476 - Olean Alderman Update 2 & CHIPS Funding.mp3
Transcript
00:00:06 Kevin
Again, Kevin here like 22 and we're having a beautiful morning.
00:00:07 Kevin
No.
00:00:13 Kevin
Testing out the microphone seemed a bit soft, so we upped the gain a little.
00:00:18 Kevin
Sounds fine on our end, but let us know in the comments below if there's an issue. If it's too loud.
00:00:24 Kevin
But.
00:00:25 Kevin
Other than that.
00:00:28 Kevin
Today I was gonna delve into tax increases, but I kind of wanted to just I wanted to.
00:00:37 Kevin
Started reading through Alderman Facebook pages to see the announcements on the other Alderman.
00:00:45 Kevin
So as discussed yesterday, we had.
00:00:49 Kevin
Joe Carey threw into the race for Ward 2.
00:00:52 Kevin
There's been no additional mayoral candidates.
00:00:55 Kevin
There's been grumblings that some of them, you know, that there there may be one mayoral candidate that might not pass petitions, but you know it's one of those.
00:01:06 Kevin
Things like that, you know, but.
00:01:11 Kevin
Everybody gets those when they, you know, like I'm going to run for mayor and then they should I run and then they, you know, either they and then they just do it, you know, or they or they don't it and they just pass petition, you know, so like.
00:01:25 Kevin
Yesterday there I noticed there was somebody that the administrator for 14760 called fake.
00:01:32 Kevin
Fake candidacy. There was a guy that posted on there that he was running for.
00:01:36 Kevin
So if I mean if he passes petitions and he makes a formal announcement, not just on Facebook, then we'll see.
00:01:46 Kevin
But so far this person hasn't reached out to anybody else.
00:01:48 Kevin
Obviously boom.
00:01:49 Kevin
So like obviously there's, you know there's a there's a bunch of people that are we speculating that they're going to.
00:01:55 Kevin
There was a bunch of people that have come to me and told me that they were going, that they've heard that like, five more people were going to end up running for mayor.
00:02:03 Kevin
Making it a real free for all, which I doubt that's going to happen. I doubt we're really going to see any more candidates kind of slide in.
00:02:12 Kevin
It's petition passing time, so I mean, really, I mean, the the gun has gone off at the at the start line and so the finishes the finish is only a month away to get those petitions passed. And it is work.
00:02:25 Kevin
If you were really desperate to do it halfway through petition season.
00:02:29 Kevin
Which I like I said. Petition season is a month, so if you're willing.
00:02:32 Kevin
Do.
00:02:32 Kevin
In two weeks, which is very difficult to achieve just because you know it's 160 signatures that you going out on weekends, that's you going out pounding doors.
00:02:41 Kevin
In the evenings, you're not gonna go in the middle of the day.
00:02:45 Kevin
Unless I am pretty sure you might be able to pull like your walking list with the category of how much?
00:02:53 Kevin
Like the age, like birthdays of people. And I'm not sure. I think that. I think that's that demographic is available for you. So you can pick voters over 70, you know or whatever.
00:03:05 Kevin
Who might be over 55? Who should be home? 65 Who should be home?
00:03:10 Kevin
And then this way you can actually go through and.
00:03:16 Kevin
You can go through and say.
00:03:17 Kevin
Well, this person should be home during the day, but maybe they're, you know, maybe they mail in because they're in a hospital bed or whatever.
00:03:25 Kevin
It is.
00:03:28 Kevin
It is one of those things, but yeah, you really. You really got to focus on door knocking on nights and weekends and then you're hoping that people don't have anything going on at their home and people are kind of busy.
00:03:41 Kevin
People are busy in general, so you really you really kind of stock, you know, so.
00:03:48 Kevin
Anyways, that said, that's the mayor's race.
00:03:50 Kevin
The update obviously, Joe Carey's running for Ward 2.
00:03:53 Kevin
His wife, he.
00:03:56 Kevin
He must have posted it yesterday or over the.
00:03:58 Kevin
I know on when I hopped on Facebook this morning, his wife had shared his post on a page that he created.
00:04:05 Kevin
So I encourage everybody from Ward 2 or if you're just curious about politics in general, to go through and read each one of these. I found the incumbents ones.
00:04:16 Kevin
Just like yesterday, we'll start with Dave.
00:04:19 Kevin
Dave had.
00:04:22 Kevin
Of course.
00:04:28 Kevin
All right, Dave, Anastasia.
00:04:30 Kevin
So he made an announcement back.
00:04:32 Kevin
He doesn't have an Alderman.
00:04:33 Kevin
He just has his own personal Facebook page, so Dave announced at the end, which last Thursday the 27th of February that he was seeking re election for Ward.
00:04:44 Kevin
Thanked his constituents for having trust in him.
00:04:48 Kevin
Short, sweet. Pithy, right?
00:04:50 Kevin
And then he shared the Cattaraugus County Democratic Committee.
00:04:55 Kevin
Which gave like the who's who of Democratic endorsements.
00:04:59 Kevin
They're endorsing Dave, Dave, Anastasia for Ward 7, Sonia McCall for Ward 4 cross, endorsing Amy Sherburn for Mayor, cross endorsing Vernon Robinson cause OK.
00:05:08 Kevin
He is? Yes. Like I thought I said the other day.
00:05:11 Kevin
He is an independent, so non affiliated.
00:05:14 Kevin
So that means he doesn't have a party, which is what it is.
00:05:21 Kevin
And then they go into Alderman for the town Council of Allegheny superintendents superintendents.
00:05:29 Kevin
All the pretty much the town of Olean. S valley.
00:05:34 Kevin
Great valley. Just a bunch of different.
00:05:39 Kevin
Stuff and then in addition to this post from last Thursday, Dave has a ton of.
00:05:46 Kevin
Just.
00:05:48 Kevin
Anti Trump memes. Like that's that's like 90% of his Facebook is anti.
00:05:52 Kevin
It's like man post about the city, like you're feeding the algorithm, baby.
00:06:00 Kevin
Knock it off, Dave.
00:06:02 Kevin
Like if you don't like the guy, it's like 1 simple.
00:06:04 Kevin
People know your position is, but like if this is going to be your Alderman page and your personal page like you constantly having anti Trump stuff is going to.
00:06:12 Kevin
I mean, it'll satiate some voters, but it's going to turn off a lot of other people 'cause it makes you think that you just only care about the national.
00:06:19 Kevin
You only you know it's if you only had state news on there, you'd only care about the state, right?
00:06:23 Kevin
We're talking about local stuff like.
00:06:26 Kevin
You know it is what it is, but that's my little critique of Dave. I know Dave very well.
00:06:32 Kevin
And let's see here so.
00:06:36 Kevin
Because I can split both of them up into two Sony McCall for Ward 4, as Dave's previous post had mentioned, she got named the Democratic the city of Oleans Democratic Chairman.
00:06:47 Kevin
She would head up the Democratic Committee for.
00:06:51 Kevin
An in Olean is.
00:06:52 Kevin
So we have our own like City Republican Committee and we have our county committee.
00:06:57 Kevin
Then for the Dems, they have the same.
00:07:00 Kevin
And I can't remember how it works.
00:07:02 Kevin
Was like by.
00:07:03 Kevin
One of them was actually a separate entity, and I think that might have been the Dems.
00:07:09 Kevin
I think that there are separate entity and we just.
00:07:14 Kevin
I can't can't remember off top my head. It's a it's it's. It's like one of those weird tiny.
00:07:21 Kevin
It's a syntax error like nobody really. It's not really important.
00:07:24 Kevin
Important until until it is and then. But like nobody really.
00:07:27 Kevin
You guys don't care.
00:07:29 Kevin
Anyways, she's announcing that and that, you know, all what the pretty much what Dave's post she summarizes it in like 5 sentences, but also pointing out that she's running for re.
00:07:40 Kevin
So again, pithy, short and sweet, I'm gonna close out.
00:07:44 Kevin
I'm gonna close out Dave's and then that's why we saved the longest one for last, which is Vernon.
00:07:52 Kevin
And he made this post back on the 21st of February, I believe the Tuesday after and it was first thing in the morning.
00:08:00 Kevin
So yeah, there was the Tuesday after.
00:08:03 Kevin
Tuesday, after President's day. So. Umm.
00:08:12 Kevin
The the Tuesday after Presidents Day.
00:08:22 Kevin
Man, sorry, just.
00:08:27 Kevin
Yeah, the Tuesday after President's day. Looks like he made this post.
00:08:30 Kevin
It is.
00:08:31 Kevin
Long.
00:08:32 Kevin
I read all of this one, so I I do.
00:08:37 Kevin
I like this actually after reading this post. I'm very excited to start getting you know, incumbents, newcomers and candidates for Alderman and mayor on the show. Getting a one-on-one conversation with them, I think is really going to just add transparency to the race and this.
00:08:56 Kevin
Like.
00:08:57 Kevin
Me and Vernon disagree on a lot of different topics.
00:09:00 Kevin
There's certain things in here that I would critique.
00:09:04 Kevin
That like I just from my standpoint, I would disagree with and just how he's going about it. But for the most part like he, he does a very good job.
00:09:14 Kevin
In kind of summarizing a lot of different things and potential issues that you know, even just as an Alderman trying to come up with a budget trying to feather the line between a tax increase and.
00:09:24 Kevin
You know, 'cause, nobody wants tax increases, but no, which is going to be my topic for today, which was.
00:09:31 Kevin
You know, tax increases, tax rates, things like that for property taxes, which will probably dive into a little bit more tomorrow.
00:09:38 Kevin
But yeah, it's tax taxes, man.
00:09:42 Kevin
They're but like this is this is the struggle is real.
00:09:44 Kevin
I invite everybody to go read that post as well.
00:09:47 Kevin
It was on his Alderman page, I believe he posted it.
00:09:52 Kevin
This is a different page.
00:09:53 Kevin
Have.
00:09:53 Kevin
It was like a share from it was a share on to a union, but like it was posted on here, so I'm surprised.
00:10:00 Kevin
But then again, Facebook's algorithms are.
00:10:02 Kevin
So how they like post things on his?
00:10:04 Kevin
We're jumping all over the place from last fall to current date back to last fall, to current day to two years ago.
00:10:10 Kevin
That's how everything showed up to me anyways.
00:10:14 Kevin
But it was stated on the state union.
00:10:16 Kevin
I know what it drove a lot of controversy with with constituents.
00:10:23 Kevin
And city.
00:10:25 Kevin
And you know what, I.
00:10:26 Kevin
There's, like, you know, he's, you know, with downties the city workforce. It is the biggest expense in which it is this biggest expense.
00:10:32 Kevin
Like people always talk about downsizing it and they never.
00:10:35 Kevin
And then obviously like if you're in a group of people that might be downsized, like you're going to, it's going to stir some controversy like, look what?
00:10:41 Kevin
Trying to do like well.
00:10:43 Kevin
But sometimes you people panic because.
00:10:46 Kevin
They just they like to.
00:10:47 Kevin
They they see something that you know, but.
00:10:52 Kevin
It is what it.
00:10:52 Kevin
But no, he I got to give Vernon this, though. He's always very transparent.
00:10:56 Kevin
He tells you what's on his.
00:10:58 Kevin
He is on, you know, whether what's on his mind is, you know the right thing.
00:11:07 Kevin
Do I agree with it? Sometimes, sometimes not. You know, so.
00:11:10 Kevin
But telling you how it is, he's telling you what he how he sees it, right?
00:11:15 Kevin
And I've got to give him that.
00:11:16 Kevin
And and transparency usually don't see that from too many Alderman.
00:11:21 Kevin
A lot of.
00:11:21 Kevin
Just kind of like, oh, there's a big.
00:11:23 Kevin
Let's just keep our heads down and the, you know, the the smoke. Let the smoke settle and then.
00:11:28 Kevin
You know, let the dust settle.
00:11:29 Kevin
And then we can pick up where we left off and just doing whatever they were doing. And nobody likes to take that, you know, kind of abuse, but that's what you when you're in public office, you're supposed to be taking, taking abuse from people that disagree with you.
00:11:42 Kevin
Supposed to be taking.
00:11:43 Kevin
You know, it's not always just handshaking and be like, thanks for doing a great job.
00:11:47 Kevin
That's not. That's not what it is.
00:11:49 Kevin
What it is is is an angle that you're getting from everybody. People that agree with you people that disagree with you, you're going to hear more from people that disagree with you because the people that agree with you like they're not going to just call you and be.
00:12:00 Kevin
I agree with you. Thank you.
00:12:02 Kevin
Like yeah, that happens once in awhile, but it's more more likely than not. People are motivated to do something because it they have disdain for it or they're, you know, they're they disagree with it in some way, shape or form.
00:12:14 Kevin
So here comes the school buses. It is a beautiful it's a beautiful morning here in Western New York.
00:12:27 Kevin
So let's see here and then at the end of his.
00:12:32 Kevin
At the end of his.
00:12:35 Kevin
Which is his post here at the end of his post here, he even talks about it like I'm I'm open ears.
00:12:43 Kevin
I'm all ears for. Let's see here.
00:12:45 Kevin
Can go on to numerous topics.
00:12:48 Kevin
I'm all.
00:12:49 Kevin
He's, you know, he wants constructive criticism. For example, like this. And this isn't like, this isn't really tearing it.
00:12:52 Kevin
Like this?
00:12:55 Kevin
I'm not really delving into any of the topics, I'm just kind of looking at it, but like he wrote the most so I'm going to.
00:13:01 Kevin
Going to delve into this a little bit, but yeah, no, I mean.
00:13:06 Kevin
Let's.
00:13:06 Kevin
Yeah. So he's looking for constructive.
00:13:08 Kevin
He's also looking for solutions, so like sometimes constructive criticism helps you get to a solution sometimes.
00:13:17 Kevin
Sometimes you just have a solution, but sometimes you have to just kind of go back and forth and have that conversation, that debate, so that.
00:13:24 Kevin
A group.
00:13:25 Kevin
Like the Common Council can come to a solution.
00:13:27 Kevin
Can't just.
00:13:28 Kevin
This is my path.
00:13:30 Kevin
And then and then you have people like vultures that just pick it apart.
00:13:34 Kevin
Well, if it's a strong enough idea or solution it you should allow it to be, you know.
00:13:41 Kevin
Kind of let people attempt to disembowel your idea, right?
00:13:46 Kevin
We present ideas to the world so that they may die and we will not. If you just embody an idea and just go out into the world, it's a really bad idea.
00:13:55 Kevin
You get eaten, you get, you get you know what I mean? Like.
00:13:59 Kevin
People will like nail you to it. If you present an idea, people can pick it apart and kill that idea.
00:14:06 Kevin
And if it's strong enough, you can kind of bring it back. Nurse it back to health, fix the different things that were broken about it, that the weaknesses tweak them, make it stronger.
00:14:17 Kevin
Build on it and then send it back out into the world.
00:14:20 Kevin
Why debates are?
00:14:21 Kevin
That's why conversations are great.
00:14:22 Kevin
So you're going to be able to do stuff like that, bring it forward, bring forward an idea, have it picked apart, take it back, mend it.
00:14:30 Kevin
You know, don't just, you know, you're not just bringing back with the same exact idea.
00:14:34 Kevin
Making tweaks, things like.
00:14:35 Kevin
You present it back to the world and it's and it's less likely to be pulled apart.
00:14:43 Kevin
And and that's that's how ideas like can live on and then at some point you can embody an idea as a belief or as a strongly suited idea that you can kind of wear around your neck and.
00:14:56 Kevin
And be able to take criticism for it and and not be killed, right?
00:15:00 Kevin
That's the. That's the idea behind ideas, right? So.
00:15:06 Kevin
But if you start looking at.
00:15:10 Kevin
I believe it was like th white I think wrote the you present your ideas to the world so that you they did.
00:15:16 Kevin
Will die and you will not. So but constructive.
00:15:18 Kevin
He's inviting that in the bottom of his his excerpt here, which is very long excerpt, but I do encourage everybody to read.
00:15:24 Kevin
Joe Carey's from Ward 2, Sonia Mccall's posts read their pages.
00:15:29 Kevin
Dave Anastasia's from Ward 7 and Vernon's from Ward 6.
00:15:35 Kevin
But if you start looking through so the one thing I did want to talk about here before I have to go for the day is and leave you leave you into this abyss without my soothing voice.
00:15:47 Kevin
Is he talks about CHIP funding.
00:15:49 Kevin
It was just one of like, a little point of contention and I think a lot of people have an issue with CHIP funding and St. investment and things like that.
00:15:56 Kevin
And this is one of the things that the Council has gone down a road about for years and just.
00:16:02 Kevin
Never.
00:16:08 Kevin
If you have a roof right at your house and you know you know roof should be good for 25 years and every year you let it.
00:16:18 Kevin
None.
00:16:22 Kevin
You have 10 years left of your roof, right?
00:16:25 Kevin
Like OK, I have 10 years left of my roof.
00:16:30 Kevin
I really should have been saving, you know, taking the cost of a roof with inflation over 25 years and done your planning right. So nobody ever plans, right?
00:16:39 Kevin
Ever plans?
00:16:39 Kevin
Like how many of you at home think about your the roof on your house and then you say, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to take my roof.
00:16:45 Kevin
It cost me $10,000 for this roof to be completely torn off and replaced.
00:16:51 Kevin
I am going to take the cost of that roof, multiply it by 1.5.
00:16:57 Kevin
1.5%, you know get like add a percentage every year, increase it. So you would multiply the the non percentage multiplier would be 1.015 and then that would give you your 1 1/2 percent increase on inflation every single year so.
00:17:13 Kevin
You would multiply that, right? Umm.
00:17:15 Kevin
Or multiply that by the power of 25.
00:17:19 Kevin
And I'm going to yell that from not being a good mathematician here, but so anyways, you're going to mold it for the simple.
00:17:26 Kevin
For us simpletons, you're going to multiply that one point, and then you can do it again and again, and again and again, and you're going to compound that 1.5% increase every year, because after year one, you're going to have that number.
00:17:36 Kevin
And then it's going to.
00:17:37 Kevin
By another 1 1/2 percent.
00:17:40 Kevin
And so, but like on the total of the previous year's increase, so and you say?
00:17:46 Kevin
Here's my total after 25 years and now I need to divide that number by 25 and that'll give you a rough estimate on how much you should be saving every year for your roof.
00:17:57 Kevin
I used to get into arguments with my father on this because he would say, well, you, you know when your roof comes up, you just replace it.
00:18:02 Kevin
Like what did you have you been saving?
00:18:04 Kevin
Where's the money coming?
00:18:05 Kevin
Roofs don't just fall out of the sky.
00:18:08 Kevin
If they fell out of the sky, you have to worry about replacing your roof more often because we'd be hit by other roofs.
00:18:14 Kevin
So I always had a rule of thumb is every every apartment unit or every home you should be banking a minimum of $250 a month just for general maintenance and repairs.
00:18:26 Kevin
It's actually probably a lot larger than that, but that's a good starting point.
00:18:30 Kevin
And people don't really think about that.
00:18:31 Kevin
But.
00:18:32 Kevin
So your roofs for example.
00:18:35 Kevin
Are very similar to that.
00:18:37 Kevin
So you like. OK, now you have your every year. You should be putting this money aside. Well, So what?
00:18:43 Kevin
York State realized, was a lot of like 8 roads, right?
00:18:45 Kevin
State.
00:18:47 Kevin
So, through Olean we have.
00:18:50 Kevin
I believe it's New York State route.
00:18:52 Kevin
And New York State 4/17.
00:18:55 Kevin
Which 16 might be a County Road, but I'm pretty sure every time I look it up it always says Nysr RT16.
00:19:01 Kevin
So Route 16 and Route 417 go through Olean, right?
00:19:08 Kevin
And so for a percentage of like, they're like dot usually replaces certain things on the outskirts of the city like they'll deal with the underpass or we can go to the the the railroad for the Army Corps of Engineers to fix bridges here and there.
00:19:24 Kevin
But inside the city, if it's a state route, they typically don't touch it.
00:19:28 Kevin
And So what they anticipate is and this is how every DPW director that sat in front of Maine when I was on the Common Council would kind of explain it and and even to this day, like even the current ones will not argue with me on this point.
00:19:41 Kevin
Bring it up to him like this is how.
00:19:42 Kevin
Understand.
00:19:43 Kevin
Funding and they're like that's that's how the state describes it. And we've had people from the state come in and talk to Alderman.
00:19:49 Kevin
Talk to us and give us presentations on different things and over the years I just this is the one thing that.
00:19:54 Kevin
And everyone always like, oh, that's not how we only get so much for chips funding and chips funding. If for those of you who don't know, chips funding is that state contribution towards your municipality.
00:20:04 Kevin
So how they determine what your chips funding is is they say, hey, we're going to take 15% of what your budget should be for all the.
00:20:13 Kevin
So they take all the roads in your municipality and they say this is how much if you have 20 years on a road, you have to. If you have 20 years on a road before you have to fold, completely replace it.
00:20:25 Kevin
You know how many miles of road and then putting it in a 20 year cycle and saying.
00:20:30 Kevin
Well, we're dividing by 20 and then this is how much each year you should be putting towards road infrastructure or Rd. replacement or whatever.
00:20:38 Kevin
And I say.
00:20:40 Kevin
It's road infrastructure, not like the stuff, not the infrastructure of piping under the roads, just your roads in.
00:20:46 Kevin
This is how much you should be replacing every single year's 120th of all the miles of all your. And so they say, OK.
00:20:53 Kevin
On average, are state roads that run through your municipality, your Township, whatever.
00:21:00 Kevin
Is 15% of your Rd. So what they do is they give you chips funding which is supposed to be 15% of what you're supposed to send spend on roads. So for example.
00:21:14 Kevin
Olean, if I remember correctly, when I was on the Council, it was like 400 and.
00:21:17 Kevin
$2000.
00:21:21 Kevin
$432,000.
00:21:24 Kevin
Uh.
00:21:26 Kevin
Divide it by .15.
00:21:30 Kevin
The city should be spending $2.88 million according to how the state's logic works on our roads, which is probably not too far off.
00:21:42 Kevin
In the states given us 15% for their share of roads that are in our Community, so that like there's therein lies the problem is that like?
00:21:51 Kevin
Ever since I was on the Council, you know what?
00:21:53 Kevin
Our street funding.
00:21:54 Kevin
Was $432,000.
00:21:55 Kevin
Was exactly chip.
00:21:56 Kevin
We would spend exactly the number of dollars on on streets as we got in chips and like every so often, we'd spend a little bit more, you know.
00:22:06 Kevin
If you didn't spend your chips funding, they wouldn't give it to you the next year.
00:22:08 Kevin
So you spent all of it?
00:22:10 Kevin
But you're supposed to spend all of it.
00:22:12 Kevin
You're supposed to spend 2.8 million almost $2.9 million on roads just in our little city.
00:22:18 Kevin
Well, if you have to do that, taxes are going to go up and we can go down a whole rabbit hole on that one.
00:22:22 Kevin
But like he brings up the chips funding and how like the state hasn't.
00:22:25 Kevin
It's like, well, yeah, but I mean, even if the state increases it, here's something to think about. If the state increases it, that just means that your bigger number's going to increase.
00:22:34 Kevin
If they increased it from 432,000.
00:22:37 Kevin
To which I think he says it's like the early 2000s.
00:22:41 Kevin
The same numbers early 2000s, let's say it's 575,000 now.
00:22:49 Kevin
Not times divided by .15, making it 15% now of a sudden you're 3.8 you've almost gone up $1,000,000, you've gone up just under $1,000,000 in St. funding.
00:23:01 Kevin
I mean and that's.
00:23:03 Kevin
And that would compensate for inflation. That would make that would make perfect sense.
00:23:06 Kevin
But it's one of.
00:23:07 Kevin
Like what are you gonna?
00:23:08 Kevin
Like we're already not saving for that roof.
00:23:10 Kevin
Like we're already like, well, I put 100 bucks a month at the roof.
00:23:14 Kevin
Let's say your roof, you know.
00:23:16 Kevin
I put 50.
00:23:16 Kevin
25 bucks a month at my.
00:23:18 Kevin
It's like, well, but you really needed to be putting 200.
00:23:21 Kevin
Like you're already only doing 15% of what it is, and then when you know when you pass the buck down the road, year after year after year, because nobody wants to raise taxes, you get into this weird.
00:23:34 Kevin
This weird rabbit hole of what you need.
00:23:36 Kevin
Like, oh, now all of a sudden we have, you know, we got.
00:23:41 Kevin
Like you guys are.
00:23:42 Kevin
I don't know how many miles of Rd. I like here and there. People throw it at me and I just doesn't stick like it could be 20 miles.
00:23:50 Kevin
It could be 200 miles Rd. anyways if you have so many miles road and you're supposed to be replacing it every year and you're only putting 15% of it in, you're only getting 15% of the job done. Eventually the actual expiration date on some of.
00:24:01 Kevin
Roads come due and then you have to like, borrow money just to do that road, which you should have been saving for the whole time, but because you're not increasing taxes, you're not prepared to do it.
00:24:11 Kevin
So then you have to increase taxes just to cover debts.
00:24:13 Kevin
Service just to buy groceries as a as a former DPW director, used to say, we're we're we're we need to focus on before we go and like, pay for Splash Park tickets, pay for pay for amusement park tickets.
00:24:29 Kevin
We.
00:24:31 Kevin
Before we start doing all these other things that are luxuries, we need to be buying groceries and we need to be focusing on paying for groceries. And that's, you know, and roads are groceries, roads, roads are groceries.
00:24:41 Kevin
Like putting them on.
00:24:42 Kevin
I know he's talking about eliminating vehicle assets.
00:24:47 Kevin
That the city has and it's like. Well, I mean, if we eliminate some, but we still have to get a proper maintenance budget for some of them and not a maintenance budget per say.
00:24:57 Kevin
But like, there are definitely things of contention were like, if you're supposed to replace a vehicle.
00:25:02 Kevin
You know, every seven years and that's that's the.
00:25:05 Kevin
Like when you're getting a car loan right, you get a car loan and people tell you, oh, well, I need.
00:25:10 Kevin
You know you don't want to get a car loan over five years.
00:25:15 Kevin
You don't want to get a car loan over five years because by the time you hit your five year, you're paying off a loan for a vehicle that's worthwhile less than that. And by year seven, I mean, most people, some people push their cars to 15 years or.
00:25:26 Kevin
But the average life expectancy of a car is between 5:00 and 5:00 and 10 years before the person removes it, gets rid of it.
00:25:32 Kevin
And so for a municipality, you have to take that large corporation approach and be eliminating vehicles every seven years, just sending them off to auction, getting the biggest bang for your buck, hitting that bell curve that peak, and then and then reinvesting that money to offset the cost.
00:25:49 Kevin
New vehicle.
00:25:50 Kevin
And and so there's all these little things that happen.
00:25:54 Kevin
That I don't think are completely comprehended and and I don't expect to come and like every member of a common Council to do this, but this is where, like, you get into the weeds.
00:26:05 Kevin
In municipalities and then it's like, wow, we have all this extra money this.
00:26:07 Kevin
It's like, really should then dump it into, you know, different little pots for saving money for next year.
00:26:16 Kevin
So I will, I will.
00:26:20 Kevin
Yeah, man, it just is a lot to comprehend here. So but.
00:26:25 Kevin
I could probably spend like six hours like delving into all the little topics he just broaches in his in his post, which I mean, that's why I appreciate Alderman coming forward and and bringing up these concerns because, like, I've been there, man I was in.
00:26:41 Kevin
For five.
00:26:43 Kevin
I was in Alderman for five.
00:26:44 Kevin
You know, I've been a resident of the city for.
00:26:49 Kevin
Jesus.
00:26:51 Kevin
Almost 20 years now.
00:26:53 Kevin
No, I moved here.
00:26:57 Kevin
Over 20 years now, I've been a resident of the city for over 20 years.
00:27:02 Kevin
And so that that poses that, you know that poses issues.
00:27:06 Kevin
That doesn't pose issues that I've resented for 20 years, but it poses issues when you have to start coming up with these different when you have to start looking at these these different topics and and you need to bring in people that are knowledgeable.
00:27:16 Kevin
Telling them to bring me in, but I'm just saying like these, these conversations need to be had and I think most people don't understand them or most people don't understand that they even exist and how to approach them so.
00:27:28 Kevin
That said, guys, it is time for me to go finish.
00:27:31 Kevin
You know, start helping my kids get ready for school, making sure that everything's all set with that.
00:27:35 Kevin
We appreciate you guys.
00:27:37 Kevin
Thanks. Don't forget to like, subscribe and we will catch you guys tomorrow.
00:27:43 Kevin
Oh.