Life22

Day 13,505(2) - Interview with Amy Sherburne.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Kevin
Hey, gang, Kevin here. Live 22 and my camera is a little bit off because we've got our guest in the studio today and it is Amy Sherburne, Amy Black Sherburne.
00:00:15 Amy
Yeah, that was my main name. Black. But yes, I think for my Facebook I might have black, but Amy Sherburn. Yes, yes.
00:00:16 Kevin
OK, OK.
00:00:21 Kevin
It's AV sherbert, OK.
00:00:24 Kevin
Let's see here.
00:00:28 Kevin
OK, well, that's what I had you on the.
00:00:29 Kevin
Screen as so.
00:00:30 Amy
OK, good. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Sherburne Sherburne was definitely more difficult to spell for people than my main name, which was black. That was always easy. But yeah.
00:00:40 Kevin
It's pretty it's it's pretty easy. It's like elementary school, right? Like the black, white, red, blue-green, orange. You know, orange usually gets people so, like, so Amy is running for mayor of the city of Olean. The race is this year's petitions. You got your petitions in.
00:00:44 Amy
Exactly. Just like the color, yeah.
00:00:48 Amy
Yep, Yep. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
00:00:57 Amy
Yes it is.
00:01:00 Amy
Yep, petitions are in. Everything's good with those. So you know, that was the preliminary thing to get through. Have that all done, was able to meet a lot of people. That was a great opportunity. I think that's that's really a really a basic thing that any new candidate should do because I was.
00:01:21 Amy
Able to talk to people about.
00:01:22 Amy
All their issues within their within their neighborhood neighborhood, in some cases, was able to actually see some of the issues and and then, you know, just for people to be able to meet me, it was a great opportunity. So yes, door knocking.
00:01:35 Kevin
Door knocking. It is the door knocking is the strongest way that you can win a campaign. I would love to say that it's coming on the show, but that's that's not always the case, but it it's cause.
00:01:40 Amy
Yes.
00:01:47 Kevin
And I I used to get yelled at about this all the time because people would say, hey, you know, like, oh, you can't believe what you.
00:01:52 Kevin
Read on Facebook.
00:01:53 Kevin
It's like you can't, like you can't judge the comment section on Facebook and see who's going to win a race. But you got to remember that everything that's on Facebook, for the most part, if that's the number one way people are getting their news nowadays.
00:01:59 Amy
Right.
00:02:06 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:07 Kevin
I mean, it's not the best way to reach.
00:02:08 Kevin
Voters. But you got to think that like you're still reaching a large swath of.
00:02:13 Kevin
People by doing that.
00:02:13 Amy
You definitely are. Yeah. Yeah. I think it does. It gives people an opportunity to get to know you. Like you said, you can't always look at the comments because sometimes they'll, they'll go off, they'll sideline into other things.
00:02:29 Amy
But it it's it's one of those things that if you use it for good, it's I think it's a good tool to.
00:02:35 Amy
News, but there's nothing like actually meeting a person and talking to them. And. And you know, you just you you build a relationship based on being in their presence, I think far more than just reading about about them or, you know. Yes.
00:02:52 Kevin
Sure. Yeah. No physical presence is is a big thing. It's just like so many people are online warriors nowadays. It's like, you know, sometimes.
00:02:59 Kevin
Solve a lot of problems if people just walked outside and touch.
00:03:02 Kevin
Grass, so yeah.
00:03:02 Amy
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. Yeah. When you're when you're in the room by yourself and you're on the computer and typing whatever it is that you're thinking at the moment, you know, you have to, you have to be careful what you, you know, the things that you say because people will form an opinion.
00:03:22 Amy
Based on that, and that might even be just like a moment in your.
00:03:24 Kevin
And sometimes and sometimes it's not even your fault, like you know, like it's easy to be home and having a couple drinks behind a computer keyboard and nobody sees that. But if you're on public, like hammered, people could tell like, alright, you know what?
00:03:24 Amy
Life.
00:03:27 Amy
Right.
00:03:31 Amy
Yeah.
00:03:35 Amy
Right.
00:03:37 Kevin
He made an insult against my mother. I guess I'm going to have to forgive him because he was drinking at home. Nobody knows that you're drunk behind the keyboard. So they just think that's you all the time.
00:03:39 Amy
Yeah.
00:03:40 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:43 Amy
No.
00:03:46 Amy
Right. Or they don't know if you've had a bad day and and that was just a one time thing or.
00:03:50 Kevin
And you can see that in someones face if you're in person with them you can say like man he just hit his Mondays kick.
00:03:53 Amy
That's right.
00:03:56 Amy
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree.
00:03:58 Kevin
So now you're running on the Republican ticket, cause you're registered Republican, and then you're also got it crossed, endorsed by the Dems.
00:04:03 Amy
Yes.
00:04:05 Amy
Cross. Yes, I did, yes.
00:04:08 Amy
OK.
00:04:08 Amy
Yes, you know, I I feel like that really is the climate that people want to be at right now, especially for our city. Someone that, that, that values the position for what it is, you know it it should not be a partisan issue when.
00:04:28 Amy
Your taxes go up or partisan issue when you know you see things in your neighborhood that you wish you could change, or you you'd like to be able to.
00:04:39 Amy
Let someone know that that's that's a problem you feel like it's driving the the value of your home down. I mean, these are all things that no matter if you're Democrat, Republican, non party, these are all of our issues that that we have at this point in, in Olean. And so I am.
00:04:58 Amy
I'm very happy.
00:05:00 Amy
That I am cross endorse because, you know ultimately that is what this position is about. It's it's all of us coming together for the right person over party in this situation.
00:05:13 Kevin
A lot of.
00:05:13 Kevin
Times local politics especially. It's almost like.
00:05:15 Kevin
You can kind.
00:05:16 Kevin
Of you can have your party values and things like that, but at the local level like I used to go door to door and I was cross endorsed by the Democrats and one one maybe 2 races.
00:05:26 Amy
MMM.
00:05:28 Kevin
And.
00:05:30 Kevin
I actually want a primary on the Democrats. One time it was quite intense, but I used to go door to door all the time and I think there's a lady. She lives like 2 blocks that way and I would go to her house and every year she would ask me how Bernie Sanders was. She's like, what do you?
00:05:32 Amy
Yeah.
00:05:34 Amy
That's great.
00:05:44 Kevin
Think of her, Bernie, and I'm thinking of.
00:05:45 Kevin
Myself. Like, I mean, you know.
00:05:48 Kevin
The hard tell you I'm not a.
00:05:49 Kevin
Bernie supporter, so I usually just tell her, like I just think.
00:05:49 Amy
Right.
00:05:51 Kevin
Getting up there in age you give, you know, but either way, she just, you know, because I just. I went to her door. So she. She just. I think she. Yeah.
00:05:53 Amy
Yeah.
00:05:55 Amy
Yeah.
00:05:56 Amy
Right, right, right. You cared. You cared.
00:05:59 Amy
So you know.
00:06:00 Kevin
I had a lot of coffee in this ward. There's a there was a lot of coffee and a lot of houses. I there's there's a lot of people that aren't still there. I was just saying I just. I just heard about another House of somebody. I was like they.
00:06:02 Amy
Yeah, I bet.
00:06:12 Kevin
Drink.
00:06:12 Kevin
Coffee with that guy and I was like oh.
00:06:13 Amy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I I was very surprised too. I I had a lot of people that invited me in and oh, the the first few days of when we could go out and actually get signatures. It was so cold, you know, and people graciously would open their door and I'd tell them.
00:06:32 Amy
I can stand here and talk to you. Just crack the door open, you know? But you know it. Really. I being in business.
00:06:38 Kevin
I lost a Saturday one time because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Over on over in Ward one, I was passing county legislature petitions. OK, two years ago, 2 1/2 years ago. And they I go like this this nice couple. They knew my grandmother like.
00:06:40 Amy
Did you? Oh.
00:06:44 Amy
Oh, OK.
00:06:48 Amy
MHM.
00:06:54 Kevin
They and they invited me. I ended up having to drop I.
00:06:56 Amy
Ended up dropping venison off like. Yeah, no, I I I I we I would look at my sheet and compared to everyone else I I wasn't quite as far and I'm just like it. It doesn't matter. This is important I I may only get.
00:07:08 Kevin
Was three hours.
00:07:09 Kevin
In their house, saying I.
00:07:10 Amy
Three hours. Wow.
00:07:10 Kevin
Had three house.
00:07:12 Kevin
It was, yeah, cause I was like I went in at noon. I got out. It was.
00:07:15 Kevin
Like there was 22.
00:07:17 Kevin
50 I was like, well, man, I just lost my afternoon.
00:07:17 Amy
Oh my goodness. Oh.
00:07:20 Kevin
And like I had to get.
00:07:21 Kevin
Like.
00:07:22 Kevin
300 signatures by myself.
00:07:23 Amy
Ohh yeah, yeah, no, I I totally understand what you're saying and and. But you know, sometimes those stops are so worth it because you just you hear things from them. If you give a person long enough, they're going to open up to you and tell you the things that maybe they wouldn't normally say if you only.
00:07:32 Kevin
There.
00:07:42 Amy
Gave them a minute or two.
00:07:43 Amy
So I always looked for those.
00:07:44 Kevin
And I think that the husband recognized me because I was the one that he was always at the Council meetings complaining that.
00:07:49 Kevin
There's cats peeing on his porch, his neighbor, his neighbor, doesn't take care of them. He just lets them loose and and I would always be in support of that. I was like, hey, listen, man, it's like I have a cat. It lives in my house and I'm in support of this guy. I don't wanna come out and have nice furniture for my wife and she wants to go sit down and and just there's cat pee on it.
00:07:51 Amy
Yeah.
00:07:56 Amy
Yeah, yeah, that is a concern.
00:08:01 Amy
Yeah.
00:08:05 Amy
That's strange.
00:08:09 Amy
No, I I agree. I agree that can be an issue.
00:08:10 Kevin
So.
00:08:12 Kevin
And he remembered me, and that I think that's what started. It was just like, I like this guy. I like to tell him his job. Let me, you know, and.
00:08:15 Amy
Yeah.
00:08:16 Amy
Yeah.
00:08:18 Kevin
It was one of those but.
00:08:19 Amy
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what I found? One of the happiest days, I think was.
00:08:27 Amy
You know, I have thoughts about where we need to head, what direction we need to go to, to attract people to move here. And I think one of the most important things is to recognize the change of of business and how people are.
00:08:46 Amy
What careers they're choosing and.
00:08:48 Amy
And there's so many, and I know this because we have kids this age and they have friends and I have, you know, family members that are a little bit older where online business and we know this ourselves having eats wallpaper 1, you know, one of the first Internet companies to sell wallpaper and fabric online that.
00:09:09 Amy
A lot of businesses done online and a lot of people build their life having either their own business or working for a company fully.
00:09:18 Amy
Remote and I just knew that the the opportunity was there looking at different models and other cities where you give incentives for people to move to your city if they're working remote. And I met a couple that literally came to the door and he had a big smile on his face.
00:09:38 Amy
Knew who I was, had seen some of the activity online and exactly said I am my wife and I moved here. We have a business online. We can live anywhere we want, but we chose Olean.
00:09:53 Amy
And are they're from Massachusetts and they they have a home in Seneca Heights. They absolutely love it here. They love the slow pace. They love the fact that their money has gone farther here, the home that they're living in would have cost way more. In Massachusetts, everything would have cost more in Massachusetts.
00:09:55 Kevin
OK.
00:10:14 Amy
And they love Olean. There is no connection whatsoever other than the fact that they found a place that they think they could make a home and and they have a child. Then the very next day the same thing happened over here in your.
00:10:28 Amy
Ward a, a woman, came to her door, had a big dog. We were. She's like you must be a dog person because he's happy to see you. Huge golden retriever. So we're trying to hold the I'm trying to hold the dog back as she starts telling me her story, that their home in Brooklyn, where they're from, would cost probably half $1,000,000.
00:10:50 Amy
And their home is on 4th St. Yeah. And they love Olean. They that was the. That was what I kept hearing. That made me feel so good about where we're headed and where I think we can go.
00:10:51 Kevin
It's hard. It's hard to ROI that with.
00:10:53 Kevin
A nine to five.
00:11:05 Amy
Those two stops and I never would have met them had I not gone out to the to the neighborhood, you know.
00:11:10 Kevin
Yeah.
00:11:11 Kevin
Ohh yeah, there's a there's a. There's a ton of stories behind every day.
00:11:13 Amy
Ton of stories and you know when I think about my parents and when they started their life and they stayed here and how much they loved Olean and and felt the connection. There are lots of people, I feel that.
00:11:29 Amy
We could have.
00:11:29 Amy
In fact, the same weight dresser attracted families at one point, and those families stayed and raised their families, and some of those children have stayed and raised their that could be us, but in a different direction. Looking towards the future, what what really are we looking at beyond just the manufacturing?
00:11:52 Amy
I I understand that is such an important component. My family, yes.
00:11:55 Kevin
Well, it's it's a lot of jobs.
00:11:57 Kevin
Right here and there. Right, like.
00:11:58 Amy
Right. My husband works for Cutco and he will be, you know, he's at 27 years now. And so we raised our family. Thanks to Cutco, we stayed because of Cutco. So I understand manufacturing and what we hold on to is very important, but we need to diversify.
00:12:18 Amy
We need to look towards.
00:12:19 Amy
Sure.
00:12:21 Amy
People that can bring their jobs here with them, they choose to live here.
00:12:26 Amy
And it's not so much they choose to work here. This is a place where they can live, do their job.
00:12:33 Kevin
Right. And you don't have to be like.
00:12:36 Kevin
A kid who's just here because the parents are here and you don't have to be somebody who's like, hey, it's a cheap place to live. And now I can stay here until I pass away. You can enjoy all spectrums of that. Like all the way up.
00:12:38 Amy
Right.
00:12:44 Amy
Right.
00:12:46 Amy
We yes, I mean growing up here.
00:12:49 Amy
Here.
00:12:50 Amy
You know it. It isn't till you start traveling and seeing other states, other cities you you realize the beauty that we have, our natural resources, our environment, our, our hills, our water, all of those things are the basics. But yet those are the things I think that make your city great.
00:13:10 Amy
And you know, like take Las Vegas for an example.
00:13:15 Amy
They have built their city based on obviously gambling, but every thing that they want to make that a more attractive place to live, they have to actually build, they have.
00:13:28 Amy
To build their their.
00:13:28 Kevin
Because it doesn't grow out of the ground.
00:13:29 Amy
Ponds. Yeah. I mean, they're trying to exactly, but, but yeah, you know, look at how.
00:13:31 Kevin
If it's a desert.
00:13:34 Kevin
They built, they built a mirage, tough to maintain The Mirage, right.
00:13:36 Amy
Right, right, they that's right. But we, we already have that here. We we don't have to build it. It's here we.
00:13:44 Amy
We have what, I guess what I'm trying to say. Our natural resources are what other cities only hope they can emulate. We already have. We just need to build on our strengths. One of the one of the things that I feel is is untapped is the the water that we have. We're hearing more and more.
00:14:04 Amy
About the depletion of our natural resource, water and other States and other.
00:14:11 Amy
Trees. We have an abundance of water. We're on the Allegheny River watershed. When we first had our our filtration plant built. I remember at the time they talked about it being way bigger than what we actually need. And it was mentioned at that time. Well, why don't we bottle water and it never.
00:14:31 Amy
It never went farther than just a a conversation. I really feel that that could be a huge potential for us. We see our water fund and we see our sewage fund both funds generate money.
00:14:47 Amy
Water would definitely generate more revenue for our city if we.
00:14:52 Kevin
Well cause cause you're producing something, right? Right.
00:14:55 Amy
You're producing something that's natural to us.
00:14:57 Kevin
Right, right. You don't.
00:14:58 Kevin
Cleaning, cleaning the poop out of your out of your your used water.
00:15:03 Kevin
Nobody wants to buy the end product just because they know where it came from, right? So, but and that's when I was on the Council. It's always when you're when you're in politics, people always show an idea. You're like, why don't you privatize the water? Then you don't have to worry about it being a city problem. And if you look at it, it's like.
00:15:04 Amy
No, no, no, no. We just. Right, right. Right, no.
00:15:19 Amy
MHM.
00:15:22 Kevin
The only issue with that is nobody would want to buy the poop plant poops don't really make money. Companies come in and they'll run. You know they'll run your water plant because water plants are like gas, electric. They'll. Those utilities can generate a lot more revenue. So they're a lot more appealing to private investment. But then also you're going to have the same issue.
00:15:25 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
00:15:31 Amy
Yeah.
00:15:38 Amy
Right.
00:15:41 Kevin
That, yeah, you don't have to deal with this union or that you don't have to deal with these workers. You don't have to deal with this person. You don't have to make it. The heading of the residents of the city.
00:15:45 Amy
Yeah.
00:15:49 Amy
Right.
00:15:49 Amy
Wait.
00:15:50 Amy
Right, somewhat.
00:15:50 Kevin
From the city to make somebody else do it. The problem is that, like if the city ran national fuel or national or nice like like.
00:15:59 Kevin
If we had our own.
00:16:01 Kevin
Gas division like, yeah, your gas bill would probably be.
00:16:02 Amy
MHM.
00:16:05 Kevin
3/4 or half of what it is.
00:16:07 Amy
Right. But then the maintenance of all of them?
00:16:08 Kevin
The maintenance of all of it in private private industry runs way more.
00:16:10 Amy
The bookkeeping that all of.
00:16:12 Amy
It.
00:16:15 Kevin
Private industry has a tendency to run more efficiently, and if they're looking at a bottom line, they also cost more money to the end user. But you know, so it's one of those.
00:16:18 Amy
Yes, yes.
00:16:21 Amy
Right.
00:16:24 Amy
Right.
00:16:25 Amy
Like, well, I think you know, probably at the time it was such a, it was a novel idea. Obviously we were we were bottling water Pepsi plant was there using our water.
00:16:35 Amy
For their for their bottling.
00:16:39 Amy
I don't think. I don't think so, but.
00:16:42 Kevin
Six. You put in what, 2000 and?
00:16:43 Amy
3-4 I think I no what when that filtration plant was no, it was prior to that.
00:16:50 Kevin
Yeah.
00:16:52 Amy
Oh.
00:16:52 Amy
It was it.
00:16:53 Amy
Was it was prior to that we're talking probably in the in the 90s, we'll we'll have to check that. I guess before we we say for sure don't know the exact year. Well I think it I think from a perspective of that being an idea is like well how do we do that right. So you're thinking of the logistics of.
00:17:10 Amy
The actual like.
00:17:12 Amy
Bottles in the water and has that well, here's the thing. We've evolved from that like PepsiCo.
00:17:21 Amy
Huge. I mean, what a profit margin for them with the bottled water that they sell Aquafina and what they do is they come in and they actually just want to tap into your water supply. You do? Right. So what happens is is they, yes, they bring the equipment.
00:17:33 Kevin
Oh, so you've just.
00:17:36 Kevin
We're just brokering a deal to get.
00:17:39 Kevin
So we don't actually have bottle plant work, OK.
00:17:42 Amy
There you go. Where the supplier? They want a sustainable eco friendly.
00:17:51 Amy
Municipality that can support the amount of water needed. OK, there are not many places that have our situation. We're literally on the Allegheny River watershed that water is endless. Pepsi. PepsiCo in in particular, that would be the.
00:18:10 Amy
Company I I studied the most, but there's obviously other companies that do this. They want a sustainable.
00:18:19 Amy
Municipality, which which is what we are, they basically take care of everything from that point on and you get the revenue. So you base it on what we pay. OK, for water, you charge them the same thing. They of course are making a huge profit off of their water that they bottle. But so are we.
00:18:39 Kevin
Right, because we've got a huge customer now and that's the big issue. That's why like.
00:18:41 Amy
Exactly.
00:18:43 Amy
And that's our advantage. That is what we have that most cities do not have. If you look at the way the the river shed.
00:18:52 Amy
Because we are so lucky, we are smack dab in the middle of it and then it, you know, it trails, you know like that. So I feel like that is something I would look into immediately, I mean.
00:19:04 Kevin
Right. Cause there's there's pie. Yeah, cause like you get all these people like, and I I see Paul Petruzzi online complaining about it. Right, like the pilot programs we give all these.
00:19:11 Amy
Mm-hmm.
00:19:12 Kevin
Pilots out and it's like and I get it to a certain degree. Right. You want to incentivize people to come here, New York State.
00:19:17 Amy
Yeah.
00:19:18 Kevin
As a whole.
00:19:19 Kevin
Taxes the living hell out of every business that it cut like it's it touches a business and it wants to, like, suck its life force out. So it's like, OK, how do we incentivize that company to not think it's being sucked dead?
00:19:22 Amy
Yeah.
00:19:27 Amy
Yeah.
00:19:32 Amy
Right.
00:19:32 Kevin
And so they they say let's, let's give you a break on your property today. We can't help you with all the state taxes. We can help you, the property taxes.
00:19:37 Amy
Right, right, right.
00:19:39 Amy
And that we've given up.
00:19:41 Amy
We have given up something to attract them. I want us to be valuable. I I want us to be the place that people want to be. You just have to pick the right Ave. you know to do that and the water.
00:19:45 Kevin
Something that we.
00:19:51 Kevin
Right.
00:19:55 Kevin
Sure, the water is a great idea because you can't because the water is just going to pass by us if we don't take it.
00:19:59 Amy
That's right. And The thing is, is, you know, I would like to look at it, not just.
00:20:05 Amy
As a way for us to generate revenue, I feel like we could add value. I mean, I mean think about that to the world. Water is needed everywhere. We have a great filtration plant that was overbuilt like we that built that I remember it.
00:20:24 Amy
Being said, this is we're not even coming close to full capacity on what we can treat.
00:20:30 Amy
Maybe there's a good reason for that. Maybe this is the time in which you know. Basically water is in such need that that's really where you seize the opportunity when you look at any.
00:20:42 Kevin
The only the only hiccup I can think of is just that so the the municipal, there's three municipal accounts.
00:20:50 Kevin
And you're not supposed to intermingle the like.
00:20:51 Amy
Yeah.
00:20:53 Amy
Right.
00:20:54 Kevin
And like if you have an employee, yeah, if you're an employee that's handling like payroll for three different three, you know, the employees of the water plant, the employees of the sewer plant and the employees of like, you know, the DPW office, you can split their wage between the three funds. But you don't get to increase taxes to subsidize the water. And you can't use the water.
00:20:54 Amy
But it is me.
00:20:59 Amy
Right.
00:21:08 Amy
Right.
00:21:14 Kevin
To subsidize the.
00:21:15 Kevin
City and that that. That's at least how that was explained to me when I was on the Council. You can't take money from one fund unless you have a justifiable accounting reason. Well, this truck was broken by water. You know what I mean? Like the water Department had an accident. They broke it. We need to buy a new truck. They were.
00:21:28 Amy
Yes.
00:21:33 Kevin
Borrowing it from parks.
00:21:35 Kevin
You know, we gotta give them back a truck, so they'll buy the truck for parks. So it doesn't come out of the coffers because it can.
00:21:38 Amy
Right.
00:21:38 Amy
Right.
00:21:39 Amy
Right.
00:21:40 Kevin
I'm out of.
00:21:41 Amy
Well, so here. Yeah, here.
00:21:42 Kevin
So that's the only thing I get if you're generating a ton of money, it's like water bills.
00:21:45 Kevin
Might go down.
00:21:46 Kevin
For everybody, see what the game like.
00:21:47 Amy
Right, right. Right, right. Well, OK. So there would definitely have to be some measures taken to avert that issue. But here's the thing.
00:21:57 Amy
From what I can see with the budget and how things are done, the biggest money generators are in fact our sewage and water, and that's very hard to believe. But it is, in fact exactly what's going on. So those are used to supplement what our general fund cannot.
00:22:13 Amy
Not, which is not the best practice, it should be more or less you move the money as needed, almost like a line of credit. But the money then gets put back to the funds so that we can do the repairs that we need. OK.
00:22:28 Amy
But what's happening is is because the water and the sewer is such a big generator, it is supplementing the cost for salaries of things that don't necessarily or should be covered. But I understand the reasoning behind it. I would like us to get to the point where our water and sewer fund are actually used for what they should be and our general fund.
00:22:49 Amy
Has a revenue that's being built.
00:22:52 Amy
So that it sustains what it should pay for, so we stopped having to match all of these things. This is not a good practice for the future to do this because what we're running up against right now is the lack of revenue coming in for sales tax into our general fund.
00:22:57 Kevin
Sure.
00:23:09 Amy
In order to supplement that, we're taking money from the sewer fund, the Water Fund.
00:23:15 Amy
And using that to supplement what we didn't see come in. And it really is a bad practice to get into, we shouldn't have to do that so.
00:23:23 Kevin
Talking about, like most recent meetings and things.
00:23:25 Amy
Yeah, all of all of the budgets moving forward or have in the pack.
00:23:25 Kevin
Like that, OK.
00:23:29 Kevin
And I think what they're doing is they're splitting like, you know, like, I think the most one of the most recent meetings there was a, there was a somebody in payroll who does payroll for all three like that example. And so where they're spending their.
00:23:41 Kevin
Time roughly between you know what I mean? They're not you. Spend more, you spend more effort trying to figure out. Well, it's 40% of this fund and and 30 to this one and 30 to that one where it's just a third, a third, a third.
00:23:48 Amy
Right.
00:23:51 Amy
Well.
00:23:53 Kevin
I think it's.
00:23:53 Amy
Yeah, I think I think that's been the practice simply because it's been that way because we had no choice because the general fund just cannot sustain on its own considered part of, you know, payroll or or clerical for water department. However, if if you look at other corporations and they separate like let's say the HR department.
00:23:53 Kevin
Always been the practice.
00:24:15 Amy
That's its own, you know, department. They have their own budget. They they try to, you know.
00:24:21 Amy
Be self-sustaining and to a certain extent that and then the actual general fund should be paying for the payroll for them. We shouldn't have to take it out of these other funds. And I think the reason is is because we are lacking that revenue from property tax sales tax. There has not been any projects that are big.
00:24:44 Amy
Money generators to our city. It's just we have not been. We have been rightfully so focused.
00:24:52 Amy
On improving our roads, improving our infrastructure that I feel that we've lost sight of the fact that these are all great things to keep things moving, to make life better for people. But really at the end of the day, you have to keep the machine going, so to speak. That will generate the money to support.
00:25:12 Kevin
I think people, people do forget that.
00:25:13 Amy
All of these. Yeah, you. You first and foremost have to figure out.
00:25:17 Kevin
You mow your lawn and you're like, oh, I'm all done. It's like no home maintenance doesn't stop there. Yeah, you gotta you gotta paint the garage. And next you gotta paint the house. You gotta.
00:25:21 Amy
That's right. Right. Right. That's right. Or or you know, how about we we we need to keep working even though we're doing all these projects around the house.
00:25:32 Amy
We need to keep working to support those projects and we have to earn an income. We as a city have to earn an income. I understand the pilot programs, I understand what we had to do to draw that attraction, but now we're left with that and what we're seeing is is the incentives.
00:25:53 Amy
Worked, but when the incentives are gone then the the business leaves or the business sells. And I think that, yeah, I think that we just really.
00:26:01 Kevin
AMC.
00:26:04 Amy
We have to, we have to keep that in our back pocket, but that should not be our first line of of attracting people, our businesses and this is where we're sort of failing with that and then manufacturing jobs maybe aren't.
00:26:23 Amy
Paying what they used to.
00:26:24 Amy
I mean, my dad's generation, if you worked at Dresser, that's it. You're done.
00:26:30 Amy
You, you, you, you're.
00:26:31 Amy
Going to work there your whole life, it'll be the highest earning potential, but that we know is not always sustainable for a city because the manufacturer can leave and then we're left with what we're left with.
00:26:46 Amy
And that's why I I'm looking at it from the very basics. OK, Buffalo is considered, I believe the second city in the climate haven list, which means there our region is most protected from climate issues.
00:27:04 Amy
UM's that we know are going to happen, so by the year 2050 this is probably going to be in the Great Lakes area. Most desirable area for businesses, for people to live. Our water will be abundant and so looking into the future.
00:27:25 Amy
I see today what our potential is with just that resource of water.
00:27:31 Amy
Right.
00:27:32 Amy
And we even see it within our budget that that resource is is a huge, huge benefit to our city. So that's just one thing that I think in the absolute near future.
00:27:45 Kevin
I still think that there's a little bit of a confusion, the logistics of how the, how the accounting can work, because that's what happened back in like the I think it was the when they did the last charter revision, so which had been like 93, I think 93 into 95.
00:27:47 Amy
We're just.
00:27:51 Amy
Right.
00:27:55 Amy
OK. Yeah.
00:27:58 Amy
How the money, how the money is distributed amongst the city.
00:28:02 Kevin
So what happened was for years they would raise property tax.
00:28:05 Kevin
And they wouldn't touch your water bill because they didn't want to **** people off and lose an election because they wanted a high.
00:28:07 Amy
Right.
00:28:11 Kevin
Water.
00:28:11 Kevin
Bill, and now they're they're kind of like what happened. They went, like 20 years without raising a water bill at all. And then we ended up getting into a bunch of situations where by the time we hit the Carucci administration.
00:28:11 Amy
Right.
00:28:17 Amy
Yeah. Yeah, not not. That's reckless.
00:28:24 Amy
Yep.
00:28:24 Kevin
A lot of people blame him for going into deficit financing and he was kind of holding the bag. He kind of got a mess because nobody just and it's it was council after council after council for 20 years, never raising the water fund and then deficit financing comes.
00:28:27 Amy
Right.
00:28:31 Amy
Yes.
00:28:39 Kevin
And he's like, we got to sell parking spaces and he's trying to come up with.
00:28:42 Amy
The the property.
00:28:43 Amy
Tax you mean or the OR the?
00:28:44 Amy
Water. They actual water.
00:28:45 Kevin
They never raised, they never raised water at all. They just kept raising property taxes. So during his administration, he had to go through the deficit financing. He had the state auditors in there. They had to have a reevaluation, which I think was what, 2007.
00:28:47 Amy
OK. Yeah, water.
00:28:52 Amy
Yeah.
00:28:54 Amy
Yeah.
00:28:57 Amy
Mm-hmm.
00:29:00 Kevin
2011 they did a they did? Yeah, they did a re eval. And so that's what kind of like rectified the like. You had houses that were appraised at $30,000 and you're paying 100 or I think it was like $150.00 per thousand on it. Now we're back down to 56, but your house is appraised for a lot more.
00:29:02 Amy
Yeah, I was right before.
00:29:09 Amy
Yeah.
00:29:18 Amy
Right.
00:29:20 Amy
Right.
00:29:20 Kevin
And so they have a lot of these different things. And that's also when the state started slapping hands because it's about five years later after the revival that I got on the Council and they said you can't.
00:29:28 Amy
MHM.
00:29:30 Kevin
You can't intermingle these funds if you need water money, you have to raise water rates. If you need sewer money, you need to raise sewer rates. If you need general fund expenditures paid for it, you need to raise taxes or get it from sales tax or now the bed tax. Or get, you know, be clever with it. Generate income through.
00:29:34 Amy
Mm-hmm.
00:29:37 Amy
Yeah.
00:29:50 Kevin
The general fund.
00:29:52 Kevin
You know things like the rec center brings in rink money and they bring in, they bring in Pool money and they rent parks out and all those little revenue generators that are aside from those other two funds. Mm-hmm. And they just they don't want you intermingling it. So if we make a ton of money from the water department, I don't know.
00:29:53 Amy
Right.
00:29:59 Amy
Right.
00:30:07 Amy
Yeah.
00:30:10 Kevin
How you how hold?
00:30:11 Amy
You would transfer so I I read. I read about this and from what I'm seeing is.
00:30:12 Kevin
How you would transfer it right? So.
00:30:19 Amy
First of all you have to have a surplus that's going to cover any expenses when you have to do repairs and any unexpected things you have to cover yourself for that which, yeah, 15%. Which, which by the way, our water fund isn't nowhere near that right now, nowhere near that.
00:30:29 Kevin
I think the was the.
00:30:29 Kevin
Council 15% of the.
00:30:32 Kevin
50.
00:30:32 Kevin
Of what the annual budget is, yeah.
00:30:39 Amy
And the reason being is this money has been moved over to cover these expenses.
00:30:44 Amy
Is what I think it is is. If you have, yes. If you have enough money surplus in that account and you exceed it, I believe again we'll we'll have to make sure because we by far if we were to do this or not, the only municipality that is it has done this or is doing this.
00:30:47 Kevin
And debt service, I'm sure.
00:31:04 Amy
With PepsiCo.
00:31:04 Amy
You know, but.
00:31:05 Amy
I think what it is is you you would have to have your common Council agree that at a certain point money can be moved without without disrupting that fund.
00:31:11 Kevin
Threshold.
00:31:15 Kevin
You can talk about online businesses, right? So you have these different like if you get credit card companies, for example, they'll collect your money and then you have to. If you're over 100 bucks, they'll deposit there's thresholds. And so if you get to a threshold that's over this.
00:31:26 Amy
That's right.
00:31:29 Amy
Then.
00:31:30 Kevin
And then you hit this one we, you know, we say, hey, we're going to move, you know, 1,000,000 bucks over to to where we we should consider.
00:31:31 Amy
Yes.
00:31:33 Amy
Yes.
00:31:38 Kevin
Using it for that.
00:31:39 Kevin
And I'm sure there's work, or there's always.
00:31:39 Amy
Yeah.
00:31:40 Kevin
A work around.
00:31:41 Amy
Yeah, I I think what it is and I could be wrong, but I feel that the water sewer fund and this probably goes for every city, every community, they want to make sure that you don't deplete your funds so much that your essential, your essential services such as water and sewer, you have not depleted.
00:32:02 Amy
Get to the point where you can't make a repair. You can't support the community with their water because you've you've depleted it. You know, I mean, and that makes sense.
00:32:07 Kevin
Sure.
00:32:10 Kevin
Well, also, you gotta think that most almost every budget you have. Right. So we have three different funds. We have three different.
00:32:15 Amy
Yeah.
00:32:16 Amy
There's actually four, I think, right, what the debt service is. It's own phone. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:16 Kevin
You can call.
00:32:18 Kevin
Is there?
00:32:21 Kevin
Ohh is it OK?
00:32:23 Kevin
It's a negative account I'm assuming though, but yeah, but so, but what happens is it's not a savings account, and I remember I remember being on the Council and hearing that like, it's not a savings account. Like we don't have just an account with the general Fund in it. It's literally like the liquid assets that the city has at any one time. So like where?
00:32:25 Amy
Well, yes, but.
00:32:36 Amy
Right.
00:32:40 Amy
MHM.
00:32:43 Kevin
We'll do 12 months and we might have a huge spike in the middle of the summer time and in the summer when everyone's, you know, popping a hydrant and what are filling their pools? Yeah. And and we're.
00:32:47 Amy
Yeah.
00:32:54 Kevin
Getting a lot of revenue. The problem is when you start the budget season, if it's not during that peak, it's like you're pulling from that general fund even though you're not making transfers and the accounting paperwork, the money that is just the liquid assets all throughout the city for water, for sewer, for general, they're all like you're, you're tapping into them.
00:32:59 Amy
Yes.
00:33:04 Amy
MM.
00:33:14 Kevin
So if you have like 100,000, you're supposed to have two million. Yeah, right. Like that. 100,000's gotta cover.
00:33:20 Kevin
Payroll vehicle repairs to keep the lights on.
00:33:22 Amy
Right, you need to have that cash flow coming in all the time. It's like business. You know, your your money's coming in, the money is going out, the money's coming. And this is a constant, you know, and it isn't until you get to the end of the year and you square everything up that you actually.
00:33:25 Kevin
Right.
00:33:35 Kevin
Sure.
00:33:40 Amy
See where you're at.
00:33:42 Amy
So the last the last year's last.
00:33:47 Amy
Two years at least, we have been tapping into our surplus, tapping into our surplus. So last night at the meeting, the surplus at the end of 24, meaning may 31st, 2024, after everything was all squared away. Our surplus is now down.
00:34:07 Amy
At that point to $1.8 million, which that means we have dipped into our surplus.
00:34:14 Amy
Over $1,000,000 in two years $1.8 million at the end of 24, so keep that in mind that 24 ended may we start our new fiscal year June 1. So from June 1 until now, we already know that we've.
00:34:14 Amy
Boom. Boom.
00:34:17 Kevin
What is it?
00:34:33 Amy
Already not met, our revenue and sales tax. So what does that say? Our budget now for this year, this fiscal year, which will end May 2025 is probably going to be again in a deficit that.
00:34:49 Amy
We have pulled out of our surplus and we have whittled that down just just to me. What it is is it's like that perfect storm, not enough money coming in. Money is increasing, going out and now we're starting to catch up with what the.
00:34:52 Kevin
Sure.
00:35:10 Amy
What has been the issue, not just in the last couple years, not even during COVID but pre COVID. And the reason being from what I can see is the property taxes were not raised at a reasonable rate and as a matter of.
00:35:25 Amy
Act.
00:35:26 Amy
To look at it, we were.
00:35:29 Amy
Decreasing a few of the years 0A decrease of 1A decrease of 1%, a decrease of 2%.
00:35:31 Kevin
Let's just say.
00:35:39 Amy
Those are behaviors over the long haul that eventually catch.
00:35:43 Amy
Up with you.
00:35:44 Kevin
It's one thing, right? I remember. I remember when COVID first hit.
00:35:47 Amy
Hmm.
00:35:48 Kevin
And and Dave Anastasia was on the Council, and he he was really pushing this. And I think he got most of the consensus of the Council.
00:36:00 Kevin
I almost have to look back in the Minutes to see if, well, like I, I don't remember voting in favor of this, but they went with like a zero budget increase and it was because nobody knew cause COVID was such a big and it's like it was such a like we don't know.
00:36:08 Amy
Yeah.
00:36:14 Kevin
What's going to happen? Well, so.
00:36:15 Amy
Yeah, what people's pocketbooks will be.
00:36:17 Amy
Like and all that.
00:36:17 Kevin
Right, exactly. People are living at home. They don't know like.
00:36:21 Kevin
Grocery stores weren't getting supplied with food. You know, it was one of those. Like, could that? Could that just cause all the food just come tomorrow? Or could it be years? So yeah, so.
00:36:24 Amy
Right.
00:36:28 Amy
Right. So we're uncertain.
00:36:31 Kevin
I I can make I can understand a point for saying 0 or a half a percent or decrease by a half a percent one year on something catastrophic like that. Well, you know.
00:36:38 Amy
Right, right. You can't. You can't continue it. And also if you really do the math, 2% is not a lot like it is. I understand every penny counts every dollar.
00:36:52 Amy
Out. But when you take the average home and you say 2%, that that's easier to.
00:36:57 Kevin
It's like 20 or 30 grand a year.
00:36:59 Kevin
Or something is.
00:36:59 Amy
Well, I mean, OK, yeah, it's not a lot, but it keeps it keeps the things it keeps our what eventually and we're seeing it now eventually the issues are with paying payroll and the pension and all of that pension has been there forever.
00:36:59 Kevin
It across the city.
00:37:17 Amy
You know that that keeps going up, you know that payroll keeps going up and just 2%, which doesn't each individual person will not feel it helps the city so much. And that is why a 2% CAP is a reasonable ask and that's why you don't have to have what we're doing.
00:37:28 Kevin
Right.
00:37:38 Amy
Now the Community input on the hardship that that 6% is going to cause, which I hate to say it, but 6 really is not even going to be enough if we just split it and and do a little more than six at this point and then match it the same the next.
00:37:48 Kevin
Can't touch it? No, I've.
00:37:58 Amy
The next year.
00:37:58 Kevin
I think what's gonna happen is they're gonna fight it. They're gonna. The Council's going to fight it and they're gonna compromise. And what's going to happen is you're going to see them land at, like, 4.2% increase. And what's going to happen.
00:38:07 Amy
Yeah, but.
00:38:09 Kevin
Because it's still not going to catch up.
00:38:11 Amy
No, and I don't know. You know, we we don't know for sure what anyone's going to decide. That's up to the Council. But I feel our Council has a really good handle on what is happening. It's unfortunate that the results of 24 are just now.
00:38:14 Kevin
And then we're going to be Dunkirk.
00:38:29 Amy
In their hands, it should not be that way, but I do understand that account accounting firms, especially a new one that's taking over everything, it takes a while to get the the response of really what?
00:38:42 Amy
What we need, probably, let's say you know by January we should know what 24 did.
00:38:48 Kevin
We're your small business owner, so you, you understand, like I know every bank account. I have a thumb on every bank account of every single one of my businesses. I know every bill that's coming out. I know. Like I can. I can hire staff to monitor that.
00:38:50 Amy
You ohh it's yeah.
00:38:55 Amy
Yes, every day.
00:38:58 Amy
Of course.
00:39:01 Amy
Yes.
00:39:05 Kevin
Tough. It's all. It's here, right?
00:39:06 Amy
But at the end of the day, it's here, you know, you know, and you know what? You need to be bringing in. And you know what? You should be spending and and you know, like, when something, when you have an increase in cost, you're going to go back through and go. All right, well, where can I save and what don't I need? And that is a constant every day for a business owner and as a.
00:39:26 Amy
Manager of the city's mayor. You also have to know this and you have to think ahead and you have to say.
00:39:34 Amy
Hey, you know, we had an awesome year. We did really well with generating our revenue. Let's just keep on the same path. It's not time to make a change that will actually end up being a detriment because then the next year you don't know what you're being faced with. We all know this running our household. The city is basically the same way.
00:39:53 Kevin
You just it sometimes it takes a minute though, just like you said, with the new auditor, they don't.
00:39:54 Amy
And.
00:39:56 Amy
Yeah.
00:39:58 Kevin
They're coming into this, right? They're they're opening up the rib cage, seeing where all the organs are at, seeing what condition they're in to see this living, breathing entity. And I don't. It's going to take them a couple a year or more like their first set of books is, but they, I'm sure they were a lot longer than BWB was, but.
00:39:58 Amy
Yeah.
00:40:00 Amy
You have to understand.
00:40:03 Amy
Right.
00:40:07 Amy
MHM.
00:40:14 Amy
There was, yeah, there. Unfortunately, there was a lot of mistakes that were made. And so, you know nothing that.
00:40:24 Amy
You know, thankfully, isn't going to be like getting us in trouble. But however some mistakes that, that, that, that make you look at like you're following year differently or even the way this budget is being presented right now differently. I mean, if you're going to raise anything.
00:40:45 Amy
Or yeah, I mean the sewage being the least of what we need to be raised was one of the things in this budget that should not have been raised. I mean, we are doing fine with our sewage. We are not doing fine with our general fund. Well, what feeds the general fund, the property tax, what? What?
00:41:04 Kevin
And I don't even think it's a large percent like, what is it? Is it like 25% of our budget? It's a low number.
00:41:10 Amy
It it is a low number but.
00:41:11 Kevin
Compared to sales tax, for example.
00:41:13 Kevin
Like or or $19 million budget for just the general fund because I keep hearing people say $30 million budget, I think they're including water and sewer.
00:41:14 Amy
Right.
00:41:18 Amy
Right, right, right.
00:41:22 Amy
Yeah, 30 million would include like the even the fire department and the Police Department. That's.
00:41:27 Amy
Like a total total but.
00:41:27 Kevin
They're they're 6,000,000 apiece. I believe if I that's or is it 3 million?
00:41:32 Amy
Ohh no, it's 3,000,000 something for the fire and and.
00:41:34 Kevin
Three mile.
00:41:37 Amy
The Police Department, I believe, is lower than.
00:41:40 Amy
That but.
00:41:40 Kevin
It's 6,000,000 together. That's those are the general numbers that have been there for like a decade, so.
00:41:41 Amy
But yeah, so 30 million, I know like 29 something 29, something million is everything and then you break it down into the different funds and and.
00:41:49 Kevin
Right.
00:41:52 Kevin
I think you're 19 is the city.
00:41:54 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:55 Amy
Yeah, but I guess I guess what, what I'm saying is the the last thing we should be doing is raising.
00:42:00 Amy
Being a person's sewage bell because our sewage, we're making money, a lot of money off of it. So if you're really going to run the budget the way it should be, that needs to or just zero and then offset. OK, so basically I figured it out like for.
00:42:12 Kevin
Just keep it at. Keep it at A2.
00:42:13 Kevin
Percent.
00:42:20 Amy
For my own water bill. So if you raised it what the budget said, wanted to raise it like 5% and a little bit more 5.04.
00:42:29 Kevin
And I think also.
00:42:32 Amy
OK, that's about $18.00 more in my water bill, which really when you look at a water bill that is a lot to raise your water and then another probably 18 to raise.
00:42:44 Amy
The water and the sewage, OK, just have.
00:42:46 Kevin
Right. Yeah. Well, a gallon and gallon out is I think how they calculate it because they don't have a meter on your toilet, you know, right. Don't know how many flushes you take. So they.
00:42:50 Amy
Yeah.
00:42:54 Kevin
Let's assume they meter how much water comes into your house. They're assuming that all that water comes out.
00:42:57 Amy
Right.
00:42:59 Amy
Right. So like 1600 gallons I think is like the average use of a A.
00:43:04 Kevin
Home 1600 is the average adult males usage. OK so.
00:43:05 Amy
Uh.
00:43:10 Kevin
The.
00:43:11 Kevin
Because they and this is how it was explained to me when I first became a landlord.
00:43:15 Kevin
It was the average adult male is easy to kind of quantify because guys take a shower, they typically don't have long hair. Girls have all sorts of hair.
00:43:18 Amy
Right.
00:43:22 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:23 Kevin
And they can you.
00:43:24 Amy
Yeah, right.
00:43:24 Kevin
Know I mean some girls spend like 3 hours in the shower and twice a day and.
00:43:27 Amy
Yeah, for sure.
00:43:29 Amy
We had two kids, I yeah. And myself. Yes. Like we we all did that.
00:43:29 Kevin
And.
00:43:33 Amy
I think at some point.
00:43:33 Kevin
Right, right. But to try to peg down what the average consumption is, it was easier. An average adult male uses 1600 gallons a month, and that's how they base your minimum water usage. They're assuming that you're.
00:43:40 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:43 Amy
Got it.
00:43:45 Kevin
Just one person is going to live in this home. You're going to pay the minimum 3460 something or whatever it was.
00:43:48 Amy
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:43:52 Amy
Yes. So that makes sense. That makes sense. But it but I guess what I'm saying is, is that all the things to raise and be concerned about that what the sewage should not be water?
00:44:01 Kevin
I would almost say just that if you were keeping increases on water and sewer just because they're also a lower, they they they end up being a lower.
00:44:09 Amy
They feel lower, but are they making a difference? No.
00:44:12 Kevin
Well, they're raising the bill by because sometimes this is, I think where.
00:44:12 Amy
Not they.
00:44:17 Kevin
Numbers confuse the general public. For example, like if you say we're doing a 6% tax increase, is it, is it 6% of what your house is worth or is it 6% of this, it's not 6% of the city budget. You know what I mean like.
00:44:18 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:25 Amy
No. Yeah, yeah.
00:44:30 Amy
Right, right, right.
00:44:31 Amy
Where's where are you calculating that percentage? Yes.
00:44:33 Kevin
What is that 6%? Is it 6 first and we need to do a 6% increase?
00:44:38 Kevin
If if property tax is only like 20 to 25% of what makes up that 19,000,000 a 6% increase of the whole city budget at 19,000,000? Well, that's a lot of money and that's that's you know I mean versus like you'll notice your bill will go up about 6%.
00:44:42 Amy
MHM.
00:44:48 Amy
Right, right, right.
00:44:53 Amy
Yeah. So the way I the way and of course we'll, we'll have to make sure for sure that this is how it's calculated, but I believe the percentage is based on like when you look at your water bill and how much is.
00:45:06 Amy
Per gallon and it's like .00104.
00:45:11 Kevin
It's about two cents. Yeah, two cents a gallon for both water and sewer. So it's about a penny apiece.
00:45:15 Amy
Yeah. So then the that's where the percentage is calculated on that. That goes up. Yeah. So, so if I calculate it correctly, I would look at it and say my sewage bill portion, which might be about.
00:45:19 Kevin
So they go up by 6%, right?
00:45:30 Amy
You know, I I'd have to look at it, but I I feel like it was somewhere in the neighborhood of, like, maybe what, 18 dollars or something more.
00:45:40 Amy
A month that that you'll actually see in that belt, but we'll have to actually look at the breakdown. But the point is.
00:45:45 Kevin
Sure, cause 'cause. I was gonna say they go up by like I wanna say when even when I was on the Council, they went up. I think 10% was the biggest because we just finished the sewer project. And so they were right anticipating debt service payments. And now also we have all the infrastructure issues right. Like they've got the discharges into the.
00:45:53 Amy
Yeah, makes sense. You're trying to build that up and.
00:45:58 Amy
Right.
00:46:01 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
00:46:03 Amy
Now, OK, but that's a perfect example of we this is what started me with this whole. Let's let me understand how this where the money is and how it's separated. I have learned so much in the last month and I'm I'm happy for that.
00:46:20 Amy
This.
00:46:20 Kevin
It's like it's going to be it like it's it's it's I was two years on the Council and.
00:46:26 Kevin
I.
00:46:26 Kevin
Was like, yeah, I'm up for reelection.
00:46:27 Kevin
I still don't understand all of it, you know and.
00:46:28 Amy
Well, yeah. I mean, luckily I I under and you do too. As a business owner, understand budget and and budgeting and how that how things are figured and I probably you know way more about like you know state the way the state does things because some of the things I've had to actually do myself instead of the accountant but anyway.
00:46:49 Amy
Uh.
00:46:50 Amy
From what I understand from from the way our water bill is set up, OK, there, there, there is always enough money in there to take care of of what we need to take care of. Although the last couple years I think more money was moved out of the Water fund to cover cost of other things and.
00:47:09 Amy
Should be, because now we're in a situation with the Water Fund where it's not high enough or.
00:47:14 Amy
Surplus think it's like $400,000 or something. Not enough.
00:47:17 Kevin
And they did have water main replacements with Washington Street like they were doing water. I don't know if they covered sewer.
00:47:21 Amy
That it just that and the whole what you said about the 25% being applied to other people's salaries, it it it's dwindling it down to the point where it just is not a good practice to be if you're a healthy municipality with money that generates and supports each fund it, it's just.
00:47:31 Kevin
Yeah, 33rd a third, I think is the.
00:47:42 Amy
Really it what we're seeing it right now, it's not the way to do it because eventually you'll lose when you start morphing all of this, you lose.
00:47:52 Amy
This.
00:47:53 Amy
Site or focus on really what the issue is, OK, because the money is just being moved and then it's it's shuffled and it gives the illusion. Yeah, it gives the illusion that you're doing OK and the.
00:48:01 Kevin
And covers it today.
00:48:04 Amy
The sewage.
00:48:04 Kevin
Free rental properties and ones losing a bunch of money.
00:48:06 Amy
Yeah, it's like paint, paint, paint stealing. Yes.
00:48:08 Kevin
But you pull money from the other two to pay for this one. But once this one, if you're doing everything correctly, this one should start.
00:48:15 Kevin
Making money and then these ones have been making money. They can kind of rebuild and sure. And you want them to be self-sufficient, right?
00:48:16 Amy
Right.
00:48:18 Amy
And then they can be left alone. Yeah, do their thing and and then you've got this other part off, you know, it's feet or, you know it they you've gotten it off the ground. OK. And that's really, I think, essentially from what I have read and learned that the water and sewer can all obviously is probably a big money generator for most communities.
00:48:40 Amy
It can be almost like your own line of credit, but then by the end of the fiscal year, I think the comment was made something about the the mayor acknowledged the fact that money from this account needs to be moved back by May 31st, which is the end of our fiscal year to pay it back. So essentially, you're using your water.
00:49:00 Amy
For your sewer, depending on.
00:49:01 Kevin
Who's to cover some offsets now I can see.
00:49:03 Amy
Yes, there's a line of credit, then. Then after you've gotten through what?
00:49:07 Amy
Their crisis moment was then you go, OK now we're.
00:49:08 Kevin
Shortfall. Right, right. Yeah.
00:49:11 Kevin
Shortfall in sales tax, you need to cover.
00:49:13 Kevin
The difference? Let's.
00:49:14 Amy
Yeah. Now we're now we're doing OK. It's doing well now move the money back and keep it where it was supposed to be. That is not happening. That isn't happening. Not the not that I see. I think what's happening is, is it it? It's moved over and then it just blends right in. And then you never really realize how bad that general fund, what shape that general fund.
00:49:34 Amy
End so like with the sewage issues we have when we're generating that kind of money to take care of unforeseen events such as this water that the the raw sewage going we have and should be able to fix it with the money that we have generated from our.
00:49:46 Kevin
The picture.
00:49:55 Amy
That is.
00:49:55 Kevin
And with those upcoming projects, that's why I would say I would probably keep them at a 5%. You know the average was about 2% cause inflation is what on average, 1 1/2 percent.
00:50:03 Amy
Well, keep it there. Yes, but even if we keep it there and not raise it, it's still OK. It's still good. You you don't. We've already generated enough money for that. For the unforeseen events. Which?
00:50:16 Amy
Happening is that is the Piggy Bank that's paying everything else. You can't do that. You have to look at your general fund and say, what are we missing? We're missing generated money from all these components. Well, how are we going to make up the difference? Well, you have to think about things like what I mentioned with the water bottling.
00:50:36 Amy
Is this going to cost us money up front? No, it shouldn't, because that company comes in with their own filtration.
00:50:44 Kevin
Maybe a smidge, maybe a smidgen. Just, you know, cover a little bit of overtime for people to tour facilities and whatnot, but inconsequential.
00:50:45 Amy
Maybe, but look, but look, this is. But here's the thing.
00:50:53 Amy
When you have something desirable, you don't have to make the concessions. They make the concessions, they say. Let's look at the opportunity of Olean and say hopefully they would look at it the way I'm looking at it. We will do anything to be able to be able to tap into their municipality.
00:51:01 Kevin
Sure.
00:51:14 Amy
If they do not have the money to take care of whatever they foresee being an issue, we will help them.
00:51:22 Amy
With that, we will help them be able to make us successful by generating or or giving them the funds that they need to be able to be successful for us. So I would hope that if we, if we even looked into this, that we would make sure we were safe in the fact that we would not be.
00:51:43 Amy
Without any money, which is.
00:51:44 Amy
What The thing is that people don't like to see this extra spending unnecessarily putting ourselves out there for everyone and not getting it and not getting anything in return that we feel was a good, solid negotiated.
00:52:04 Amy
Benefit to our city and that's one big strong suit that I have. I'm I'm good.
00:52:11 Amy
You know, at negotiating I have to do that for our own business with some of the biggest companies in our industry where even just a little bit adds up to a lot an extra week of a discount for us to do a sale or you know, I speak with them and we end up, you know, in the end having a very fair deal and we walk away both feeling good about what.
00:52:34 Kevin
That's the best part about negotiation because you don't you don't do too many negotiations if you always walk away feeling awesome and everybody else around you feels crummy, because then you'll you'll never do any more negotiation.
00:52:34 Amy
What we did, yeah.
00:52:40 Amy
No, right?
00:52:44 Amy
You won't, and you won't feel like you were. You know that that you were fair or or like you said, at some point, it's if you need them again, they're not going to be there.
00:52:54 Kevin
It's the it's the good sport analogy, right? So you take a if your kid's a good sport.
00:52:54 Amy
For you.
00:52:57 Amy
That's right.
00:53:00 Kevin
They're gonna have lots of friends, and they're gonna get invited to lots of games to play. And if your kids a bad sport, they're gonna, they're gonna win right now, but they're never going to win all the series of games. They're never going to get invited to them.
00:53:02 Amy
Right.
00:53:04 Amy
Right, right, right.
00:53:09 Amy
Yeah, I.
00:53:13 Amy
And also yeah, that's for sure. And you know what, that's a great analogy. And and honestly, our kids ended up being very successful in our school district. They they were able to get into any college that they applied to, they were afforded scholarships.
00:53:33 Amy
At the beginning of their of their school career.
00:53:37 Amy
To me, I knew what the potential was, what was most important to me as they were going through school, is to be a good friend to learn how to socialize with other kids. I knew that we would be able to handle the academics of it. I never pressured them to have straight A's or AB wasn't good enough. It was. Did you make a friend at school?
00:53:57 Amy
Were you good to a person that was maybe struggling? Did you share a snack? Did you? These were the things that were always important to me and that that really is as a city we have to all feel that way as well.
00:54:11 Amy
When I when when I first heard about this village was probably last year, when it finally became a big deal on social media, living on Irving Street. That to me was just gut wrenching to think that that sewage was going into the river awful, awful, awful.
00:54:16 Amy
With.
00:54:30 Amy
I did not realize how often it happened, and even just a little is too much. I know people want to quantify well, what's how many gallons are we really talking does not matter, does not matter any bit, is too much because that that that that means we have we have devalued our.
00:54:45 Kevin
That's my argument.
00:54:50 Amy
Our natural resource and we have become a neighbor that no one wants to be around. OK, that is a problem that is embarrassing. That is something that should have been absolutely first priority for our mayor.
00:55:08 Amy
To be a good neighbor before we worry about anything else. What are we doing to our environment? What are we doing for our own generator of revenue? That is a river that we have all assessed could be possibly something more than what it is with people being able to get on there with their kayaks.
00:55:27 Amy
Not for just one day or not just.
00:55:29 Amy
Locally, regionally be a place. We have a river AA river that can be kayaked. That not many. Why would you not? Why would you not uphold the purity of that river as much as possible so.
00:55:43 Kevin
So I I I think they're, I think they're the the quantity to me would be a big you know what I mean? Like there's 8 million 8.8 million gallons per minute flowing down the river so.
00:55:49 Amy
Yeah.
00:55:53 Amy
Mm-hmm.
00:55:56 Amy
But.
00:55:56 Kevin
So for to have like 2,000,000 / 48 hours of sewage being dumped in there and it's already kind of mixed with storm, I understand the point that like I don't want to swim in a pool where one of my kids friends pooped him right like.
00:56:07 Amy
It dilutes, yeah, it dilutes, but it then concentrates. That's the problem with. With this it's diluted where we are. We don't feel like it's a big issue in this area. But as we know it all collects to 1 area. Where's that one area, Kenzie Dam area, what's it doing to the environment?
00:56:27 Amy
Every time that happens.
00:56:29 Amy
It's not just the poop that dissipates, it's what is also encompasses in that waste collects in one spot, and it keeps collecting in that one spot, and some things never break down. Some things ruin the environment. That's the problem, and same with the oil issue. And that's why they dredged.
00:56:46 Kevin
Right.
00:56:49 Amy
That you know, for that very reason, how much could possibly be leaking out of those old buried heights right at the end where I live, how how bad of a problem is that? Well, bad enough that they disrupted our entire summer working on that project with a God awful sound.
00:56:56 Kevin
Ohh, over on 4th the 7th St.
00:57:09 Amy
Of gravel being filtered and thrown back in or you know all the bottom being cleaned and put back.
00:57:16 Amy
And that was a big enough problem that that was done. How many years ago. And here they are at this point, fixing it. Well, it doesn't. It's no different for what's being wasted put out, put out to the river.
00:57:32 Kevin
I I think there is a misconcept like you. So you found out about it on Facebook 2 years ago and I think that there's reporting requirements that just started for municipalities of our.
00:57:41 Kevin
Size, yeah.
00:57:42 Kevin
So we're like.
00:57:43 Kevin
Portville for example, does similar stuff that we do. Salamanca doesn't have the reporting court requirements that we do because they don't. They don't meet the certain thresholds, so or it also depends on like your sewer plant operator. Right like.
00:57:54 Amy
Yeah.
00:57:58 Amy
Mm-hmm.
00:57:59 Kevin
I personally know the one that operates ours like he like. If his kid stole $0.05 worth of gum, he'd walk back into the store like. But there's some people that like you, don't. I don't know. The one in Salamanca. I don't know. The one in Portville. So like.
00:58:05 Amy
No, it's it's. Yeah, it's yeah.
00:58:12 Amy
Well, they will, they say they.
00:58:14 Amy
Have been reporting that they're 100% compliant, Salamanca, but.
00:58:17 Kevin
Which is which I think.
00:58:19 Kevin
To me, that's hard to believe just because, like portville just got in.
00:58:22 Kevin
People for like.
00:58:23 Kevin
The the EPA came in and they gave a.
00:58:25 Kevin
Whole bunch of.
00:58:25 Kevin
Money to fix their problems because they.
00:58:27 Amy
Well, we, we we.
00:58:28 Amy
Actually could have had a lot of money as well to fix our problem. We just we haven't asked, we haven't looked into it after you know again at this point you have to take like certain sections of what it is you want to learn about and absorb it and then move on.
00:58:46 Amy
So right now I I looked at what I saw as the master plant for our sewer system, because to me, logistically I'm. I'm literally thinking in my mind.
00:58:56 Amy
Now if I have to oversee this, how is that actually done and and what is? What is the equipment required and and how do you RIP up the whole? OK, so this is my thought process, especially as a person who loves to cook, who owned a restaurant. You know, it's like a recipe. What what steps do I need to take in order to finally have the finished product?
00:59:18 Amy
So that master plan was developed in 2005, six was uh in 2016 updated. Uh-huh.
00:59:27 Kevin
That's when we did the consent order, but I just got on the Council at that point, yeah.
00:59:31 Amy
OK, so it was updated with tasks that were completed and things that still need to be completed. There are so many items still needed to be completed. There are items that should have been done in 24. There's a reason for a master plan to give you an idea of how to.
00:59:52 Amy
Make sure you have the money.
00:59:54 Amy
Make sure you apply for the grants that.
00:59:56 Amy
Need to take care of it.
00:59:58 Amy
Implement. Take care of the issues. They're all there and one of the bigger things that needed to be addressed is Green Street area, which is 4th St. area Sullivan area which yes, we had the DRI take care of some of the infrastructure underneath did it fully.
01:00:18 Amy
Take care of the issues. No way.
01:00:20 Kevin
We have, we've got 200 years of.
01:00:22 Amy
No way. Yes. And every hard rainfall water backs up in the businesses on Union. That is not acceptable.
01:00:32 Amy
We have a master plan that we should have been following. It does extend all the way to 2042. However, within that range are all these things that we should be targeted? Has it ever been mentioned? No master plan has ever been brought up in the last six years that I know of. It's not more.
01:00:45 Kevin
Because I.
01:00:52 Kevin
After I got off the Council, I still listen to like every single meeting that's available to listen to, and I always I hear the same numbers that were thrown at me. Yeah, $250,000 a year. That's what the DNC.
01:00:56 Amy
Yeah.
01:01:04 Kevin
Requires of us.
01:01:06 Kevin
But I remember when we signed that consent order, I remember being told like this is the minimum you have to put in every year.
01:01:13 Kevin
It's like if you ever look at your credit card statement and it says like if this is the minimum, but this is how many years it'll take to pay the minimum, right? And it's like. And if you want to pay it off in five years, well, they told us at the beginning the minimum we're expecting of $250,000 a year for sewer lining and all this other stuff. But they don't. They actually they even specified like, if you just stick to the minimum.
01:01:15 Amy
Yeah.
01:01:19 Amy
Yeah, forever. Yeah.
01:01:28 Amy
Yeah.
01:01:30 Amy
Yeah.
01:01:34 Kevin
You're not going to meet the 2042?
01:01:36 Amy
Deadline. We'll never we'll never get through.
01:01:37 Amy
Well.
01:01:38 Amy
All of that.
01:01:39 Kevin
But they don't talk about that anymore and and even into these meetings, all I hear is.
01:01:43 Kevin
$250,000 a year, $250,000 a year. Well, we have to spend $250,000 a year. Well, you could spend half a million. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I don't know if it doesn't have to be just applied to sewer linings, for example, it can.
01:01:45 Amy
Yeah.
01:01:54 Amy
Right.
01:01:55 Kevin
It could be catch basins for storm sewer, water and.
01:01:57 Amy
Yeah, all of that, all of that, all of it. Is it? All of it is right there. Why we're why we're doing it again and having another analysis or.
01:01:59 Kevin
Hey.
01:02:06 Amy
For evaluation done for 50,000, it's all right there. It's all what has already been written is relevant to what the issues are. Water as a business owner, especially restaurant water, was always the biggest issue no matter what. For us, whatever the case was.
01:02:08 Kevin
So that's yeah.
01:02:26 Amy
Water needs to be hot enough, water is coming out of where it shouldn't be coming out of, and and homes are the same way, right? Your roof leaks your your this ends up being an issue for everything and or your toilet doesn't work. Whatever the issue, water should always be top priority. It I I.
01:02:34 Amy
Sure.
01:02:46 Amy
I am not assuming this, but I am just saying looking at a master plan, it's never mentioned. There's nothing completed. There's been a good many years other than the DRI, which was able to cross off the issues that were listed that were taking care of with the DRI.
01:03:06 Amy
I'm assuming when we do this road again, we'll be able to go back to the master plan, cross off those issues if they determine that those are part of what's going on with why 4th St. Pump is burst.
01:03:13 Kevin
Right.
01:03:21 Amy
Thing and you know the the the point, I guess I'm trying to make is the leadership, OK, which I understand the Common Council votes and they're overseeing. But honestly, from the top, the leadership.
01:03:38 Amy
Meaning the mayor needs to always have their eye on that. And I don't think I think that has been where we are failing. We are failing the city and it's a burden on the people that are just trying to do the right thing and pay the taxes that they pay and pay the water bill.
01:03:58 Amy
You pay the.
01:03:59 Amy
Sewage and it is up to us to make sure we use that money first and foremost for these issues that are causing the most distress. No one wants raw sewage in their basement. No one wants another municipality coming into our court, our city.
01:04:11 Kevin
Right. Well, I think that's.
01:04:19 Amy
Goings on and person after person after person pleading for us to take care of it. That's just unacceptable.
01:04:29 Amy
It's not right and really, honestly sitting there that first time in the Chamber or in the Common Council meeting to have them stand up and then and then address me even to say, you know, you're running for mayor, are you going to take care of it?
01:04:50 Amy
That's a that's a feeling of embarrassment that I don't ever want anyone to feel. If I'm if I'm the person leading I I don't want others.
01:05:00 Amy
To feel that way.
01:05:01 Kevin
I don't I and.
01:05:04 Kevin
My my issue is not with the residents of the nation or with the residents of Salamanca. It was more or less like I I thought about this after the fact was that the two meetings ago when they had.
01:05:09 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:05:19 Kevin
The Salamanca Councilman come up the the nations where the tribal council? Yeah. They're, they're Councilman. Come up and it's like if we ever had to talk with another municipality like we would send them an e-mail, phone call. Reach out to them first. And people made the argument we have it's like.
01:05:25 Amy
Yeah, the Council.
01:05:28 Amy
M.
01:05:36 Amy
Yes.
01:05:39 Kevin
I was on the Council when there was sewage discharge.
01:05:41 Kevin
In the river.
01:05:42 Kevin
There was never, you know, there was never there was never a phone call. There was always an article in the paper. Salamanca contemplates, you know, the Senate connection. Contemplate suing the city. I never recall being being informed of a, you know, litigation a letter.
01:05:44 Amy
Yeah.
01:05:48 Amy
Yeah.
01:06:00 Kevin
There was, you know.
01:06:00 Amy
Well, I mean do you think though if you were?
01:06:03 Kevin
I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that the sewer discharge is.
01:06:06 Amy
No, I I I get you. You you understand? It's.
01:06:07 Kevin
I I'm just saying, like from a parliamentary standpoint, like for some diplomacy, how do they just come up and say hey?
01:06:11 Amy
How did? Yeah.
01:06:15 Kevin
And I'm I'm I'm a tribal counselor. We we you need to fix this. It's like, you know, you could instead of coming up into onto the soapbox, you could just.
01:06:23 Kevin
Send a phone call per.
01:06:24 Amy
Yeah, no, actually, Glenn Wall, did he have a personal like, meeting with the mayor? I'm not trying to speak for him, but I wanted to gain a better understanding of where did the ball drop, where is the lack of communication?
01:06:39 Amy
Now, from what I understand, Glenn has been coming up to our meetings.
01:06:43 Amy
Every every month to say the same thing over and over. When are you going to address it, Bill? When are you going to do it? Bill? This was after a private meeting because that is, in fact what they did. They they had a private meeting about it and it wasn't going anywhere.
01:06:52 Kevin
So somebody made.
01:06:53 Kevin
That mention. Yeah, somebody made that to me.
01:07:02 Kevin
Sure. I I my point like.
01:07:05 Kevin
Because one of somebody I spoke to also brought up like, you know, Glenn Wall has been going there the entire time and it's like, yes, but Glenn Wall is just a a resident in Little Valley, not actually part of the affected community. I mean, sure, I'm, I'm sure he's used realizes the river as well. But I'm saying like the municipality that is claiming to be directly affected by.
01:07:10 Amy
MHM.
01:07:15 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:07:21 Amy
Right, right, right.
01:07:26 Kevin
The sewage discharge.
01:07:28 Kevin
They're like they didn't send Glenn Wall, you know? I mean, he wasn't like their messenger. That was my.
01:07:33 Amy
Well, I think I think the message really came from the state like I would think that most of us would agree that when the state tells you, you have to do something about this, other municipalities shouldn't have to say then, hey.
01:07:49 Amy
You were told you need to fix this. You know it's an issue even your own citizens want you to fix it. Why aren't you fixing it? What can we do to help you? We're here to help. We don't want you to get in trouble. We don't want to see this happen anymore. Why aren't you doing it? And when you're not getting any answer?
01:08:09 Amy
The best thing to do is to organize and to come together as a community and then ask in one voice. And I think that's what's going on. We have been told we're supposed to do.
01:08:19 Amy
It.
01:08:20 Amy
They're asking now, why aren't we doing it?
01:08:24 Amy
That's what I think. That's what I think's happening, which I can't blame them. I think we are in agreement. Why isn't it being done? It's not just them. We want to know, you know? And I talked to residents over in Seneca Heights and OK, They are paying their taxes and they have beautiful homes.
01:08:24 Amy
OK.
01:08:34 Kevin
Sure, I get it.
01:08:43 Amy
And they should not have sewage in their basement.
01:08:45 Amy
That they should not have that.
01:08:47 Kevin
And that's why I I believe that that one gets angry at like, why does it discharge into the the river? It's like, well, if you're designing something to if a pump were to fail, it's got.
01:08:52 Amy
Right.
01:08:54 Amy
Yeah, right. Ohh.
01:08:55 Kevin
To go somewhere.
01:08:56 Kevin
Right. So like, do you want it in on this side of the levee or on the river side of the levee? Like is it there would be nothing to mix it with on our side. You know what I mean, like it would just just sit there in a pile?
01:08:59 Amy
Right.
01:09:02 Amy
It's.
01:09:05 Amy
I know.
01:09:07 Amy
I know and and it's like when you try to wrap your brain around, what exactly is it? What is making this now do you know come out this way? Well, to me it feels like it's quite possible that those old pipes that were leaky were taking off the pressure.
01:09:24 Amy
There, specially like down Union Street, right, there's stories about them, some of them being even wooden. I don't know, I don't know. But but it's it stands to reason you central you've centralized the pressure of that water it's going that way now.
01:09:31 Amy
Right, sure.
01:09:33 Kevin
Now you've now you've relined them.
01:09:40 Kevin
Sure. Take a brake liner.
01:09:40 Amy
It's going to go.
01:09:40 Amy
To the least resistance. Yeah, it's it's.
01:09:42 Kevin
Like a brake line. You, you, you you have a leak in your brake system. You get that section fixed and now all of a sudden? Well, yeah, now all of a sudden, the pressure can now go. It can hold better pressure cause it's not leaking now. And all of a sudden that higher pressure causes other spots to start leaking.
01:09:47 Amy
Fix.
01:09:47 Amy
Packs out.
01:09:56 Amy
We need to go.
01:09:57 Amy
There you go. So when we did the DRI project?
01:10:01 Amy
In fact.
01:10:02 Amy
Our master plan of fixing our sewer was already designed or or or or thought through or.
01:10:10 Kevin
Because the DRI got introduced, what in 2000 and 1718?
01:10:12 Amy
Yes. So the DRI came I after, but obviously I would think everyone looked at it and said, well, great, now this is time to check the boxes off, you know of all the things that we know we have to address with the sewer. But why wasn't it thought? Well, gosh, what?
01:10:29 Amy
Just said if it's being fixed here, then that pressure is going somewhere else. Where's the next place? Well, now we're seeing it.
01:10:36 Kevin
Sometimes it's so you know also that you have those. Chalk it up to, there's a lot of people out there, right. So like not like you and I can't comprehend like, every little moving piece in the city. I try to but it is. And so to think about it like oh, we just solved this problem over here we're having sometimes you don't realize it's a problem.
01:10:37 Amy
It's coming in.
01:10:42 Amy
Yeah.
01:10:47 Amy
Yeah.
01:10:49 Amy
No, it's it's hard. You have to take it and.
01:10:56 Kevin
Till you see the next spot in the brake line burst and.
01:11:00 Kevin
Like I just gotta replace the whole line, you know, but.
01:11:02 Amy
Yeah, yeah. Or at least let's start with the area in which is is it's affecting. And then when that gets fixed, well then where is it going next? You know, it's right. Right. Well, maybe we can. Maybe we can use this as an example and say let's try to. Let's try to assume that it might be this other area that.
01:11:10 Kevin
Wait, wait. Sometimes you wait for the next.
01:11:12 Kevin
Leak though no, and that's.
01:11:22 Amy
Areas got to be next, maybe not at the same time, but it's got to be within the next year or two of that or just, you know. And again, I think like someone who is knowledgeable and an ex.
01:11:28 Kevin
Right.
01:11:33 Amy
Expert at this can explain that that might be what's going to happen and then we try to we try to minimize or mitigate those issues that are going to pop up. I mean it is not. There's no perfect answer and no perfect person. However, you have to just try. You have to at least acknowledge and.
01:11:53 Amy
And you know, be the be the voice that says. Yep, I will be responsible for this and.
01:12:01 Kevin
Wow. Brain fart. Sorry. Sorry. We.
01:12:07 Kevin
I guess my my only it's alright.
01:12:11 Amy
No, think about it'll pay. It'll come back to you. It'll come back to you.
01:12:12 Kevin
You gotta be falling down a hill, yeah.
01:12:17 Amy
You know, I I think like another another thing everyone has asked me as I was, as I've been talking to people is, you know, don't, please don't put any more roundabouts in and and.
01:12:28 Kevin
That's a lot of people don't.
01:12:30 Amy
Yeah. And you know, The thing is, is I think that the bottom line, the good if people really, really think about it, the good outweighs the bad for sure.
01:12:40 Amy
Of those, I think the issues that people have sometimes is just other people just do not know what they're doing when they come in it like. It's just like, you know, and and. And The thing is is I think every community that has roundabout sees this happen and and you know, you either got to laugh.
01:12:50 Kevin
It's it's only somebody with PA plates.
01:13:00 Amy
Off and say, you know I I mean, I clearly was the one that should have went next. Why are you now in front of me? I these are the issues however. However I would take that over sitting at a red light for.
01:13:14 Amy
Never.
01:13:15 Kevin
I think people forget how long we.
01:13:16 Amy
I look at it not only that, but OK. I would say I am fair in the assessment that I grew up on Union Street, our home growing up was on 2nd St. however, I lived on Union Street having a business there and I can tell you that the exhaust that would be generated from.
01:13:17 Kevin
Used to wait for Friday afternoons.
01:13:37 Amy
All of the trucks, cars, semis sitting at a red light in front of our store on a hot summer day was overwhelming to say the least. Like to the point where some days I would have to cover my face.
01:13:51 Amy
And walk out the door on a really hot day. So there is definitely positives to having the roundabouts I they keep the you keep the cars moving. You don't have to pay for the red lights.
01:13:59 Kevin
Isn't he keeping the cars moving?
01:14:03 Kevin
And so a lot of people also don't like them. If you've also don't like them, they don't like them. And so they're like, well, why do you keep putting in? It's like, well, even just from a if you were a anti roundabout mayor.
01:14:15 Kevin
You go to make a traffic circle, a traffic change at an intersection dot state of New York is pushing roundabouts like that's it. Like, so you have to and you have to get their sign off on anything that they're even remotely funding. So it's like you have to get dot sign off on stuff. And it's like if you don't have it, then you're not getting your intersection or you might.
01:14:19 Amy
Hmm.
01:14:22 Amy
Yes, they are. They're everywhere now.
01:14:28 Amy
Right, right, right.
01:14:32 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:14:35 Kevin
Take a hit in your chips funding or whatever, you know, so it's.
01:14:37 Amy
Yeah.
01:14:38 Amy
Well, people have to look at Union Street a little bit different too. I I understand again grew up on that street, used to be a.
01:14:46 Amy
Drag you know.
01:14:47 Amy
Like a car would go from, you know, zero to 30 and then hit the red light and then go zero to 35, hit the red light and it was just it was very unsafe. I almost got hit more than one time. It it that really if we can just draw back the businesses that we want to attract that will make sense to people.
01:15:09 Amy
I and and we need to figure out a different way.
01:15:13 Amy
So that people can get from point A to point B without taking that road. That's a whole different discussion someday down the road. Obviously Front Street needs to be looked at it. It's becoming way bigger of the street, way more issues with it now that people are using it.
01:15:32 Amy
More to avoid you know what North Union so you know, I think eventually things will even out and and Union Street will become what I think we all hope it to be. A place where we're all going to shop and do fun things and have you know nice Christmas like events down there more so.
01:15:35 Amy
Great.
01:15:53 Amy
W 8th St. needs to be looked at completely different. I have not even looked at the plan. I I don't agree that it should have roundabouts, but I do think we need a thing to slow people down. But.
01:16:06 Kevin
So enough herb diets do that. So by bringing the curbs in, minimizing the the lane distance, you have a big wide lane. People think they can go Audubon speeds. I learned this. Yeah. I learned this from the first DPW or my second DPW director I ever got to meet. And that was what he said.
01:16:08 Amy
You did.
01:16:16 Amy
You can't. It's hard. It's you can't.
01:16:20 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:16:23 Kevin
He goes bump outs. Yeah, they're 88 compliant and people slow.
01:16:25 Amy
Soil.
01:16:26 Amy
Down they slow down because we don't. If we don't have red lights, we shouldn't have to go that fast. Take your time. You're going to get there faster without the red lights. Just go.
01:16:36 Kevin
So it don't mean.
01:16:36 Amy
A.
01:16:36 Amy
Little slower.
01:16:36 Kevin
Hits that people keep getting from their phones and.
01:16:38 Amy
Ah yeah.
01:16:39 Kevin
It builds their.
01:16:40 Kevin
ADHD and now they just get behind the wheel of the car and they just wanna.
01:16:41 Amy
Could be.
01:16:43 Amy
Yeah, it very well could be, you know, like we have to change our mentality, especially for Union Street go slow. I guarantee you if you put every red light back the way it used to be, it would take you so much.
01:16:43 Kevin
Right.
01:16:56 Amy
Much at a busy day, it would take you so much longer to go from from Pizza Hut down at the four corners with all those red lights than if you were to just go slow methodically and make your way now down on West State again, don't know exactly the plan, but I absolutely.
01:17:00 Kevin
Right.
01:17:14 Kevin
I hear bits and pieces, so it's not my.
01:17:15 Amy
Well, this road needs to be looked at for what it is for, for people to get down to essential stores at this point. OK, down on that end of town and a lot of people want to.
01:17:29 Amy
Bike OK, the way union streets bike path is set up is insane. Like everybody can see the problems with that. We have to make W State St. not just a shared Rd. but its own path for bikes to me feel like no median whatsoever. With grass it should be a bike path.
01:17:44 Kevin
Right.
01:17:50 Amy
In the sand.
01:17:51 Amy
Water barricaded in some way that is low maintenance, like like. No, no. In the ground. Vegetation. No, we can't. We can. No, I mean, I love what they're what they're doing. I I think it's amazing but that.
01:17:57 Kevin
You know, watch thousands of people each week, you know?
01:18:05 Kevin
Just it's work. The flowers are beautiful.
01:18:07 Kevin
But flowers are work.
01:18:08 Amy
That's right. And not only that, but the great people.
01:18:11 Amy
We have now might not be people. We have 10 years from now.
01:18:13 Kevin
Sure, John. I, I I love John Bielecki. He's a great, he's he volunteers there. I don't know if you've ever met John.
01:18:17 Amy
Yeah.
01:18:19 Amy
Yes, I think I have.
01:18:21 Kevin
I met him through the farmers market when we had the coffee shop and I.
01:18:21 Amy
Well.
01:18:25 Kevin
I would go to the farmers market and selling coffee and he would always be there with us. He did drawings and.
01:18:29 Kevin
Renderings of people stars.
01:18:30 Amy
No, I I don't think I've actually, but I know of.
01:18:32 Amy
Him, but I.
01:18:33 Kevin
Yeah, he's one of the big volunteers Uptown, and he tells you what flowers will do well here and.
01:18:36 Amy
Yes.
01:18:38 Amy
Right, that's so important.
01:18:39 Kevin
He's a retired. I believe he's a doctor. He's.
01:18:42 Kevin
A retired doctor and.
01:18:42 Amy
Yeah.
01:18:44 Kevin
I actually just saw him yesterday, went got ice cream with the missus and and he was he showed up and it's. Hey, John, how you doing? I you know, I hadn't seen the island. It's usually wave when I see him picking flowers and.
01:18:49 Amy
Yeah.
01:18:54 Kevin
It's one of those things that like, he's not.
01:18:55 Amy
Did he marry? Do you did not go off topic. But did he marry a dembowski? You don't know? I don't know either, because that I think that might be where I might know him. Because I had her for a teacher. But anyway, sorry. OK, right. Right, right. Right. That's right. That's like my husband. He's on rebuilding together.
01:19:06 Kevin
But he's not. But he's not getting younger.
01:19:11 Kevin
Like you know, it's.
01:19:15 Amy
OK, you you familiar with who? The. He's just like he's like, there was such a great group.
01:19:16 Kevin
Oh yeah, yeah, with.
01:19:19 Kevin
Jim Jim Maher's on that.
01:19:21 Amy
Too, right? No, no, he's banner response. This is a different group of people, and they're all older and they're amazing men and and.
01:19:22 Kevin
Or is he the bottom response?
01:19:28 Kevin
But there's.
01:19:31 Amy
Man, the older I'm talking like. Nope, Nope. They're their own organization and my it kind of started out with Christmas in July. I think they named it and they're painting houses and like, cuckoo was involved and there was a lot of businesses and.
01:19:33 Kevin
I think through Community Action I'm.
01:19:35 Kevin
Trying to remember one of them spotted someone OK?
01:19:43 Kevin
And they were painting houses, right?
01:19:51 Amy
The corporations that got involved and just did the blitz day OK and and that's how my husband got involved because he was with cuckoo and he, you know, he would help them supply them with moving all the ladders and getting the house set up for cutco.
01:20:06 Amy
Then he got on the board. So I guess my point is wonderful, wonderful organization, made-up of very great, like outstanding older men basically doing things for older people the same age building ramps and it's like you that that's not sustainable we need.
01:20:26 Amy
New, fresh, like and honestly.
01:20:28 Kevin
And it goes in cycles because it happens at all the social clubs around here too. Like I remember the Hibernians and they do a lot to give back to the community, but they were going through this big stint where like for 20 years, it was the same.
01:20:31 Amy
Yeah.
01:20:34 Amy
Yeah.
01:20:40 Kevin
Dads, like their kids, are just getting out of high school and they've kind of taken the reins over.
01:20:40 Amy
Yeah. Yes.
01:20:44 Amy
MHM.
01:20:45 Kevin
And now all of a sudden they've got grandkids and they're all like, ready to go. Yeah. And like, I run the kids Christmas party now, like, it's my job to get Santa down there. It's my job to get to get you. Exactly. And it's like, and there's like, me and three other like, five other people my age. So.
01:20:52 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20:54 Amy
Guy, take over. Yeah, yeah.
01:21:01 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:21:02 Kevin
It's like it ain't going to last for long if we don't start getting some young blood.
01:21:06 Kevin
In there so.
01:21:06 Amy
It's true, it's true. And and you're right, it goes in cycles like that and and I'm sure that's going to happen with our downtown beautification, they do a great job. But you know again you got to get the next generation involved. So you know we can't, we cannot worry about that.
01:21:23 Amy
Stretch in that way you know it's just.
01:21:25 Kevin
And and what?
01:21:26 Kevin
State Street. I so like I said I hadn't been. I I don't have as close an eye on.
01:21:30 Kevin
That one like I don't remember plans like I.
01:21:34 Amy
I think we will eventually. I think they I I mean, yeah.
01:21:36 Kevin
Because they've done public presentations, but it's just like S Union St. the public presentations were there when I was on the Council and then they revamped it and they did it again. They went with another engineer, they did it again, and then they they did it again. And I think they've done two different renderings.
01:21:42 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:21:47 Amy
Yeah.
01:21:51 Kevin
And like.
01:21:52 Kevin
The last three years and now they've picked the last one and it's like now they're going with.
01:21:53 Amy
MHM.
01:21:56 Amy
MHM.
01:21:57 Kevin
I can't tell you exactly what it looks like because I've seen like seven of them, and I know I've seen one or two of W State St. but it's like.
01:22:00 Amy
Right, right, right.
01:22:04 Amy
Wait, do we do we have access to those things online or or no, I mean that's that's the thing. You got to have. You got to have these things for people to be able to look at.
01:22:09 Kevin
I don't think they're online.
01:22:15 Kevin
I know they used to have renderings of stuff like when they.
01:22:18 Kevin
Did when they do a project they used to like when N Union St. was being done, they had like on every hallway of the city building. Even when I was just, you know Joe resident walking through you could see what N Union St. was gonna look like with all the roundabouts. And just at least a blueprint. And you know, a nice colorful blueprint, not an actual like architectural 1.
01:22:28 Amy
Yeah.
01:22:30 Amy
Yeah.
01:22:33 Amy
Yes, yes, yes.
01:22:38 Amy
Right. Well, you know, it would just be so nice to get to the point where everyone and you know it's not everyone that complains about the roundabout and there's lots of people that are.
01:22:38 Kevin
So.
01:22:47 Amy
That that are happy with the way the way it looks. Oh, people from out of town just are amazed at the change. And I never for one, I never thought I'd see this kind of change in our city. But you know, prior to this administration, that's when they got that ball rolling and.
01:23:07 Amy
It took off, and if that doesn't?
01:23:09 Amy
Tell you that the state believes in our city. You know, if that's not enough to tell you to start believing that maybe we can have a resurgence. I don't know what does because that is a lot of money for one city, one small city of a relatively small population to get that kind of money.
01:23:27 Amy
Right.
01:23:28 Amy
End, end of story and people can say that was our money and Yep, you're right. We paid into that. But we're getting it back. That's the point we're we're getting it back and we have to utilize it. We have to be successful with it. That's the thing we're we're given these opportunities for a reason.
01:23:49 Amy
And.
01:23:49 Amy
UM, you know, I definitely I if I am honored to be the mayor. I mean, I look forward to that challenge more than anything. I would just love to get through all of this and just get to work. You know, I I've been involved in so many things in the city quietly and never wanted to.
01:24:09 Amy
Make a big deal. Even you didn't know that I was the one that had it up the squirrels. But. But you know, it's like you took a great I, you know, took a great idea and tried to present it.
01:24:15 Amy
Yeah.
01:24:19 Kevin
I was gonna say.
01:24:20 Kevin
I was. I was in college when I think the slope came out so.
01:24:22 Amy
Yeah, well, I mean.
01:24:24 Amy
I I took a a leap of faith that it would work and I just really put my self out there. I had to start with the city because I had to get the I had to.
01:24:37 Amy
Get the the.
01:24:38 Amy
OK for it, which at the beginning of that gave the impression it was a city project, but in fact it was not.
01:24:38 Kevin
Things.
01:24:45 Kevin
There's a lot of things like that.
01:24:46 Amy
Yeah. And, you know, a couple couple headliners came out in the Times Herald and it went, you know, it at the time. People weren't happy. Crutchie was the administration. Things were going.
01:24:58 Amy
Up, you know, because of the issues of prior administrations causing what, whatever it.
01:25:02 Kevin
Sure.
01:25:05 Amy
Is.
01:25:05 Amy
It's it's bound to happen again and it's happening again. What can I say? You you always, you know, as a person leading anything, whether it's a board, whether it's a city, whether it's a, a country, you know your your decisions today.
01:25:19 Amy
Affect everything later down the road like it like it or not.
01:25:22 Amy
It's going to either a positive way or a negative way. You know our forefathers had had opinions about how they foresaw our future and and try to minimize or or cover those. But then things pop up that you just don't realize. But at the end of the day, really you set the tone maybe for forever.
01:25:43 Amy
So you have to always be conscious of the fact that your decisions affect the future, so.
01:25:51 Amy
You know, I I went to the city with this idea, thinking that could be a generator of tourism, which in fact it did. It did. And I I I did that with my husband's help. We we made that happen and it continues, it continues. So it's good we we have more squirrels coming out.
01:26:11 Amy
Essentially so yeah, so.
01:26:11 Kevin
Oh.
01:26:12 Amy
So yeah, so it was a good thing. And I feel like that all these.
01:26:17 Kevin
I'm still terrified by.
01:26:19 Amy
The McDonald's you well, well. New new home for McDonald's. One is actually going.
01:26:20 Kevin
The McDonald's was horrifying.
01:26:24 Amy
To go where?
01:26:25 Amy
We're probably everyone thought it should go at the beginning, which is McDonald's. They're excited the corporate office is so excited about it and they.
01:26:29 Kevin
OK.
01:26:35 Amy
Make a big deal out of it, bringing it back down. I know the way I think. It's just like clowns have.
01:26:37 Kevin
I would say it's just kind of scary.
01:26:38 Kevin
To see this like.
01:26:41 Kevin
I think, well, that's the Coms have a scary feeling through them anyways, right? Like some little kids are scared by Santa, you know?
01:26:44 Amy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:26:48 Amy
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know. But at the time, honestly, I I felt very honored by the fact that the Myers wanted to invest in that. And at the beginning.
01:27:00 Amy
Thing was, you know, trying to convince people that it will become a thing, that people will actually enjoy. And and here's the reason behind it.
01:27:07 Kevin
And they go around and collect them. And yeah, the the geotagging right. Is that the?
01:27:09 Amy
Yeah. So much, yeah. It was big. It was big. And and it started like at the beginning with with people putting pictures of it on social media. And then it got, like, big coverage. And I think in the end it it did exactly what we wanted it to do and continues to do so to me as a just a private citizen.
01:27:26 Kevin
Right.
01:27:30 Amy
Doing such a big thing.
01:27:34 Amy
To think I could do that on a bigger scale, like what could that mean for our city? What do I think is out-of-the-box thinking that actually might end up being a really great thing? Those are the things I think about. Those are what my hopes are for our future. That's.
01:27:53 Amy
You know, as they talk to anyone and yourself included, we might be that we might be that generation of people that are going to make a change that will be lasting for many years. You know that that could set us on 1st.
01:28:06 Kevin
That's that's the Lewis black. That's the.
01:28:08 Kevin
Lewis black adage.
01:28:09 Kevin
Like like you, you want to, you want to drive some people somewhere build a big freaking.
01:28:09 Amy
Yeah.
01:28:14 Amy
Thing that's right.
01:28:15 Kevin
And that's not a direct quote with freaking, but but then.
01:28:16 Amy
No, no, no.
01:28:17 Amy
That's the idea. Build it and they will come. Mark it, market it correctly and they will come.
01:28:19 Kevin
Right, yeah.
01:28:23 Kevin
You have a big freaking thing museum and a big freaking thing gift shop and you get St. vendors selling hot dogs for the big freaking thing with the the Bob Ross burned into the bun or whatever. The big thing is, you know, like.
01:28:27 Amy
There you go. Well I.
01:28:31 Amy
That's right.
01:28:36 Amy
Exactly right. And for example you, I don't know if you saw online that the neighborhood school of Dance now wants to literally, no pun intended, branch off.
01:28:45 Amy
And do you know the neighborhood Museum of play? OK, well, this is the this is the reason for the squirrels. No, no. For indoor hands on learning museum like strong like East Aurora did. Now is on the waterfront.
01:28:49 Amy
Really.
01:28:52 Kevin
Like play like best for you to play.
01:28:56 Kevin
Recreation for children.
01:29:05 Amy
So to bring this full circle, the squirrels, the fundraising from that was brought on, because why can't we? My children were little. We were traveling all over to go to children's museums. Why can't only and have this? This is not that difficult. I remember going to the East Aurora one.
01:29:25 Amy
When they were given in a a corporation.
01:29:29 Amy
Complex the entire floor. Fisher Price is it's home of Fisher Price. Fisher Price sponsored them tap tops or Wegmans taps I believe sponsored them for their grocery store. Every all these different companies were sponsoring these little play areas for kids. We went there frequently. Why can't.
01:29:51 Amy
Only and have that, well, money right place to place, to have it. What? And whatnot. Same time saw squirrels or I'm sorry. Not sorry.
01:29:52 Amy
Right.
01:30:01 Amy
Mermaids in Virginia Beach, where my sister-in-law lives. These are awesome. How did this happen? Who did this? You know, lots of questions looked into it, was found out. It was a fundraiser found out on a bigger scale that this is done all over the cows in Chicago. Cowboy boots in Texas.
01:30:21 Amy
Olean. Why can't we do it? And with the money? Why couldn't we use that to start a children's museum? So here, here we are.
01:30:29 Amy
Which?
01:30:30 Amy
Full full circle.
01:30:31 Kevin
No, my my desktop changed it, changed its background.
01:30:33 Kevin
Phone and I.
01:30:34 Amy
Ohh scared.
01:30:34 Kevin
Was like it's something and something die like my the podcast end and no. And then so.
01:30:40 Amy
Just little little diversion there, but no, the the money. So the money isn't CR Cattaraugus Region, Community Foundation, woodland and the city fund.
01:30:50 Amy
So that money has been sitting there and it's been gaining and we use it from time to time for different things for maintenance and.
01:30:57 Amy
But not but the bottom line is is I met with the person who's starting this process of doing the Children's Museum in the old neighborhood School of Dance. Yes, in that Chucky building.
01:31:10 Kevin
They're over the bridge in South unity.
01:31:14 Amy
Old the old.
01:31:15 Amy
Chucky News building, where they used to print.
01:31:18 Kevin
Pick it. OK. Right over the bridge on the left hand side before.
01:31:19 Amy
OK, so it's it's the perfect building. It's the perfect everything.
01:31:21 Kevin
You go up your work, right?
01:31:24 Kevin
So where are they?
01:31:25 Kevin
Now, did they? They bought a new building.
01:31:25 Amy
OK, so they bought Christopher Columbus and they're going to move the dance studio there.
01:31:29 Kevin
I've heard that they sold, I heard after Dave Otto Kirk died, I remember.
01:31:31 Amy
MHM.
01:31:34 Kevin
Because I was good friends with Joey Dio, who passed away and he was always changed. Come on, Kev. We got to buy. It would be a great spot. And I'm like Joe needs a roof and he's this and he's that. And so he can never get me to buy it. But I heard that they had one of their last few shows and events and things like that. Like before they finally closed down. I didn't know what was going to be there.
01:31:48 Amy
Hmm.
01:31:53 Amy
So. So Brittany is her name and she owns the neighborhood school dance.
01:32:02 Amy
And that's going to move to, they're going to have their new new place at the Christopher Columbus and then this building, she had a survey. She put a survey out. I saw it where they said, do you know, do you think that this indoor activity place for kids to go would be a good idea? And of course, everyone's like, yeah, it'd be a great idea.
01:32:22 Amy
I immediately jumped on that and I was like, we've been waiting for this. This is this was our dream. Always to have something like this in Olean.
01:32:30 Amy
I have we have the money for woodland in the city fund that can give you the money to get this off the ground. So now she's she's doing just that and she's going to have an architect come in and and they're going to evaluate the building and see what they can do and go from there and do like a capital project.
01:32:51 Amy
Like any other museum and what an asset. The research I did at the time to make the case for this.
01:32:58 Amy
There are some cities that use that as an anchor attraction to bring families into the city, not just for one day more than one day. Now I know the other thing the splash pad people are like on the fence with that. Trust me when I say these are the things that although they're coming first, these are the things that attract people.
01:33:19 Amy
To a city that builds a city that grows a city that increases the population that has.
01:33:26 Amy
What it takes for people to want to live there? That's the vision of it. All these different things that we think are unnecessary will be very necessary, because how could you attract the family to live here if you don't have these things in place, you are will have them in place. Now it's up to us to draw the population in.
01:33:48 Amy
And for me?
01:33:49 Amy
The tech.
01:33:50 Amy
Really is the the the way I would I would see we should go.
01:33:53 Kevin
I'm a I'm a big. I'm a big. I'm a big, you know, I was it is it proponent. Yeah. Yes yeah.
01:33:56 Amy
Uh.
01:33:59 Amy
Proponent of of this idea.
01:34:01 Kevin
Of of ideas of well cause, here's The thing is, if you ever like they we did like small business day, right? Like support a small business. Right. The Chamber does them. A lot of people do them. The issue that I always had with it was like they wanted to support a a small mom and pop shop to try to because the big box chains are sending the corporate money elsewhere and it's like.
01:34:09 Amy
Yeah, sure.
01:34:20 Amy
Yeah.
01:34:22 Kevin
Well, that's great, but why don't we do what the big box stores do? Like it's hard to pull off a cut coat, right? It's hard to. You know what I mean? It's hard to create a cut coat from scratch, but it's easy for you to start a.
01:34:29 Amy
Yeah.
01:34:35 Kevin
You know, you obviously sometimes you have to have the idea or the business in place like the each wallpaper online or, but if everybody was doing an at home business and.
01:34:39 Amy
Yeah. Yep, Yep.
01:34:44 Kevin
Sending their business out to draw money and this is where their corporate money comes that that does a lot better than just telling the residents to not shop at Walmart or Home Depot and go to work. W Smith and and and only in food, barn and all these other places like, that's great mentality but.
01:34:49 Amy
Yes.
01:34:55 Amy
Right.
01:35:04 Kevin
You almost need to incentivize younger folks coming out of high school like hey.
01:35:09 Kevin
Do you want to start a business? You can start something online. Do your research, start something online, give money back to only.
01:35:13 Amy
Yeah. Or or.
01:35:14 Amy
I'm sure you have friends that moved on because they have a tech that that they their careers in tech. What are we doing here for that? Well, at the time, you know, obviously probably not enough. They're going to go somewhere else. They're going to they're and in some cases they start out working for a company and they start their own company.
01:35:33 Amy
And all of those things can be done online that there are full remote jobs and as a matter of fact, people are asking.
01:35:42 Amy
Thing, can it be fully remote and take the job based on that? I have seen it first hand, I've seen it first hand so with that being said.
01:35:51 Kevin
And cost of living years, even you.
01:35:52 Amy
So well, here's the thing. You can't expect a developer to come in and develop a whole area for us without some kind of guarantee that they will see people come in while we have already proven just by the many handy building in those apartments, how sought after.
01:36:10 Amy
People with higher earning potential or retirement and have the ability to pay will pay in fact 1400.
01:36:17 Kevin
And that's the.
01:36:18 Kevin
And that's where the stigmatism comes in because you know, you, you you tell people like, hey, listen, I want to be able to market to higher income earners and then people instantly turn on you and go. Are you discriminating against the poor? And it's like, no, I'm not discriminating against the poor, but there is a need in this market if there is a need for poor people to have food.
01:36:18 Amy
Dollars a month.
01:36:30 Amy
Right. No, no, no.
01:36:34 Amy
And here's the thing.
01:36:37 Amy
Right.
01:36:37 Kevin
That's what you could make a business that does that. See what I mean? Like.
01:36:39 Amy
Right. Yes, yes. Here's the thing. It's it's just like the analogy when you're sitting in an airplane and they tell you.
01:36:46 Amy
You have someone who needs assistance next to you. You put your oxygen mask on 1st, then you can help them, right? And as hard as that is it? Yeah. As hard as that is to think that way because I am in fact, that same way where I just want to help the person.
01:36:53 Kevin
Sure, Sherry starts at home.
01:37:02 Amy
But you have to have the resources.
01:37:03 Kevin
And most of the time, it's your child, right? That's next to you on the scene, you know, so you have a little bit more.
01:37:06 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
01:37:07 Kevin
Of an incentive than.
01:37:08 Kevin
A stranger but but but sure.
01:37:09 Amy
Right, right, right. But it's the same mentality.
01:37:11 Kevin
You don't want to pass out now all of a sudden you have two two unconscious people on.
01:37:15 Amy
That's right, if you if you're, if you've got, if you're compromising yourself, how are you gonna help others, right.
01:37:15 Kevin
The plane so.
01:37:21 Amy
So being a city, you're in the same boat like you have to be financially secure to help others. We want to help others. We want to combat the homeless issue. I have great ideas about that. It takes money. Obviously can't solely come from the city. In fact, should not solely come from the city.
01:37:40 Amy
We have organizations that help the population that that, that they in fact are helping and they are maintaining their great success stories based on people that.
01:37:51 Amy
With these these services, what we need to together as a Community, collectively try to handle these situations. We know we know people are not homeless by choice. They are homeless because there are other things that are happening in their life that is causing this. We have to tackle those issues first.
01:38:12 Amy
And foremost, in order to get to the bottom of where they can successfully sustain living arrangements, OK, you can't just pour money on it and just and just decide that's going to be enough. There's got to be more to it. We're talking about people here, not, not a sewer.
01:38:28 Amy
Right. So with that being said.
01:38:33 Amy
We we do have to in fact draw the people into our city that are higher income earners so that we can support all of these services that we desperately need to give to others that can't afford to give to themselves. So with with that, if we're, if we stop trying to attract big companies, OK.
01:38:54 Amy
And we try to invest in actually people.
01:38:57 Amy
Those are the people that are spending money. We can build a huge manufacturing facility, but if everyone working there lives somewhere else, lives in Pennsylvania, pays everything in Pennsylvania, what did we gain? We didn't gain anything. If you invest in the person that's actually spending the person that actually is going to spend.
01:39:19 Amy
Their money in the restaurants, the bars, the entertainment, they're the ones paying property tax. Why have we not addressed or even targeted?
01:39:29 Amy
That don't look at the big picture. Look at all the individuals that are comprising the backbone of what really pays for our services, our property taxes. So if you look at like Tulsa Remote, I don't know if you're familiar with that program. It started out as basically a.
01:39:50 Amy
Uh, I don't want to say gift, but a donation from from at least one organization that just gave them the money to incentivize people to move to Tulsa. They gave them 10,000.
01:40:04 Amy
Dollars to either apply towards their rent for the year or to apply towards a mortgage. Buying a home with the stipulation that they actually live in the city of Tulsa and they work remote. They work remote and it's working. It is generated over $500 million since the inception.
01:40:27 Amy
Of the program so.
01:40:29 Amy
Tulsa had something great to offer to people in their 20s, thirties that could live anywhere, so they decide, hey, $10,000 gets get it pays my rent, it it gives me a down payment on a house I'm going to live there and hopefully stay there and that's our job to attract people to live here.
01:40:49 Amy
But not just live here, but to stay here and enjoy a great quality of life.
01:40:54 Amy
So a program something such as that may end up being implemented along with. Let's face it, I just watched this on TV the other day. I had read about it numerous times. Warehouse facilities are in fact needed for technology, for systems, for.
01:41:13 Kevin
Like the server.
01:41:13 Amy
Information servers. OK, we have water. We have cold temperatures. Those are the two key components for those kind of facilities and they may not seem like, wow, what kind of manufacturing is that going to bring? No, that is not the.
01:41:32 Amy
Right. The point is, is you have a huge warehouse that is not here because we've given away our property tax. They are here because we have elements that no one else has. Cold air, water. We do not need to give them yet we do not need to give them pilot.
01:41:47 Kevin
Keep their service good.
01:41:51 Kevin
Right.
01:41:52 Amy
We, our pilot, is our natural resource.
01:41:53 Kevin
Sounds like you just found a fail for the rocky Madoff building.
01:41:56 Kevin
Going on, what is it? S Clinton St.
01:42:00 Amy
What which one are we talking about? What the big warehouse.
01:42:00 Kevin
South South Berry with the the old. Yeah. The big warehouse. Yeah, yeah, right. Just sitting there doing nothing, I mean.
01:42:04 Amy
Any of that, any of the title plant, the title plant. What happens if we don't fulfill all the property and dresser? What if someone wants to build on the brownfields, a big facility that has no wind?
01:42:17 Kevin
Sure. Because if you have.
01:42:19 Amy
Close. You know what I mean? That's what they look like. There's no windows. It's just pure ventilation going on in there. Some of them have to use water tubes.
01:42:25 Kevin
Right.
01:42:27 Kevin
And if the computer circuit boards leak, it's already on a brownfield, right? That's not the.
01:42:31 Amy
I got shot that bad, dad. That that.
01:42:33 Amy
That that should be a selling point. But but but there is even some facilities that require water to run through the tubes recycle.
01:42:33 Kevin
Goal. But I mean you know.
01:42:41 Kevin
Sure, sure. For for for heat transfer, yeah.
01:42:43 Amy
Where are they getting the water from? We have water. See what I mean? This is this is my.
01:42:45 Amy
Yeah.
01:42:48 Amy
Got you. Know, you go back to the basics. What are your natural resources? We see this all over the world. Why are? Why are countries sought after what's in the ground?
01:43:00 Kevin
Small farm town in Connecticut, dad moved from Olean to New Milford the populations.
01:43:08 Kevin
Were reversed. So yeah, Olean was at its peak of like 2420 thousand people and he moved to New Mill.
01:43:09 Amy
Oh, really? Yeah.
01:43:13 Amy
Yeah.
01:43:16 Kevin
For to, you know, 12 to 14,000 people and now when he had retired, he moved back to Olean and the population had reversed. It had reversed again.
01:43:18 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:43:24 Amy
Is that something? Why and that's so sad. You know, it's like it. But. But we know why, right? I mean, corporations laughed. Manufacturing lot manufacturing laughed.
01:43:27 Kevin
It is low so.
01:43:36 Kevin
Well, So what got what made?
01:43:40 Kevin
New Milford Boom, though, was the same thing that you're saying that people come to the factory from Pennsylvania, where there is a small like a lower minimum wage. So they know that even just starting out at a minimum wage Burger King job.
01:43:53 Kevin
And Olean is going to be better than Smith port, right? Because the minimum wage is different, so they're automatically just going to come here. But now they take our dollars and they go back to Pennsylvania like you said. That's what happened in New Milford was all these people could get a job in New York City, hop on a train 45 minute commute.
01:43:57 Amy
MHM.
01:44:11 Amy
Oh, sure.
01:44:13 Kevin
And so they could buy an old farmhouse. Beautiful old farmhouse, just like we have here in Holland. We've got beautiful houses. Just need a little TLC. And you could buy that.
01:44:15 Amy
Yes, yes, yes.
01:44:18 Amy
Yeah.
01:44:20 Amy
Yes.
01:44:21 Amy
Yep.
01:44:24 Kevin
For almost nothing. Yeah. And then what happened was, as people started to more people started doing that. So now all of a sudden.
01:44:26 Amy
It's.
01:44:31 Amy
Caught on like fire. Yeah, like.
01:44:32 Kevin
And then as more people started spending money and restoring theirs started popping up. You know, you have a drywaller, you've got a guy that can help you fix up that farm house because you can't be working all the time and doing that, and you're making good money. So now you can pay good money to have things done. And that's why, like their entire population, all of a sudden, the cheap farmhouse turned into a.
01:44:35 Amy
Yeah, businesses.
01:44:41 Amy
Absolutely, yeah.
01:44:53 Kevin
$300,000 minimum, right? Yeah. My my dad used to joke when I was a kid.
01:44:55 Amy
Mom, right?
01:44:58 Kevin
He goes because I can go back to Ollie and buy a house for 60 grand and it doesn't need almost any work. He goes to. The taxes are roughly the same as I'm paying here in New Milford.
01:45:01 Amy
MHM, MHM.
01:45:07 Amy
Yep.
01:45:08 Kevin
Because the the cost of groceries are the same, right? Like you, you still have the same overhead for your city as this farm town does. It's all based on population and mileage and so. But he goes.
01:45:10 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:45:15 Amy
Right.
01:45:17 Amy
Right, right.
01:45:20 Kevin
In New Milford, I have to buy because the economy is booming.
01:45:24 Amy
Yeah.
01:45:25 Kevin
It's I can buy a I can buy a burnout garage for 100 grand and I'm still paying rent on the land. And it's like right here. You could $300,000 gets you Luis Mignano's house. They used to anyways.
01:45:31 Amy
I know, I know, I know.
01:45:36 Amy
Yeah, exactly. Or yeah. Or or you get an old home and you, you, you remodel it and it's like, exactly. And how many times have we all heard this from family members? My God, do you know how much that house would go for in San Francisco, you know?
01:45:43 Kevin
You still have 100 and.
01:45:44 Kevin
50 grand in your pocket.
01:45:53 Amy
Yes, we know all this. That's that's the that's what we need to capture the people that want a beautiful home that don't have to have their job in the same city that they actually their company is in California, they live in Olean, NY. Why are you living in Olean? Oh, my gosh. Have you seen it? It's absolutely beautiful.
01:46:13 Kevin
It's.
01:46:14 Amy
Beautiful. We raise our children in 4 minutes. We can be to their school in 4 minutes. We can be wherever store we.
01:46:14 Kevin
And I can buy it.
01:46:20 Amy
Need to be.
01:46:21 Amy
You any of us that travel to family members that have children outside of our area?
01:46:26 Amy
Are just. It blows your mind. 2 hour commute between going to this game, going to that school, but people don't. I'm telling you moving forward.
01:46:35 Kevin
I have a cousin that lives in California. My sister used to like you try to go try to go from where your house is to work.
01:46:38 Amy
Yeah.
01:46:42 Kevin
And maybe 2.
01:46:42 Kevin
Hour commute it's 2 hour commute and it's like 4 miles.
01:46:43 Amy
Yeah, exactly. It's.
01:46:46 Amy
Exactly. It's just it's insane and people know what quality of life should be. They want that, and people that can live anywhere.
01:46:54 Amy
I guarantee you with the right marketing and the fact that we have our our focus on that, I I feel like that would be for us very successful.
01:47:03 Kevin
I think I think that the Internet is going to be like the New York City is to.
01:47:09 Amy
Those cities? Little towns.
01:47:10 Kevin
There was outlying well because right now we're do the outlying farmhouses at a low bargain price.
01:47:14 Amy
Yep, we are.
01:47:16 Amy
But yet we have great services. We have a paid fire department, we have a.
01:47:21 Amy
A great Police Department. We have all the components already. We have the.
01:47:25 Kevin
Because we used to have a big community.
01:47:27 Amy
That's right. We have all the components. We've kept it going. We're improving. Look at all the money this the states pumping in, we have we have every reason to believe the quality of life here, bar none will be the best, better than most. And I think we all need to feel that we need to.
01:47:47 Amy
We need to drive that home. We also living here have to understand that really it's better than what we think it is and it can be much better. So I.
01:47:58 Kevin
Hi, Lennox.
01:48:00 Amy
10 minutes of TV.
01:48:03 Kevin
It is 8.
01:48:04 Kevin
49 You have 10 minutes and that is it. Not a minute over, OK?
01:48:08 Amy
All right.
01:48:09 Kevin
We have guests who put pants.
01:48:10 Amy
On it's alright. We have grandkids. This is mild.
01:48:13 Kevin
Shut.
01:48:15 Kevin
Shut the door on your way out.
01:48:16 Kevin
Bubba.
01:48:17 Amy
OK. And you know we got it. I mean we, I we could continue it is getting later you know I have a I have a plan too for even the old.
01:48:30 Amy
Homes, how we can attract people to come here and some of these houses that go to, you know, they go for back taxes and yeah, Olean.
01:48:42 Amy
Oh yeah, go ahead.
01:48:46 Amy
Ah.
01:48:49 Kevin
I have to I have to like I've got to be the. I'm the warden.
01:48:50 Amy
You of course that's a good. That's alright. One person has to be, that's for sure. But no. I mean, even even the the the homes, a lot of people ask what are we going to do about the blight with? I mean that's a whole nother conversation I've already.
01:49:06 Amy
A lot of I've got a great idea.
01:49:08 Kevin
Linda.
01:49:09 Kevin
Disappears when you get in. If, when people are incentivized and when I when I say incentivize my big issue is I'm a small government guy, I don't think the government needs to be doing a ton of incentivizing with government dollars, right? Like paying for people's rent here and there. Might might be a good incentive to drag people in from other areas because you you have the.
01:49:15 Amy
OK.
01:49:18 Amy
Right.
01:49:20 Amy
Yeah.
01:49:26 Kevin
Promotional base. But I think like hey, I want to incentivize somebody to start this business, I'm not a huge fan of that. I don't see how like stimulus money.
01:49:27 Amy
Right.
01:49:35 Amy
Really works. Really works in the.
01:49:36 Kevin
Exactly. I think it does has more of an inflationary negative effect, but I think if you create incentive structures that aren't so monetarily like if you were to relax legislation on.
01:49:36 Amy
End.
01:49:39 Amy
Yes.
01:49:43 Amy
Right.
01:49:50 Kevin
Like homes, you know what I mean? Like, sometimes, like, certain things are in place, right? Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors. Those things are important for human safety, right? But I think that.
01:49:55 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:50:00 Kevin
Like when you start getting down those HOA paths where zoning is like so cumbersome or those people trying to rebuild in California and now they have to get a building permit, it's going to take them five to 10 years to get a building permit to rebuild.
01:50:05 Amy
Right.
01:50:12 Amy
Crazy. Yeah, yeah.
01:50:12 Kevin
Their home right.
01:50:13 Kevin
And they give you release some of the restrictions. I think that in and of itself creates a new.
01:50:16 Amy
Right.
01:50:20 Kevin
Incentive structure. Wow.
01:50:21 Amy
Hmm.
01:50:22 Kevin
You can take.
01:50:23 Kevin
10 grand and fix that house up and I don't have half the headache I used to have. Or I could have had.
01:50:27 Amy
Right. So let me run.
01:50:30 Amy
This past you, if you.
01:50:31 Amy
You want to continue talking? I'll try to. I'll try to.
01:50:35 Kevin
We'll wrap up in about 10 minutes when I have.
01:50:37 Amy
To go steal his TV back. OK, alright, we'll we'll try to consolidate this idea. So in the same way that we applied for a grant to the state, we give them a project that we want to do.
01:50:50 Amy
And they look at it and say, is this viable? Is this something they can do? Is this something we want to put our money towards?
01:50:56 Amy
So instead of sending these homes that are going foreclosed, foreclosure for auction and then when they auction them off, I don't know for sure if the city actually in fact gets anything back for that particular of process.
01:51:14 Kevin
The the county makes the city could do that.
01:51:17 Amy
MHM.
01:51:18 Kevin
Salamanca does it. What happens is if you're the one to foreclose, you have to make the other two entities whole. So the school, the county and the city are the three. So if you're the one to foreclose, you have to make the other two whole. And that's the like. So what happens is every year the county does it for us. We don't foreclose.
01:51:40 Kevin
And so the county makes us and the school district whole for the unpaid taxes they pay us. We and then that's why you're if you don't pay your city or school taxes, they roll to your county bill in their separate line items. So. And then that's how the county just kind of encumbers it every year. Then when you're so whatever the process is used to be 3 years behind.
01:52:00 Kevin
Now it's two years, which is 2 years delinquent. So like if you didn't pay your property taxes by the 31st, which was Monday, if you didn't pay your taxes and you owed 2024.
01:52:01 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:52:08 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:52:12 Kevin
You now your 2020 fives just became delinquent because it was the last day to pay them before they're late. So now you're two months. So now anybody who still owed 2024 has to pay both years and the counties and or the county will start the foreclosure process on your home. So the county does it.
01:52:17 Amy
OK.
01:52:29 Amy
OK, so if if let's just say.
01:52:33 Amy
They do that process and nothing ever really comes of that house. It doesn't improve, it doesn't. The person who bought it didn't have the money to improve it. They didn't.
01:52:44 Kevin
They just saw it was cheap.
01:52:45 Amy
They saw it was cheap. They took a chance, they bought it and it just stayed that way and it never.
01:52:49 Kevin
Right cause a lot of people have the money to and I've I've I've seen the mentality. I've had it when I was first starting out. If you got 10 grand in your pocket, you go to the tax auction and spend 10 and you're like, well. But then. But then the filing fees come up.
01:53:01 Amy
I'll do something with it, but.
01:53:05 Amy
Yeah, it just doesn't really work. Does it really take care of the issues or?
01:53:10 Amy
I guess what I'm saying is, is what benefit do we finally get back from?
01:53:12 Kevin
Most people drop it. I could probably give you a good example cause most people drop the habit, right? They say that I I I tried it. I didn't have the money to fix that house. I already have my own home I and then they sell it or they just let it go to taxes and they're done.
01:53:17 Amy
I can't do this anymore.
01:53:23 Amy
Yep.
01:53:27 Amy
And then and then we're not any better off. We're back in square one or?
01:53:29 Kevin
We're not any better off, so I can give you an example of one that I did. I bought that church by the city building.
01:53:35 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
01:53:36 Kevin
And I bought it for 10 grand.
01:53:38 Amy
Yeah.
01:53:38 Kevin
And I bought it cause I thought it was a great deal. Umm, and I didn't have any money to put into it.
01:53:43 Kevin
And but I stayed in the game and because I stayed in the game, I then was able to have money to. And I also was able to to take my own time and invest in it. So I put 19 grand into that roof that's on it. I've got five to seven grand into the outside of the painting of the place. So you know what I mean, like.
01:53:45 Amy
Right.
01:53:57 Amy
Yeah.
01:54:01 Amy
Yeah, yeah, you saved that. But you saved that save, right? Right, right.
01:54:02 Kevin
You know, the building isn't doing anything.
01:54:04 Kevin
It's still right.
01:54:05 Kevin
Exactly. It's not falling in on itself. It's not vibrant and it's I still don't have a ton of money to dump into it, but I have money to keep paying the taxes. I have enough money to keep paying the water minimums I have, but it's. So it's one of those like. But in my situation is rare because.
01:54:12 Amy
Right.
01:54:14 Amy
Right.
01:54:16 Amy
Yeah.
01:54:21 Kevin
I'm kind of a unique individual where I'm not going to give up on something where other people are just like Nope, I tried rentals, screw it the the, the, the you know the.
01:54:24 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
01:54:31 Amy
Headache of it wasn't worth it. I I don't have enough money to.
01:54:33 Kevin
Exactly the the patients are running the asylum. I'm just. I'm done with tenants and and they just leave and they they package it up or there's like four or five properties that a guy just went to jail because of the condition of his properties. Like they're actually starting. He's the first one in our area to actually go to jail.
01:54:36 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:54:40 Amy
Right.
01:54:49 Kevin
Or.
01:54:50 Amy
Yes, I heard about this and like the neighbors, the neighbors are like, let's try.
01:54:54 Amy
To you know.
01:54:56 Amy
Take back the neighborhood, buy everybody, buy the cheaper homes. And that is a great idea because the right people have their heart in it, and hopefully we'll do something with it. So. So that kind of is the thought.
01:55:10 Amy
Process behind. Obviously this would have to be, you know, vetted with the county. It would have to be an agreement instead of going through this process because we're trying to build our population back because we're trying to save homes, we're trying to save neighborhoods, we're trying to improve the quality of life.
01:55:29 Amy
It may end up to the county or the school tax, or us even may not be that fast. Instant payback of what's owed. However, what if we were to do similar to let, let's say, what we do when we ask for money for projects from the state? But what if we have not? So I mean, I hate to use this phrase.
01:55:50 Amy
Because it's usually.
01:55:51 Amy
Connected to nonprofit but a Land Trust. OK, a Land Trust.
01:55:56 Kevin
Like a land like the land bank.
01:55:57 Amy
OK, sort of like what sort of like where, where a city recognizes that land is is critical part of their landscape, they they actually are the owners of the land, but then they they sell the land off and parcels to people probably at a very low rate.
01:56:15 Amy
So that it it it will.
01:56:16 Amy
Be developed or or something that in?
01:56:18 Kevin
And it continues to stand the tax rolls and or you know some kind.
01:56:18 Amy
Fact.
01:56:19 Amy
It it it right you're trying to, you're trying to improve, you're trying to improve the quality of the?
01:56:21 Kevin
Of.
01:56:25 Amy
Community by by protecting it, protecting it, OK.
01:56:29 Kevin
So is what.
01:56:29 Amy
This is a good word to.
01:56:30 Amy
Put for it.
01:56:31 Kevin
So land bank, what you're talking about is actually what the county does, the county. The county started a land bank. And so there's always a constant negotiation that can be had with the land bank. The land bank is there to help, right? It's it's usually it's headed up by a couple a couple of the county legislators and I believe one of the main players in it is the county treasurer.
01:56:35 Amy
They do.
01:56:37 Amy
Right.
01:56:50 Amy
MHM.
01:56:51 Kevin
Who is always willing to usually work with the city and other municipalities, but they have the whole county to cover. So out of certain rental out of certain properties, they'll take ones that are.
01:56:57 Amy
Right.
01:57:02 Kevin
If I remember correctly, they can only. They can only tear down 40% of their the properties in their inventory and they have to rehab 60%.
01:57:11 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:57:12 Kevin
And So what they ran into an issue was, is that they're not, they're not. They're a non for profit entity that's operated by a government entity. So.
01:57:21 Amy
Right.
01:57:22 Kevin
They don't have to pay prevailing wage and all these other things, but the people that know that they're a government entity, they they still pay a high dollar to get things done because they're not Joe homeowner or Kevin with a hammer going to fix a rental. They don't have, they don't get in, there's no cost savings to the land bank other than they can do certain things. They can get asbestos, how tests on.
01:57:32 Amy
Right.
01:57:35 Amy
Yeah.
01:57:43 Kevin
They don't have to go through a big, huge procurement process. They can have houses torn down, way cheaper than the city can, or the county can. So a lot of times they'll put the the property in a bank that they know just has to be demolished and they'll make that call at the county level, they'll.
01:57:50 Amy
Yeah.
01:57:58 Kevin
This House in Little valley, this house in Salamanca, is beyond repair, right? And they'll talk with local code enforcement and they'll say, hey, listen, this house like it's missing a floor.
01:57:59 Amy
Is beyond.
01:58:03 Amy
It's dilapidated. It's it's.
01:58:10 Amy
Hey, no, really.
01:58:12 Kevin
It's just a hollow shell. Hollow shells are easy to build. It's all the other stuff. It's all the the bringing it all together is the the expensive part. And So what they found was they.
01:58:14 Amy
MHM.
01:58:20 Amy
Hmm.
01:58:23 Kevin
They started making deals like the city was doing about five years ago. Seven years ago, the city was taking properties and said, listen, there was a couple on West Sullivan St. They said we want this Ronald gone. We'll sell it to you for a dollar. You tear it down though. You have a year to do it. I think they did it with shaley. He bought a couple properties down behind his house and he demolished them.
01:58:37 Amy
Yeah.
01:58:39 Amy
MHM.
01:58:43 Kevin
Where is his store? It happened with the late now the now late Don Shola. I was on the Council. He bought that Blue Monster next to his house. The city tore it down or.
01:58:44 Amy
Mm-hmm.
01:58:49 Amy
Yes. Yeah.
01:58:57 Kevin
They took. I can't this they reimbursed the city to tear it down, and even though it would have cost them less money to do, I don't know why, but they they like what?
01:58:59 Amy
I can't.
01:59:01 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
01:59:06 Amy
Let's just get rid of the problem, right?
01:59:08 Kevin
But exactly next to a KT combatives over on N Union St. the county land bank that was one of the most recent ones, they were gonna demolish it. A contractor came to them with a plan. He put a new roof on it, new electrical services installed. There's all new Windows in that process now, which doesn't cost the land bank any money and it sparks private investment. I think stuff like that.
01:59:12 Amy
Yeah.
01:59:15 Amy
Yeah.
01:59:17 Amy
MHM.
01:59:24 Amy
Yeah.
01:59:28 Amy
Yeah. That we, we we we it's like you said little bits and pieces it's being done but what if?
01:59:28 Kevin
It's a very good incentive program.
01:59:36 Amy
We do it at a bigger scale but but.
01:59:40 Kevin
Because you don't have a, you also don't have a loss either, so you gotta think about it this way. You're losing the taxes that you could have been reimbursed for at the auction.
01:59:40 Amy
The incentive.
01:59:43 Amy
Yeah, you, you.
01:59:48 Amy
Right.
01:59:49 Kevin
But you're now handing it to somebody for a dollar, you know, or or 1000 bucks you buy this plot, this land that you can now rehab. So now you're sparking them to invest their own money into.
01:59:56 Amy
Right.
01:59:58 Amy
Right.
02:00:00 Amy
Yes.
02:00:01 Kevin
And when it goes back on the taxes and if they fail, you take it back, and now you have a partially remodeled house or it's at least in the same condition it was when you left.
02:00:01 Amy
Now we.
02:00:04 Amy
Right.
02:00:06 Amy
Exactly.
02:00:09 Amy
OK, exactly. So that there you go. That's exactly my thought. However, on a on a bit more targeted effort for us, us as a city and marketing it to people outside of the city, we all know this. There are people like you said that just keep watching for whatever comes up on.
02:00:29 Amy
Auction. But no, I think what we need to do is build on that as a city and give a package really to people.
02:00:39 Amy
That if they propose to us what they will do with that particular building, or that house or or whatever, if they are chosen, and again this would all have to be worked out, how, how, how legally you'll do it if they if they're, if they are the chosen.
02:00:51 Amy
Sure.
02:00:59 Amy
The homeowner to do this, that they guarantee that they have money secured to remodel it, that they're actually just given.
02:01:08 Amy
The property you know free and clear with the understanding it has to be brought up to exactly or close to the amount of money they're going to spend on rehabbing it within two years and they actually completed the home, the renovation and we get it back on the tax rolls. But more importantly, we get this.
02:01:28 Amy
We get this street back to what it should be with older homes. It should be saved.
02:01:36 Amy
And give people the opportunity to invest in it themselves with with yes, yes, yes. And and you know we we'd have to actually have it so that that we have.
02:01:41 Kevin
Give me skin in the game, right?
02:01:50 Kevin
So we really don't have a PR like the city itself doesn't really have a PR wing like they have press releases. You know, that will come either out of the mayor's office, out of the DPW, for construction work. Community development does a lot of that.
02:01:56 Amy
Right.
02:02:02 Amy
Yeah, no.
02:02:04 Amy
Yeah.
02:02:04 Kevin
But I know, like I don't think right. I don't think. I don't think community development has the staff like it. If it was in my if it was.
02:02:06 Amy
We have to improve that.
02:02:10 Amy
No they don't.
02:02:13 Amy
No.
02:02:13 Kevin
If I were to if, if you were to try to like, categorize, where would you have PR then I would probably say that would be the office.
02:02:16 Amy
Yeah. No, there's.
02:02:19 Kevin
But I don't think you have the staff for it.
02:02:20 Amy
No, no. Some of these things just absolutely have to be contracted. It's it's the chamber. We had an agreement and then that agreement fell off the map and.
02:02:24 Kevin
Sure. And I think we fly to do that with.
02:02:25 Kevin
The Chamber, if I remember correctly.
02:02:31 Kevin
The county has, like a tourists division and I hear that.
02:02:34 Amy
They do, they do, but.
02:02:36 Kevin
They're hit or miss.
02:02:37 Amy
Right. So you know, something like that. Rather than pulling a person or a department under our payroll and everything, you just have to contract it out. And the bottom line is, is the best price, the best negotiation you have is is competition and there's a lot of competition for that.
02:02:56 Amy
But here's the bottom line you want. Yeah. You. You, each, each. Each thing needs its own promotion, and each thing needs to be fully thought out and have the program in place. Why can't we be?
02:02:57 Kevin
Especially if you let people know about the deal, you say if there's a deal, I don't.
02:03:10 Amy
We we don't have to do it exactly. I would think like the way the county is doing it, we're smaller scale, but we know what we need and we know what needs to be done. We just have to have that program put in place that hopefully will be sustaining forever like forever that we're here. We're always going to have this issue of houses.
02:03:30 Amy
Going into disrepair, and here's another thing, and I know this was addressed at one point, but really, how many are there people that live that had family or parents that lived here that passed away? They live somewhere else. They don't want to deal with whatever it is that they have to deal with with that home.
02:03:49 Amy
It gets it gets in bad repair. It's ignored. They keep paying us the taxes. So therefore we're all right with it. But at the end of the day, it really needs to be saved. What if you give them the option to say, give it to the city for this program if you are, you're already out the money. No one's living in this house.
02:04:08 Amy
You're paying the taxes. Why not just let us have it? Give it to another family that will invest in it and live in it. And I can't. I can't.
02:04:17 Amy
Imagine unless someone is really right I.
02:04:18 Kevin
That's all I got just so.
02:04:19 Kevin
We get this house.
02:04:20 Kevin
I mean, it was the the old, the the gentleman passed away and he tried to list it real high. I happen to mow lawns.
02:04:23 Amy
Yeah.
02:04:25 Amy
Yeah.
02:04:26 Kevin
When I was.
02:04:26 Kevin
A kid for her mother and this was her ex husband's house and she was like, you're looking for a house. And I'm like, yeah, right now I'm living in an apartment at my coffee shop building with with my girlfriend. And we're looking to start a family and grow.
02:04:27 Amy
Yeah.
02:04:28 Amy
Oh yeah.
02:04:36 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:04:40 Kevin
I raised my girls in that house. You know what it was? And that's we, we got this. We got this massive house for 23 1/2 thousand dollars.
02:04:42 Amy
There you go.
02:04:47 Amy
Exactly, exactly. You just want, but you just want to let you know at the end of the day, if someone is financially set.
02:04:48 Kevin
I need a lot of work. It still does.
02:04:55 Amy
That, and the parents left them a house and they don't need the house and they don't want the hassle. All right, we'll take it. Let us try to get give a home to the next family. That gives us a great proposal of what they're going to do to it. They went to the bank, they got the finances set for it. They know what they're getting into. They have two years to do it.
02:05:15 Amy
Let him let him go at it, and then eventually we get back.
02:05:17 Kevin
Right.
02:05:20 Amy
Tenfold in property tax, and not just that population, and not just our population. We draw from outside. And how many people like like you said, live in a different state, city or whatever their situation is and say God, I've got.
02:05:25 Kevin
Right. So.
02:05:41 Amy
$150,000, which will not buy any any house in this area.
02:05:47 Kevin
Or you or you can go to a bank and get 150, but that what is that going to do that pays for a couple of years of your rent?
02:05:52 Amy
Right, But how about you look at a home like this home or any home that that. Yeah, it's not in the greatest shape, but $150,000 will do an immense amount of work on a house and get it exactly the way we want it. Our kitchen is exactly the way.
02:06:07 Kevin
There was. There was a house that burnt down nearby and I just I spent probably 5 to 10 hours of my.
02:06:07 Amy
We want it.
02:06:13 Kevin
Like free time, helping these people over the course of a few weeks because they were like, well, can we salvage the House? You know, they and that.
02:06:15 Amy
Yeah.
02:06:23 Amy
Was like how do we do that?
02:06:24 Kevin
Not really. Here's your game plan. Your best bet is to demolish the house. I would not rebuild. You can take that money and go to the tax auction and buy two or three properties.
02:06:30 Amy
Now.
02:06:35 Kevin
Fix them up and now you have 3 properties that you have or you can go buy something at that price that you don't have to put a ton of work into. Probably less work than you.
02:06:38 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:06:45 Kevin
Had to put into this house.
02:06:46 Amy
Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, it was shocking to me that we take for granted when we were trying to find a home for my dad. That was all one level moving from the house. He was at, which is hard, which is another thing we need to do.
02:06:47 Amy
Right.
02:07:00 Amy
Yes, you know, getting something something but.
02:07:01 Amy
Tiny homes.
02:07:05 Kevin
We've been doing a kick on the channel about tiny homes because they've been popping up and it spurred my interest because I like building.
02:07:06 Amy
Yeah, there.
02:07:10 Kevin
And I you know, so.
02:07:10 Amy
Yeah, they're fun. I mean, and they make sense, you know, I mean, and right now they are the thing to do, generate a good amount of income, especially if you Airbnb it. But what I was so shocked. Yeah. There you go.
02:07:21 Kevin
For the city bed tax.
02:07:24 Amy
The thing that was so shocking to me when we were looking at a modular my dad, he was adamant, adamant he wanted a basement and I we all said to him dad less stairs. You don't really need a basement. You could just build it on a, you know, the patio cement he goes. I will not have a house without a basement.
02:07:39 Kevin
I I get.
02:07:43 Kevin
I'm I'm smooth on my own.
02:07:44 Amy
I don't care. I wanna.
02:07:46 Amy
So we're like, OK, well, how much? Yeah, I mean, uh, just set this way, it's like.
02:07:47 Kevin
I'm gonna be your dad someday. Just gonna be an old, crotchety band just so I need to have a basement. I want to be able to reach all my pipes. I don't want anything below me like.
02:07:54 Amy
Yes, he.
02:07:56 Amy
Yeah, he's like that. That there's just no way I'm not having a.
02:07:59 Kevin
It urged me that my sewer pipe is inside a concrete floor in the basement like I wanted along the wall so I can work on it if it's got a.
02:08:02 Amy
Yeah, wanted. Yeah, he.
02:08:06 Kevin
Leak. I can see it if it's.
02:08:07 Amy
Yep, Yep, that's that's where he's coming from. He he, you know, all his rentals that he owned, he did and.
02:08:10 Kevin
Practicality I told we're good.
02:08:15 Amy
All of us to to my mother's, you know, dismay the rest of it. He did all the work, all the work up until he. Well, he's going to be 85 this month. So right up till now has always done all the work on all his houses except for you.
02:08:29 Amy
Know.
02:08:30 Amy
Electrician and he'd have a plumber come in. Other than that, everything had so.
02:08:35 Amy
So anyway, we said. All right, well, let's look at a modular how much is it to build a basement? Can't be that much $30,000 just for our base.
02:08:43 Kevin
Or minimal.
02:08:45 Amy
So if you think, think to yourself, all of our homes.
02:08:47 Kevin
Need stamp plans to engineer the walls now back in the day, you could just prescriptive. Just build them up, but anything that's over 8 feet, you need structural stamp plans to retain it right? Retaining.
02:08:52 Amy
Yeah.
02:08:57 Amy
Wall. It was a big deal and that's if you wanted a normal 1.
02:08:59 Kevin
I'm sure an engineer or two that watch the show, we're going to be like, that's only if it's a retaining wall that's not self supported by four other three other wall.
02:09:04 Amy
Yeah.
02:09:07 Amy
But but some.
02:09:07 Amy
Municipalities required that you have that they won't let you just do a cross.
02:09:12 Amy
Base type basement underneath to get to your pipes and stuff they want. You know they want it, that it like what you said reinforced and it's a certain height and all that.
02:09:20 Kevin
Yeah. No, the building code is and it's and yeah, the ICC, it's the International Code Council. So they they're the generally internationally accepted code. Almost every single state in the.
02:09:22 Amy
Pretty strict with that.
02:09:33 Kevin
Accepts that and then they have their own little critiques. So like New York State adopts it, and then any changes they make to the IC they have in appendixes. So if you were OK, I found the code I'm looking for. Let me double check the appendix under that section to make sure New York State doesn't have a change. And depending on which book you like, if you buy a book, it'll tell you like.
02:09:42 Amy
Oh yeah, yeah.
02:09:51 Amy
Yeah.
02:09:53 Kevin
The appendix, whatever for New York State and like so if you buy one specific for but for the most part if you take that that ICC knowledge you can go pretty much anywhere the same rules apply. You don't bore through the center you know you only you can't take huge holes out of.
02:09:54 Amy
Right, right.
02:09:57 Amy
Yeah.
02:10:00 Amy
MHM.
02:10:08 Kevin
You know, support beams and you know, just all the little safety issues.
02:10:09 Amy
Right, right, right.
02:10:12 Amy
Issues. Yeah, that.
02:10:13 Kevin
Mechanical gas gas works the same here that those other places, I mean well elevation adjusts to it, but.
02:10:17 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:10:20 Amy
Right. Yeah. But that that just blew that just blew my mind. It would cost that much just to add the basement. So you think about the fact that even if someone was to, like, rebuild off the foundation, but yet they were given that property to be able to do that like that takes.
02:10:21 Kevin
I could go down.
02:10:22 Kevin
Around the whole third.
02:10:35 Kevin
Well, yeah. The basement. Yeah. Basement costs 30 grand, I could say.
02:10:39 Kevin
You could shell up a house pretty quick and pretty inexpensive like you know for. Yeah, for 40 grand you could build a whole new outside of a house, cause it's only lumber. You don't have to bring in the excavator. You don't have to pour the footers cause you you.
02:10:47 Amy
Yeah.
02:10:51 Amy
Right.
02:10:51 Amy
Have all that with the basement right? And you know you hope that you hope that any home that's worth saving, you're going to.
02:10:59 Amy
The shell will be OK or if you do have.
02:11:02 Amy
To repair it it right?
02:11:02 Kevin
Unless it's going through a fire right like, and let's say it's an extenuating circumstance.
02:11:06 Amy
Yeah, but you know, you just have to think about the people that we're trying to draw here and, you know, and with that comes I think about, you know, when the when our.
02:11:18 Amy
Our country was first founded in you had certain you know, everyone had their little part of how they made things great and you know, like we were, we were talking about. Yes. Or or like the the Irish were were great contractors and like they were needed for all the building. And like, you know, in our communities you have like.
02:11:26 Kevin
The butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick, Baker.
02:11:37 Amy
Amish Amish are great builders, and it just inherently happens that way. But wouldn't it be great?
02:11:39 Amy
Sure.
02:11:42 Kevin
When you see these crews go around so like there's right now like in the in the current construction makeup, right, we do have the.
02:11:48 Kevin
Amish still, there's a group of guys from Mexico that are going around doing roofing and they're relatively inexpensive. Now, when I lived in Connecticut, my dad had friends that would develop properties and they would always bring in this one crew of Ecuadorians. And they're really good at masonry and.
02:11:49 Amy
Yeah.
02:11:52 Amy
Yeah, exactly.
02:12:02 Amy
Yes.
02:12:04 Amy
Foundation. And that's the thing. And we're we're seeing that.
02:12:09 Amy
Which I think a lot of people aren't aware of that happening, but that in fact is happening. Wouldn't it be great if we had not just just not just people coming in to help us, but people here, actually their contract businesses?
02:12:23 Amy
Expand because we have this resurgence of let's take these and exactly we need to focus more on that, not just let let that be the county issue. That should be our issue. We should have a handle and who's buying our houses here? I don't like. Yeah, I don't like the fact that just.
02:12:28 Kevin
People trying to renovate their homes.
02:12:40 Kevin
As our as our economy grows.
02:12:44 Amy
Anybody can buy these very cheap homes because we see what's happening, they buy them, they don't put the money in them, they are.
02:12:52 Amy
Coming in worse, worse shape because they're allowing the wrong people to live in there and use them for illegal reasons. That is what's going on. I've I'm seeing it. So we we have got to start somewhere with that and they don't care.
02:13:09 Kevin
Or they don't care, right? Like there's a there's a certain queen in this area that owned a bunch of rentals.
02:13:13 Amy
Yeah, just.
02:13:16 Amy
Just can't do this anymore.
02:13:16 Kevin
She just she will. She just if you have the if the cash is coming in. She doesn't care if it's coming from the county. It's coming from wherever. She doesn't follow up on her tenants. Which I mean listen you're running my property go live your life how you want and this is where I struggle with that same thing I would love to say hey we need to restrict certain people.
02:13:21 Amy
Alright.
02:13:22 Amy
Yes, yes.
02:13:36 Kevin
From buying places if they don't have the right intent, but then my gut tells me like, that's not a free market, Kevin. And so that's why I fight with myself sometimes.
02:13:43 Amy
OK. But but.
02:13:43 Amy
But. But here's the thing. But but I understand, I feel that same way.
02:13:49 Amy
But also it is up to us to protect low income people with low income. OK, because I think what's happening here, I I don't think I know what's happening.
02:14:01 Amy
If that is the Ave. in which they have to go, certain homes that are owned by certain landlords because of their low income status.
02:14:11 Amy
That is not fair to the people that live in those homes. We have to protect them, OK, from what is happening because it is all well and good that our tax money is helping support their rent, but it's going to the wrong people. And in the end, who is suffering the most? Not just the street. It's the people who live there.
02:14:28 Kevin
Because those those people don't pick up.
02:14:31 Kevin
Those people don't pick up their they maintain their houses as they should, especially if they're getting top dollar.
02:14:32 Amy
And.
02:14:34 Amy
They.
02:14:36 Amy
Right, right. And what is happening is is when there's a violation, instead of fixing the violation, the tenants are then uprooted and moved to another home.
02:14:48 Amy
That's what's happening. I mean, they that is a practice that's being used that is not right because in the end really and it's not discriminating and saying we don't want those people it what it is is they're taking advantage of people that are low income and then taking advantage, yes. And they're taking advantage of.
02:15:04 Kevin
Well, we need to. We did disincentivize, I mean.
02:15:09 Amy
Everyone, you're taking advantage of the people who are maintaining their homes on the street. They're taking advantage of the people that are living in the home that have no other option.
02:15:19 Amy
That have no other resource.
02:15:20 Kevin
So I think this is how I can get past that tummy ache that I'm given by excluding somebody with a bad track record from buying rental properties cause it's free market. I don't want to say that I don't care who you are, you get to buy that house because guess what? Dollars spend the same. But I think if you disincentivize people's actions have consequences.
02:15:40 Kevin
Right. Like it's a free market. Sure, I can buy a house, but then if I go down the road and.
02:15:44 Kevin
Shoot somebody, I.
02:15:45 Kevin
Still go to jail if I put somebody in that house and they cook like a candle.
02:15:46 Amy
MHM.
02:15:50 Kevin
Like I should I should hold some responsibility, especially if I was made aware of it, right? And actually I I did a podcast not too long ago about real estate investing and how there's this certain landlord mentality with some landlords that you can just ignore the problem until like, well, it can't be that big of a deal. Well, and they.
02:15:54 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:16:09 Kevin
They almost get they get just to the point of saying.
02:16:13 Kevin
Well, somebody else dies. It's not me, right? Like it's like, well, that selfish mentality like it that irks me. And I'm a real libertarian kind of guy. So, like, I don't I.
02:16:25 Kevin
I I don't like all the rules with building a home. I understand certain ones and why they exist. I accept all of them because they're currently law, but like I definitely if we had to throw out some restrictions, I would still be like, OK, well, I don't think we should get rid of.
02:16:28 Amy
Right.
02:16:29 Amy
Know, right?
02:16:34 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:16:42 Kevin
Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide, certain fire safety issues. You know, things like that. So.
02:16:44 Amy
Right.
02:16:48 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he's so. Ah, that's so good. He he monitored himself, didn't he?
02:16:49 Kevin
Oh.
02:16:56 Kevin
Yes.
02:16:57 Kevin
He was close, though it was like 30 minutes.
02:17:01 Amy
Well anyway, I I just think like that like I have not that for sure.
02:17:06 Amy
Or is it is a top priority as well as everything else? You know the the budget.
02:17:11 Kevin
It's a running from. There is a. It's a.
02:17:12 Amy
But.
02:17:13 Kevin
It's a tall order.
02:17:14 Amy
It's all-encompassing. I think that's why you get you get 4 years because in four years you can get a lot done. You can't get it all done in the first year, but you definitely can.
02:17:24 Kevin
The first year is definitely like tutorial.
02:17:25 Amy
Make a.
02:17:27 Amy
Yes, yes, yes.
02:17:28 Kevin
If not into the I I.
02:17:30 Kevin
I would almost surmise you almost need 2 terms to win or to fetch it.
02:17:34 Amy
To get to get accomplished, and I think if you're effective and you're doing what you're supposed to do the first four years and you decide you want to keep doing it, that people should realize and understand that maybe another 4 is needed. And that's exactly how you get reelected, because you have done something with your four years, you've made a difference. You've made an impact.
02:17:53 Amy
You've you've stuck to your convictions. You followed through with the things that you want to do and accomplish, and you do that.
02:18:02 Amy
Tell.
02:18:03 Amy
You've you've exhausted every resource you've opened, every door you've you've done every due diligence, and if you've tried to do your best and it still didn't work, no one can fault you for that. But the worst is when you don't even try and you aren't even aware and you're unplugged.
02:18:24 Amy
And you, you, you.
02:18:28 Amy
You're the type of person that, that.
02:18:32 Amy
Get something in your mind and you can't be persuaded any any other way other than what you think is right and and you waste needless energy on that and you're not listening to people around you. You're not looking for advice. You want to do it your way. Those are all detriments.
02:18:52 Amy
As far as I'm concerned, if you really want to be an effective leader, I think you have to. You have to listen to other people, you have to listen to the people.
02:19:02 Amy
And I think that that is that is the way a lot of a lot feel at this point like they want.
02:19:07 Amy
To be heard.
02:19:09 Amy
You know, I I mean, I I would say that within the first six months, I would definitely have town hall meetings every month not to come to me.
02:19:23 Amy
Well, yes, I want to hear your complaint, but let's hear your great ideas. Like, come, come to me and tell me what you see in your street that bothers.
02:19:33 Amy
You.
02:19:33 Kevin
Was to say because we used to call the Alderman like they there was the complaint department because that's all we ever got, right? Cause most of our codes and everything. Our complaint based system. So I guess a reimagining of.
02:19:40 Amy
Right, right, right.
02:19:45 Kevin
What the divisions are right, it's not a. It's not a complaint to the mayor. Complain to the and complain to to this person or that person complain about this. Maybe it's a I noticed this, so I think Vernon brings this up quite often, actually is.
02:19:50 Amy
Right.
02:20:01 Kevin
You know, yeah, you can bring problems to me, but if you can try to bring solutions and if you can kind.
02:20:07 Kevin
Of just at least.
02:20:07 Amy
Work through them.
02:20:08 Kevin
Just like allow people to kind of even think that they can also.
02:20:11 Kevin
Come up with their own solution.
02:20:12 Amy
Yeah, I mean like as a, as a person living in this city my whole life, I I understand the process of going up to the city building and saying and voicing your.
02:20:22 Amy
Complaints and wanting to be heard and then not getting a response because that's how we do it and it's frustrating. And with that frustration comes anger. And then when you don't get any resolve, it gets even worse. And like, I'm not quite sure why we have never had just a meeting.
02:20:41 Kevin
Here's a minor change that just here's a minor change that just came to me.
02:20:45 Kevin
Is, you know, if somebody's coming up for public comment, they write. They write down on a Ledger, their name, e-mail and phone number. So. And then what their concern is before they come up. Right. So like, hey, I'm up next you. You know, you come up and you write your name on the thing. And so this way once you spoke and you're concerned.
02:20:50 Amy
MHM.
02:20:52 Amy
MMM.
02:20:58 Amy
MHM.
02:21:01 Amy
Yeah.
02:21:04 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:21:06 Kevin
Maybe that gets scanned in and all the Alderman and the mayor and any related divisions can review it. Ohh like.
02:21:10 Amy
Review.
02:21:12 Amy
Yeah.
02:21:13 Amy
Absolutely. It's a. It's a matter of communicating back and forth.
02:21:16 Kevin
Like an Alderman could reach out to Glenn Wall, the mayor could reach out to Glenn Wall or 1, you know, maybe the division that's related could get forwarded that from the mayor's office.
02:21:26 Kevin
To Brad, just because we we knew that you know that the the sewer division right like that's that's where he's trying to get answers from right. So and maybe that supervisor passes it down and says listen I think you're the best one to answer this particular question and so but this way you're at least getting answers so people don't feel like they're going on.
02:21:32 Amy
MHM.
02:21:40 Amy
That's right. That's right.
02:21:44 Amy
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I feel like if someone is is literally taking time out of their evening to come up and tell you.
02:21:51 Amy
That there's an issue with whatever that is OK, it needs to be addressed and you know, I I would I would love to think that people get back to the to the issues that are at the top, but I don't know is that that always happens, but there is nothing better than being able to sit with a person.
02:22:12 Amy
And hear their concern.
02:22:13 Amy
Turns.
02:22:14 Amy
And be able to talk back to them and say I understand. And just like what we're doing, I I have this piece of knowledge I can offer you that might help. And then you offer something back to me and you will we both walk away feeling good. Like we're understood and that is not when do we.
02:22:31 Amy
Right.
02:22:33 Kevin
And even if there is resistance, because I I remember naming at people, them screaming at me. And then you like, come back the next night cause we had like four days in straight budget meetings. You come back the next day and.
02:22:34 Amy
Have.
02:22:38 Amy
Yeah.
02:22:43 Amy
Yeah.
02:22:44 Kevin
It was like.
02:22:44 Kevin
Nothing ever happened, right? It's just like it's just healthy human emotion to get out there and you, you also can't feel like you pass the buck either on anything.
02:22:45 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:22:48 Amy
Yeah.
02:22:52 Amy
Right.
02:22:53 Kevin
Because.
02:22:53 Kevin
You just had that connection. Whether it was a yelling match or it was a sincere conversation.
02:22:59 Amy
Yeah. And you know, I mean, I have never in my entire life ever seen a mayor walk down my street, not once. And why is that? Like, why are, why are we not seeing that ever happen? Why are we?
02:23:13 Amy
Why is it so important to do that while we campaign, but yet you never do that throughout the year? I'm not saying that a mayor should have to do that canvas every neighborhood, but how about you open up your door a one day a month where you let people come in?
02:23:31 Amy
I I mean, I know this is insane, but I'm going to just say it. It's like also we all grew up in families where eating and that was part of like communicating and and being able to talk to your family on Sunday. And like, that's the time when, you know, you're going to be able to talk to that person and you're.
02:23:51 Amy
You know you're enjoying, like, your your your day together or whatever and eating like these things can happen if you have a mayor who understands that that's helpful. And that builds a community I feel out of all these years I've lived here.
02:24:08 Amy
That the community feels so much more divided than ever before, we at least all cared about things, and we all tried to pull together, and we all did events together and we looked forward to things together and I feel like there is a few things that we've hung on to, but the majority of the things.
02:24:28 Amy
That we were all accustomed to when we were younger just don't seem to be there anymore. And I I want us to feel.
02:24:35 Amy
Well.
02:24:36 Amy
Like we're, you know, we can all disagree about certain things. And I as a like a serving on the board that I serve the the I learned we talked about the SOLAS and Janine Shola was the president. When I got on the board, I learned so much from her and most of it was just being a good listener.
02:24:57 Amy
Being a good listener so you know as I lead that board, I also try to do the same thing. Be a good listener and understand what what the person wants, needs or their opinion. And I think that's healthy and honestly I.
02:25:14 Amy
The worst for me is as a board president is to talk about something and then have silence afterwards, with no one saying anything. And you say all right, well, I guess we're going to move on to the next thing. I would much rather have someone talk to me about their disagreements or what they think we should do.
02:25:32 Amy
That instead and be very.
02:25:37 Amy
Strong about their feelings. I think that's what builds a better. Yeah, it builds.
02:25:40 Kevin
Right, people put toy around the issue. If you know that like if you know that two people bought heads on something. I'm always the guy that brings up the elephant in the room like, you know, this guy doesn't like this. This guy likes it. I'm somewhere in the middle and I'll just talk about it like, well, you can't do that.
02:25:48 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:25:53 Amy
MHM.
02:25:56 Kevin
He doesn't like that and then just kind of I had a little levity and it opens.
02:25:56 Amy
Yeah.
02:26:00 Amy
Yeah, it sure does. It sure does. And and that back and forth, communication is crucial and no one person should just have the say or no one person should be the the the only one you can talk to and then you get like the silent treatment or whatever that just builds frustration.
02:26:00 Kevin
People up a little bit, but yeah, yeah.
02:26:18 Amy
So for me, if I was mayor, at least I would commit for the first six months to do that.
02:26:24 Amy
Been meeting, you know, town hall, especially at this point, leads people to believe that one person standing up with the mic and everyone gets to view, stand up and say their view. No. How about just a community coming together knowing the mayor is there, knowing that maybe whatever. Alderman Alder.
02:26:44 Amy
Person can make it to that meeting. We'll make it. And if they can't, they can't. We're not hinging the whole meeting on that one.
02:26:52 Amy
That kind of thing, just to hear the issues.
02:26:54 Kevin
Sure. Because that's and that's why I think they don't do the back and forth because they have other business to take care of and even with giving everybody 5 minutes and having a long stream of people at certain meetings, there's there's most of the time to the year, it's dead silence. It's just anybody, anybody, anybody's closed.
02:26:58 Amy
Yeah.
02:27:09 Amy
Yep.
02:27:11 Amy
Yeah.
02:27:13 Kevin
But and so, but then there's the. Sometimes the year you're like, you're right in the middle budget season and you're going the meetings going 3 1/2 hours and you haven't even touched the budget stuff yet. And so it's like, I understand both sides. You like, well, you're there for the people, and you have that mentality there for the people. It's like, yeah, but.
02:27:19 Amy
Yeah.
02:27:21 Amy
Right.
02:27:29 Kevin
Not till 2:00 in the morning.
02:27:30 Amy
Right, right. Right. Right, right. So.
02:27:33 Kevin
You know there there are limits. And so I do I do like the idea of having a town hall where you're providing.
02:27:38 Kevin
People that that back and forth and I would set a limit on the total aggressive time and.
02:27:41 Amy
Yeah, we have a community that this is a Community Center. It has a kitchen. There's no reason to believe we couldn't do something while we're all talking like it doesn't have to be. I feel a lot of times people come up to that MIC.
02:27:56 Kevin
And it's commercial kitchen, so you could you could have a local restaurant come in and and cook out.
02:28:01 Amy
Whatever. Whatever. We could bake cookies we could, like, have a recipe that we all know we're going to be making. And while we're doing that, we talk that, I mean, I know that sounds like, oh, wow, you just have such as sunshine. And no, it's it's really, it's really not about.
02:28:02 Kevin
Of that kitchen.
02:28:03 Kevin
All right, sure.
02:28:18 Amy
Trying to be all the sunshine and light. It's really about trying to build the community and letting people have a voice and not feel the anxiety. I mean, you and I, public speaking is fine. But you know what? That is not easy for people to get up at at that podium and speak. I mean when I was.
02:28:37 Amy
Younger I could do it, but man it would cause me a lot of anxiety. What comes from anxiety? Sometimes anger. So you're already setting people up for a bad situation when they already have something bothering them, so it needs to be done different. Obviously, as a mayor, your door is always open during the day. But.
02:28:55 Kevin
I think it's I. I do think a PR.
02:28:58 Kevin
I think I think having some PR though like so you don't have.
02:28:58 Amy
You know.
02:29:02 Kevin
Families coming up thinking that we're poisoning the actual water supply. There were a couple of people at the comment section that didn't understand the difference between sewage being discharged in the water and what we're pumping to people's houses.
02:29:13 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:29:14 Kevin
And like we're, we're like, we're we more than meet the expectation of the state and the federal government for water, sanitation. And so it's one of those like we're we're actually probably one of the like one of the best in this area and so it's like if not the best and so it's like.
02:29:21 Amy
Right.
02:29:29 Amy
Yeah.
02:29:31 Kevin
Water isn't this isn't like Erin Brockovich. We're not selling you like, you know, electric plant flowing water like it's not going off the turbines at the nuclear plant.
02:29:37 Amy
Yeah, I think right. I I think the thing too I I think I I know what you're Speaking of and I think it was more like a the chlorine being an issue which you know I mean we do smell that.
02:29:51 Amy
Chlorine. What the concentrate is on a.
02:29:55 Amy
Stormy after a stormy day.
02:29:58 Amy
I don't know what the bacteria level gets to that they have to add more chlorine, but it's uneasy feeling to smell it when you first run the tap and then.
02:30:04 Kevin
Yeah, I'm not sure the process I just.
02:30:07 Kevin
And I know they have minimum standards with residuals too, so they're like, I know that there's, like, you'll constantly see those people coming around the city. So if you ever see a water van like they're going facility to facility, I know they'll come out and test people's water at their home like, you know what the the levels are residual like you know, just to make sure you don't have a problem. So there is there is that.
02:30:10 Amy
Yeah.
02:30:24 Amy
Yeah.
02:30:26 Amy
Right.
02:30:27 Kevin
And most of this.
02:30:28 Kevin
Like I said, there's no PR on that. Most people don't know that they can do that unless they call and say I got a gripe and you know.
02:30:31 Amy
Right, right.
02:30:34 Amy
Yeah, but but do you? I feel like in the last 10 years.
02:30:39 Amy
Communications been lacking as far as a communication on a lot of things like we used to get the water report every year, right? We're not getting a water report per se anymore in the.
02:30:51 Amy
Now.
02:30:52 Kevin
For your home in particular, or to hold.
02:30:53 Amy
Yeah, just like out the whole city. What our what? Our water level. What's in the water? We used to get that.
02:31:00 Kevin
Really, I don't remember ever getting.
02:31:01 Amy
We did. We should get it. Yeah. Yes. We used to get it. I I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at, but my dad definitely did. And. And we did used to get that. But. But regardless, I just feel, you know, I felt like we didn't have any communication.
02:31:02 Kevin
OK.
02:31:18 Amy
From the top during COVID. That was a very uneasy time for a lot of people. Things were shutting down me as a business owner in a restaurant.
02:31:26 Kevin
Let's see if my phone was ringing off the hook.
02:31:29 Amy
What with people calling you?
02:31:30 Kevin
In just asking questions and I.
02:31:31 Amy
Why and why they that there is nothing coming from the?
02:31:35 Amy
Top at all at all.
02:31:36 Kevin
Well, cause I when I when I was answering questions, so life felt like I felt like I was.
02:31:38 Amy
Ohh well, I don't mean as a I. I mean like from the top top. The mayor's office like, hey, you know, this is the. This is what we have to follow. This is what what we think is going to happen. I mean there was just I did not recognize any.
02:31:52 Amy
And I was online quite a bit obviously at the time get any direction as a business owner of two businesses, one of them being a restaurant, I never had the mayor come in and say to me you're doing OK. Everything alright? I know this is really cutting down on a lot of things for you.
02:32:13 Amy
I understand you're a new business.
02:32:16 Amy
Anything we can do for you? I don't even know what we can do, but we will try and just know that we realize this is a huge problem for a restaurant. I got nothing and that was upsetting to me and I didn't make a big deal out of it and I didn't get up and complain, but I felt that and I thought, geez, if I feel that everybody else has got to be feeling that.
02:32:37 Amy
Where is our leadership in a time of crisis, this made a huge impact on me and my business.
02:32:44 Amy
This and everything I thought I had for my future and I got no.
02:32:47 Kevin
I was saying COVID killed the COVID, killed our coffee shop. I mean, we never made any money on it. It was. It was always a break. Even venture for that. We ran it for five years. It was a break even venture. And I kept the health permit running even when the restaurant was closed and because I was like, you know what? Maybe this.
02:32:50 Amy
I mean, right?
02:32:52 Amy
Is just.
02:32:56 Amy
Yeah, it's.
02:32:59 Amy
Yeah.
02:33:01 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:33:04 Kevin
Pan out and then it was like somebody else wanted to come and rent the.
02:33:08 Kevin
Space I was like.
02:33:08 Kevin
You know what? I've I've given it my experience years. Five years of running a, you know, he's running a coffee shop slinging sandwiches. Yeah, I'm.
02:33:09 Amy
Yeah, yeah, I thought that look.
02:33:13 Amy
Right.
02:33:16 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, The thing is, is that was a detrimental time for all restaurants. You're either going to, you're going to either float or you're going to sink many, many, many sunk. I didn't have to sink. I mean, our business was still. I mean, when we reopened and the capacity started coming up, it got better.
02:33:36 Amy
We had take out and all that, but my point is.
02:33:42 Amy
That's lacking, like as a business owner, I realize.
02:33:48 Amy
What a business face is if something like that happens and I had no, as a matter of fact, there are a couple of things that happened that really just were from the city.
02:33:59 Amy
That really even put the nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned as far as how I felt. They communicated to all of us. Let's just put it this way. I got a call when something needed to be addressed that was against code right in the middle of that crisis. They had to do with our sidewalk in the winter.
02:34:19 Amy
And that would have meant that I had to pay somebody to come and detach something that.
02:34:24 Amy
Supposedly was an issue for the plow.
02:34:27 Amy
That had to cross the street to just plow the walkway across the street. It wasn't even a matter of our our sidewalk. It was needed to get around.
02:34:39 Amy
The awning.
02:34:41 Amy
That was the only call I got during all of COVID was a complaint and that if I wasn't in compliance that I was going to hear from the.
02:34:48 Amy
City lawyer.
02:34:50 Amy
That's what I got.
02:34:51 Kevin
I got that when I was an Alderman, when we put, when I put in the sidewalk Cafe, I asked, I said I got a core drill. This. Where would you like? And you know, where do you want me to put him? And the DPW director at the time told me.
02:34:52 Amy
Well, I mean.
02:35:01 Amy
5 feet of the building and you're all.
02:35:03 Amy
Right. Stay within 5 feet of.
02:35:05 Amy
Your building and we.
02:35:05 Kevin
So mine is the subway.
02:35:08 Amy
OK, wait. OK. OK, OK.
02:35:08 Kevin
So there's a sidewalk so and he said he goes. If you're having a sidewalk cafe, you don't need the bollards. Is what DPW told me. And coach didn't weigh in on it. And DPW said you should.
02:35:17 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:35:18 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:35:21 Kevin
You're doing the city a favor when you're pouring this concrete pad by make cause your the curb doesn't exist and it's the city's responsibility to put the curb in and he's like you'd be doing the city a favor if you drilled and tapped into the existing curb, come up with rebar and pour like a monolithic pad. So it's it's at least 4 inches thick and it's real thick right by the curb.
02:35:27 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:35:30 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:35:40 Amy
Yeah.
02:35:41 Kevin
And then he goes when you're done.
02:35:43 Kevin
I would drill holes and have removable posts, you know, or no. You didn't even want removable holes. You wanted me to put them right in the concrete. That's what we did. We mounted them right into the concrete. They were galvanized pipes coming up. And he goes this way, if you ever get it, you don't. You're not really requiring.
02:35:51 Amy
Mm-hmm.
02:36:00 Kevin
Them.
02:36:00 Kevin
But he goes. But if you ever got a liquor permit, beer and wine.
02:36:03 Kevin
Whatever you need to have it protected. And so he goes. Just make them permanent because in the winter time, my plow trucks are going to see them and they won't hit your curb.
02:36:05 Amy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:36:13 Kevin
And because if they hit your curve, it's going to crack it. And what will happen is it's one thing if it cracks the curb because the city has to replace it whenever they get around to it. But if it cracks your pad, you're going to be ****** at me. And I don't want you to be mad at us because you just did us a favor by putting this pain in. And we did a stamp concrete.
02:36:15 Amy
Yeah.
02:36:20 Amy
Yeah.
02:36:27 Amy
Right, right, right, right.
02:36:29 Kevin
It made it look beautiful because it was just gravel for.
02:36:30 Amy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what where you mean.
02:36:34 Kevin
And so then all of a sudden.
02:36:36 Kevin
You know, codes got involved the next year when I didn't remove them and one of the neighbors complain and they're like, oh, he's got to remove those. He thinks he's the Alderman and he doesn't have to do it. I'm like, listen, I went up to codes. I went up to codes. They said talk to DPW. DPW gave me that advice. It was all verbal. Nothing was in writing. And then so they took me to court.
02:36:39 Amy
MHM.
02:36:55 Kevin
And I was like, like, I was like, no, screw you guys. You take me to court. And they were like, if you just.
02:36:56 Amy
Meeting.
02:36:59 Kevin
Remove them and.
02:37:00 Kevin
Put in removable ballards we will drop any fines and it was like which I guess is the protocol for everybody. So some people were like, oh, he didn't get fined because he was the Alderman. It was like, no.
02:37:11 Kevin
That's what they do for everybody. Your first dog complaint. You show up to court.
02:37:13 Amy
Yeah.
02:37:15 Kevin
Don't let your dog bark again and you know the judge usually waves it, you know, like waves. The first offense, and that's and that's kind of what happened. So I put in the park, you and it's like I'm just waiting cause I put like 6 grand into a concrete pad for a subway that I could have just put dirt back in and.
02:37:19 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:37:21 Amy
MHM.
02:37:28 Amy
Hmm.
02:37:31 Amy
It's. Yeah, it's very frustrating when you're putting money into something or you're really trying hard and and common sense doesn't prevail and you just.
02:37:43 Kevin
And then even when you have a common sense argument, everybody backtracks. You know what I mean? Like, she got it in writing, like, it's like, but it made so.
02:37:43 Amy
It's.
02:37:46 Amy
Right, right, right. Yeah.
02:37:50 Kevin
Much sense I want the.
02:37:51 Amy
Right.
02:37:51 Kevin
Plow truck to.
02:37:52 Kevin
Break my. Yeah, yeah.
02:37:54 Amy
Well, and in in my case it was like hey, I am just trying to hang on here. Like, I'm just trying to get through this till we can get to full capacity.
02:38:02 Kevin
And I need to take my awning down there.
02:38:03 Amy
In New York City, yeah. In New York City, they're making all these exceptions for restaurants to literally put full-fledged like, you know, plastic cover.
02:38:16 Kevin
The sneeze guards. Yeah, the the sneeze guards. Yeah, but, like, salad bar. Stuff on everything.
02:38:16 Amy
What do you call those things? Yeah, everything. And then they're building them into the roads and they're closing off streets so that restaurants can then improve their capacity by allowing people to sit outside in the middle of winter and eat. Right. So my thought was.
02:38:33 Kevin
And yeah, we were. We made the exception. We went along with the ABC Board, the.
02:38:37 Kevin
Well, yeah, the Alcohol Bureau of consumption or whatever, or board of consumption they they came through the AV board and they were like, you know, if you want to wave open container it will help bars and restaurants. So OK. So literally you can just go into a restaurant and just buy a beer, walk out and walk down the street.
02:38:39 Amy
MMMM.
02:38:49 Amy
Great.
02:38:53 Amy
Right, because you can't be because the capacity inside was so was so much less.
02:38:58 Amy
You needed to give people a.
02:38:59 Kevin
We're breaking those rules, but you can't break the sign, permit rules or whatever, like you can't block an egress like no one's going to catch the fire and get.
02:39:00 Amy
Place. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:39:06 Amy
Yeah, right. And and for us, it was we were staying within the parameters of where you can be away from the building with this awning. My thought was as soon as the weather starts to improve, we can put our tables out there. People are doing this because they just want to be out. They want to do stuff and to me.
02:39:26 Amy
It was a big deal. I was going to have to literally have Kohler on and come down from Buffy.
02:39:32 Amy
Low, which would have charged me $175 to pull these poles out of the ground that we're not blocking the right away for people. What it was, what the problem was when the snow do Hickey does this, does the sidewalks the smaller.
02:39:52 Kevin
Right. Yeah, yeah.
02:39:52 Amy
1.
02:39:54 Amy
Was coming the normal path because of the normal path. The cut to get around this across the street, the angle. So why not come at the street a different angle or something? It was, I felt very attacked at a moment when I need to actually some help and advice.
02:40:02 Kevin
That angle, yeah.
02:40:03 Kevin
88 component.
02:40:14 Amy
As to what we were even doing like COVID, well, it was like picking apart something that really was not at the moment the biggest deal. The biggest deal was I still am paying a lease payment.
02:40:16 Kevin
What are we doing? You just get it. This is our. This is our decision.
02:40:28 Amy
Rent. I'm still paying a lease. I'm still paying disability and my employees, my employees are still basically employed by me hoping to get them back like it was just a lot of things going on. That was the least of my concern, but that was the number one concern that I might have even.
02:40:32 Kevin
Yeah. And there's only a mortgage. There's a.
02:40:34 Kevin
Mortgage.
02:40:34 Kevin
Definitely your house.
02:40:48 Amy
Heard from the city lawyer about, but I'm not hearing from the mayor.
02:40:54 Amy
Just, even, even a calm voice of we're we'll get through this as a city. I never heard that, never saw him come in. Now, I don't want that. If I'm Mayor, I want. I can't be everywhere. Obviously he can't be everywhere, but there are some things that are important that need to be addressed.
02:41:14 Amy
And I'm hoping to be that person who understand.
02:41:17 Amy
And you know what? Use some common sense and what possibly might be a bother for a business owner or a concern about a person who owns a property that has a drug house that literally has a, you know, a path in the in the yard of where people are going in and out buying drugs.
02:41:37 Amy
You know, I mean that that to me is just like how many months does everyone have to put up with that? At what point will that escalate? Maybe the wrong person is buying drugs that that is violent and they're in my neighborhood as we're sitting in our living room.
02:41:53 Amy
These are things that need to be addressed, you know, so.
02:41:55 Kevin
Sure. I I used to be the ultimate that would do that. I would go up to people's houses like I I sat at vacant houses across the street with GoPro, my hat.
02:42:03 Amy
And watch it.
02:42:04 Kevin
And yeah, and I would just and then they would be like what are you doing like I'm dropping. And I'm like, just watching a drug deal. And they would get, they would get offended, like the police chief actually at the time had to tell me to stop. He's like, cause all of a sudden my wife, she was pregnant with.
02:42:09 Amy
Yep.
02:42:16 Kevin
Her second one? Not the littlest one that you met earlier, but.
02:42:19 Amy
OK.
02:42:20 Kevin
She's pregnant with second. She's out in the front yard playing with the first one. And like, there's a couple names like notorious people in the drug community. Like you just said their name even. We posted on Facebook. People like, oh, I know them. They're they're in a drugs real bad. They drove by the house and they're Escalade. And like, you know, like, looked at my wife and we're like.
02:42:40 Kevin
The lady let your husband know. We know where you live, like. And it was like. And I told the police, you know, like I was like, what should I what should I?
02:42:44 Amy
And that's just so not.
02:42:45 Amy
Fair.
02:42:46 Kevin
Do about something like that and he was like.
02:42:49 Kevin
Stop sitting in front of the house, across the street from their drug deals and let the cops do their job.
02:42:53 Kevin
And I'm like.
02:42:54 Kevin
You know, I like I am, but like they can't be at every drug house. They can't take them all to. I just listen. I'm just let them know the community is.
02:42:56 Amy
Yeah.
02:42:58 Amy
Right, right.
02:43:01 Kevin
Aware of the.
02:43:02 Kevin
Things and I you know, I'm. I'm the guy that also like, I just asked him for advice. Like, I wasn't going to stop like because like.
02:43:02 Amy
Right. And and.
02:43:08 Amy
Yeah.
02:43:09 Kevin
My wife has nothing to worry about, like that's Hollywood stuff where the, you know, the drive bys and this ain't Chicago.
02:43:10 Amy
Yeah, I know well.
02:43:15 Amy
Right. Well and.
02:43:16 Amy
I used some similar situation with my husband because we had in fact a house on our street that was being used for drugs and you know, it's sad because it's a beautiful big old.
02:43:26 Amy
Home and we would see it constant, constant constant and I would when I would start seeing the traffic increase of people. I like what they were doing was people on bikes were coming and taking and going and whatever. I just go stand out there on my porch and just watch it and my husband would say.
02:43:46 Amy
You know, please don't do that. Like, please come back in the house. I'm.
02:43:50 Amy
Look, if we are allowing all this to happen and they don't see us out here, they're going to keep doing it. Just standing there making their life uncomfortable, not allowing them to be able to do what they're doing because I'm standing there. If I can just do that, I don't have to say.
02:44:08 Amy
A word.
02:44:09 Amy
I just need to stand there and that's sad that we have to feel like that, you know, and we're not the only ones. This happens all over the country, all over the world. I know it's no different.
02:44:11 Kevin
Yeah, yeah.
02:44:20 Amy
But you know, I I you know. And then eventually the police absolutely did what they were supposed to at like, 8:30 at night with what do they call that? A flash bang. OK. And literally blew up the whole neighborhood with light. And my, you know, immediate reaction was hit the floor. Like told my husband.
02:44:30 Kevin
Ohh yeah yeah.
02:44:40 Amy
There on the floor, like nobody should feel that way. I guess what I'm saying is, is as a mayor, I understand all these issues within the neighborhoods because I'm in the neighborhood. I see it, and I understand it and.
02:44:50 Amy
Right.
02:44:52 Amy
It would be.
02:44:54 Amy
Not something I want to overlook by any stretch of the imagination, and if there is anything further we can do, obviously I am. I am absolutely very proud of our our police and our fire department and I believe that they're doing everything they can do. And I bet you if you ask them, there's probably things that.
02:45:15 Amy
Could be better and that's that's what I hope to do is is listen to what they feel needs to happen to make things better, not just.
02:45:24 Amy
Start as a campaign. You know a way to campaign and say this is what I'm going to do. Well, the fact of the matter is, is I I live the reality of of what is happening. But I want to know from them first what can we do.
02:45:42 Kevin
Right, because sometimes they have better inkling because you're not firefighter. You're gonna stop. Yeah. So finding out things like, yeah, maybe maybe there is an outside the box.
02:45:44 Amy
Not an authority.
02:45:46 Amy
That's right. That's right.
02:45:51 Amy
Yeah, like, no, no, no way. Would you ever want to micromanage them? They know best. What? What needs to be done. But they need to tell us what needs to be done. They need to tell us what they need. What resources would make it better. I thought at the beginning of all of this.
02:45:52 Kevin
You know solution.
02:46:11 Amy
One of.
02:46:12 Amy
The first.
02:46:13 Amy
Like people I heard from was was someone who said, you know, I'm I'm concerned for like our Police Department. Like they need this and they need that. And it's like these things they need. There's grants for why are we not seeking those? Well, they have their hands full.
02:46:33 Amy
Obviously they cannot be writing grants. Writing a grant is not an easy process. I did it for the community theater, for Olean Community Theater, and it's not something I would write on my resume, but in fact it did win. The grant was the only.
02:46:50 Amy
Culture grant that was awarded in our whole region $200,000 for this synagogue for the remodel. Unfortunately, that project just did not come to fruition, but in fact that grant I wrote did and it wasn't easy. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not.
02:47:09 Amy
Up to our police chief to write a grant.
02:47:13 Amy
If we don't have a grant writer, which I don't believe, we we do carry. I mean, honestly, amazing job. Carry in in that department has done from Mary George to carry to the the present people that work there. I can't say enough about that because that is a difficult process.
02:47:33 Kevin
When I was on the Council, and when I when I see her at the meetings, I I hear her mumble under her breath. If she's listening to this, that she just she wants more.
02:47:42 Kevin
I'm just kidding. Ohh yeah, I was going.
02:47:43 Amy
To say, please tell me that is not true.
02:47:45 Kevin
She says she's like please don't hire anymore people from my division. Just just let me. I'll let me handle it.
02:47:48 Amy
Oh my gosh, I mean.
02:47:50 Kevin
All in just.
02:47:50 Amy
Ohh my gosh. I mean like I I'm the type of person that probably I probably want to sit there with her and talk about all these things. No, I I loved. I loved writing that grant. It was it was a. It was a challenge. But yeah, you know, you're telling a story.
02:48:07 Amy
The only way you can because you live here and I'm I'm a huge advocate for theater because my son, in fact, you know, at 8-9 years old, was trying to figure out his path. And when he found that my God, he became this person that just I. I mean, he just blossomed. So to me it was like no one could.
02:48:09 Amy
Right.
02:48:27 Amy
Tell that story better than I can you?
02:48:29 Amy
Know.
02:48:31 Amy
No one can tell the story of only and better than a person who's living here. And and for me, writing that Grant was just a huge.
02:48:40 Amy
Like relief, and it was a challenge that I loved. And so for me, that would be my thing. I I would want to do that grant writing if at all possible. You know, it's important so. But anyway, we can go on.
02:48:50 Kevin
Yeah. No, it's.
02:48:54 Amy
And on but.
02:48:54 Kevin
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't wanna. I I don't wanna keep you all night and.
02:48:57 Amy
Yeah. No, I appreciate the time that you've given me and.
02:49:00 Kevin
No problem. You're you're setting the bar high for the other mayoral candidates. I mean, we're pushing 3.
02:49:01 Amy
Apologise to anyone.
02:49:06 Kevin
Of course.
02:49:07 Amy
Ohh my gosh, I'm sorry.
02:49:08 Kevin
No, you're good. You're good. You're just, like I said, you're pushing the bar high. And So what? I'll actually, in closing. What I'll end with is this. Would you? If we're working on potentially hosting, like, a debate as we get later into the season after any primaries and things like that. So would you be open to a debate? Awesome.
02:49:10 Amy
They said well.
02:49:22 Amy
Yeah, yeah.
02:49:25 Amy
Honey.
02:49:27 Amy
It's 100% hoping I'm hoping.
02:49:28 Kevin
Perfect. So setting a bar high and committing half or you know half of the half of the debate stage so.
02:49:30 Amy
Yeah, I mean.
02:49:35 Amy
Absolutely no. I think again, back to what we talked about earlier, it's it's the way to go.
02:49:40 Amy
Get to the end of people want to know what the difference is and people want to hear opinions and they want to hear, you know questions asked. And how are they answered it? I think it's a huge, important part of the election and I don't. I am absolutely looking forward to that and you know I.
02:50:00 Amy
Hopefully it's a it's a friendly debate and you know, obviously the mayor has history of what he says, that he's done. I do as well not in that, not in the same capacity, but I think it really boils.
02:50:16 Amy
Want to more what you're going to do in the future?
02:50:19 Kevin
So I think one-on-one conversations like this are great. And then I also think that like the side by side is good. That's why I like a debate as well because you get to see from all angles if you will, right, you get to see this person having a conversation with this person and that person and then you get to see them kind of answering questions side by side seeing their own inflection.
02:50:39 Kevin
Kind of having that you know that, like you said, that emotion in the room, you get to actually physically see the person. You shake their hand and then it's, I mean it, you know, it's it's it's still friendly you.
02:50:40 Amy
Hmm.
02:50:49 Amy
Ohh yeah yeah.
02:50:50 Kevin
Know.
02:50:50 Amy
Yeah. Yeah. I mean like, as far as I'm concerned, there's no.
02:50:51 Kevin
So.
02:50:56 Amy
Usefulness to hammer home what wasn't done or what could have been done that wasn't done. And.
02:51:03 Kevin
Setting animosity aside.
02:51:05 Amy
Yeah. Yeah, it's more about what are we doing for our future like that is what we at this point need to be all about? What is our future hold so that that I look forward to not not just a debate but more of a discussion of what is your plan like.
02:51:22 Amy
Got to have a plan. It cannot be left to others to do.
02:51:26 Amy
So.
02:51:27 Kevin
Sounds good. All right, they can find you on Facebook.
02:51:27 Amy
Alright.
02:51:30 Amy
Yeah. So yeah, so honestly, my thought was is I need to make sure that you know, I hand in the signature petitions and I thank everyone that signed my petition. I got plenty enough to cover everything what I needed, but I wanted to save really. The more about who I am for the campaign.
02:51:50 Amy
Which will begin this month like we'll have a web.
02:51:53 Amy
Site I am will be always available. I've I've had great conversation like texts with people just via Facebook. Like happy to do that probably as it increases might not be able to do it quite as much, but I think it helps for people to get to know me if they feel they want to reach out.
02:52:15 Amy
With Messenger on my Facebook page for right now, that's great, but I'll have a website.
02:52:22 Amy
And what is that, right? I don't know. Maybe but.
02:52:22 Kevin
Burner phone everyone has.
02:52:26 Kevin
Some of the older men got burner phones. I'm like one of the few that got my own. I just kept my.
02:52:30 Kevin
Same.
02:52:30 Kevin
Phone number for everything. Same phone number for the businesses as it is for when I was an Alderman to to my my tenants call that number. So, but yeah. No, that's yeah, but yeah, let us know because what happens with that distribution is.
02:52:32 Amy
Yeah.
02:52:36 Amy
Right.
02:52:44 Kevin
Telling you about, well, I'll be creating a profile for you. And then so when people are downloading an apple or wherever they can actually see, oh, every podcast on that Channel that she's in and oh wait, oh, here's her Twitter. Here's her blue sky. Here's her Facebook. Here's her website, her Instagram and it. And it gives.
02:52:58 Amy
Yep, Yep.
02:53:01 Amy
Yeah. So.
02:53:02 Kevin
You like.
02:53:03 Kevin
A whole kind of a.
02:53:05 Kevin
Personal portfolio on here so people can see.
02:53:07 Amy
Your work? Yes. And so with that being said, I will have all that I have.
02:53:13 Amy
Amazing. Couple of people that that want to see me succeed and they're going to help me roll that all out and I I am very confident it'll be great. We've already got a good start on it. So I will be accessible. But I mean if nothing else, I hope this proves that I like to talk.
02:53:33 Amy
So if if you know anyone ever wants to reach out to me and they ever want to meet, you know.
02:53:41 Amy
In a public setting and talk to me one-on-one, I'm all about that have no problem at all speaking about plans and and being accessible. So all right. OK. Thank you. Thank you.
02:53:51 Kevin
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming. Let me.
02:53:56 Kevin
All right, guys. Well, thanks for watching today. We will see you guys tomorrow morning on the morning podcast and.
02:54:05 Kevin
Don't forget to check out any links that we put in the description below that will take you to what Amy has thus far, and she'll have more to come later.
02:54:17 Amy
Awesome.