Life22

Day 13,514(2) - Interview with Sonya McCall.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Kevin
Hey, gang, Kevin here. Life 22. And tonight we have Sonia McCall incumbent.
00:00:11 Kevin
For Ward 4.
00:00:12 Kevin
And we'll be diving into an interview so.
00:00:16 Kevin
Let's see.
00:00:18 Kevin
And there we go.
00:00:20 Sonya
All right. Well, thanks for inviting me, Kevin.
00:00:21 Kevin
No problem.
00:00:24 Sonya
So we were having a variety of conversations, so I'm not sure where you want to start, but.
00:00:28 Kevin
So.
00:00:31 Kevin
I'd love to jump back into where we started, but I think we probably should start fresh, right? So I think you, you took over my alma mater. What was that?
00:00:41 Kevin
20/21 right.
00:00:42 Sonya
Going in, yeah, this is my third year. Yeah, I'll finish up so yeah.
00:00:48 Kevin
Or third third term.
00:00:49 Sonya
Well, yeah, no. Second second. Yeah. I'm finishing up my second term.
00:00:51 Kevin
Term, second term, third year, OK.
00:00:54 Kevin
OK. And so yeah, because he stepped down in 21?
00:00:58 Kevin
And then they did a whole bunch of fills, right? Yeah. And they have. Yeah. So.
00:01:05 Kevin
Yeah, that's.
00:01:06 Kevin
Yeah, 2021. So then you took, yes. So then you ran and won in November of 21 and got in in 22. Right. So that would. OK. Yeah. And then so you'll take office again in 26. If. Yeah. And then so.
00:01:16 Sonya
Hopefully.
00:01:19 Kevin
I haven't kept up on the car I have. I probably should call the Board of Elections and get the numbers.
00:01:23 Kevin
So is there anybody running against you?
00:01:24 Sonya
Yes, yes, there is a Republican challenger. And so I'm I'm hopeful that the the residents, I mean I I know they see me out and about and and I'm responsive to them. So I'm hoping that they see that I'm doing a good job and that they you know that I I think I have their trust and and really working to make sure I maintain that.
00:01:25 Kevin
OK.
00:01:45 Kevin
Right.
00:01:46 Sonya
So that come November, hopefully I'll be the Alderman in Ward 4 again.
00:01:50 Kevin
OK. Yeah. I was going to say I my wife said that was it Jason Peters.
00:01:56 Kevin
Alan, Jason, Jason, Alan Peters. I always I always because his dad's Alan Peters. And so I think he goes by Jason.
00:01:57 Sonya
Alan Peters.
00:02:01 Sonya
Oh.
00:02:03 Kevin
Which his middle.
00:02:03 Kevin
Name Ohh could be so, but she said he stopped by the house and he was running for all he was running for Alderman, but it was like a few days before like deadline. So you never know, right? Like, but then again, an Alderman race is easier than if he decided to run for mayor.
00:02:03 Sonya
Oh.
00:02:16 Kevin
The 11th hour, you know, like that's that's 160 signatures. Like that's a tough. That's a tall order in a couple of days.
00:02:22 Sonya
Yeah. And you know, I my theory is I I go out. I mean the way.
00:02:26 Sonya
That, you know, Linda was such a formidable opponent there, right? Like, I worked hard and I went to all everybody's house practically and. And so, you know, I I think that people know me I and that's how I got my signatures. You know I sit at home calling I went out and I just went to people's houses and and.
00:02:46 Sonya
You know, it takes me quite a long time to get signatures, not because people are willing to sign, but because people want to talk, right? And they.
00:02:52 Kevin
Right. Or they're not or they're not home. And then you got to and then you gotta come back to.
00:02:53 Sonya
Want to talk?
00:02:54 Sonya
Well, or not home.
00:02:56 Kevin
The neighborhood? That's my.
00:02:58 Sonya
And and I'm cool with that. But you know, I.
00:03:00 Sonya
Think just going around and people really want to talk. They want to talk about what's going on here. They want to talk about what's going on there, you know. And and that's really what we're in office for, is to be able to, you know, help people to, you know, I think sometimes people don't understand. When I ran the first time, people would tell me all the time. They didn't know what.
00:03:17 Sonya
An Alderman.
00:03:17 Sonya
Was, you know, so trying to help them understand.
00:03:21 Sonya
What an Alderman is versus what the mayor is, what the job responsibilities is. And I think that's a a challenge and and I think we're.
00:03:25 Kevin
Right.
00:03:29 Sonya
Going to with the Charter reform, if it passes, just go with the idea of Councilman, because I think people say, well, I know who my Alderman is, but who's my Councilman.
00:03:38 Kevin
Right. And there's still a disconnect, right? And anything like that's the PR like I know that people have been criticizing like PR that the the city, the Council, everybody kind of gives out, right. Like there is no real PR division.
00:03:49 Kevin
Right. So like how do you use a roundabout, right? Like get all the Pennsylvania people coming in and and then like, the city tries. Like, I think what the the city released a couple of videos this past couple last few years like what the water plan is what the sewer plan is.
00:04:03 Kevin
And I think Mary George may have spearheaded it when she was still there for the the roundabouts and they had somebody driving the roundabouts and kind of explaining what you should do. And so, I mean, they do do things like that, but it's like how what's the reach?
00:04:17 Sonya
Yeah.
00:04:17 Kevin
Because was it a lie travels around the world before the before the truth gets its shoes on.
00:04:22 Sonya
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that we need.
00:04:25 Sonya
To do more of that, you know I'm all for transparency and I truly appreciate that alter and Robinson goes home. He types up kind of what happened. And and honestly, I was kind of thinking that. And then when I was reading his, I'm like, I know I just copy him. So I'm like, you know what, I'll direct him to there or or I'll ask him, can I?
00:04:34 Kevin
Oh yeah.
00:04:45 Sonya
Because he does an amazing job of just putting down his thoughts right when he gets home, kind of here. And really, it's just facts. It's not even the thoughts. It's like here, where the PL's here's what happened. You know, here's what.
00:04:55 Kevin
Sure.
00:04:57 Sonya
We voted on so and I think just trying to put that up on my Alderman.
00:05:01 Kevin
Site and just sharing it.
00:05:02 Sonya
And make. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So people know kind of what's going on because I think.
00:05:10 Sonya
Boy, I'd love it if people came more consistently. They've been coming recently, but more consistently to to the Council meetings or, you know, watched them on on video. But I go back and I look on YouTube and, you know, we don't have that many things. And and I don't think that everybody else knows because I tell them all the time you can go on YouTube and you can see this. And I try to.
00:05:15 Kevin
Sure.
00:05:30 Sonya
Sent put up links occasionally so that they know where it is.
00:05:32 Kevin
Right, there's, there's.
00:05:33 Kevin
No, yeah, there's not a lot of people that like.
00:05:36 Kevin
I think I've I've talked about this on my show where I like. This is my football, like politics is my thing and so it's like I can't expect Joe even like even like.
00:05:49 Kevin
Alderman, like, I'm sure all the Alderman don't pay attention to all the county news. Like it's, you know what I mean? Like, you've got a job and like, that's like, this is my hobby. So I love to just like, I'll follow the county races. I'll follow this. I'll follow that. I'll go down such a rabbit hole with some of this stuff that like I can't expect the general public or even people.
00:06:08 Kevin
They're slightly less involved. Like you, you guys are involved in the city business, so you guys got the city kind of wrapped up, but it's like what exactly is the county doing?
00:06:17 Kevin
You know what I mean? Like you, you might not follow it as much as the county legislator would, but I wouldn't expect them to follow the city as much as and.
00:06:24 Sonya
Well, and you did a great job and I commented on it. You had done a great job.
00:06:29 Sonya
Kind of delineating mayor stuff. Alderman stuff. That was a few weeks ago, but you just said and. And I think that that's helpful to inform the public, you know, because everybody tunes into something a little different. Everybody has a little more taste. So it's how do we, you know, get the word out and capture to the most.
00:06:34 Kevin
Right.
00:06:40 Kevin
Right.
00:06:50 Sonya
The the largest group because I think one of the things we're challenged by in the city and people say, well, I didn't know that well, it was on the city website. Well, we sent it out in the.
00:07:00 Sonya
Better you know, Bill, but how do we?
00:07:01 Kevin
Yeah.
00:07:02 Kevin
Some people don't get their water bill because they rent and the.
00:07:04 Kevin
Landlord gets it or.
00:07:05 Sonya
Right. And so how do we get that out?
00:07:07 Kevin
Who looks at the back of the bill for the sweeper schedule, right? Like they look at their bill and like, how am I gonna pay this? They don't wanna flip it over and be like, ohh. I could also be fined if I'm parked on the street on Thursdays every other week like.
00:07:19 Sonya
Or that I.
00:07:20 Sonya
Could you know one of the ways we could do a cost savings is if more people signed up to just have their bill electronics so that you know we spend like $3000 a month just sending out bills and different things, right? So I look for, you know, how is their cost savings and you know at this point in time with you know being able to get things digitally?
00:07:31 Kevin
Right. OK.
00:07:41 Sonya
Yeah. How do we save money? And and it might seem like, well in the budget, you know, in a 20 million budget or actually by the time we put everything together, it's like.
00:07:49 Sonya
9 But 3000 a month builds up, and if you put that with something else, right, so how do we, you know, how do we get the word out that you can, you can do those things and how can we do it more efficiently and more effectively so that people know more. I mean, I I think nobody, not everybody wants to like you might listen to the.
00:08:09 Sonya
Hour or the two hours of the Council meeting, right?
00:08:12 Kevin
Right. But I'm sure, like I'm sure the IT guys can show you, if you were to go to the city page, it's the same as mine. I can show you know peak viewership like the average viewer listens for three minutes on a 10 minute podcast and then it's like, OK, on a three hour 1, the average person might listen to 50.
00:08:29 Kevin
10 minutes and so it's like, Yikes, when you still have people it'll like, you'll have one person listen to the whole thing. You know, one person listen to 3/4 and you know, and they'll show you all that, and they'll even show you peak times, like, right in this part of the video is the peak. Like, this is when people really liked it. And I'm sure you like the most recent Council meetings. I'm sure if you go to the public comment section.
00:08:50 Kevin
It's like right up there, like any of the most any of the, the most hot topic, the stuff that the news is going to push, right, it's going to be all those. There's you're gonna see those trends right. There is where people are watching it and whatnot so.
00:09:02 Sonya
Yeah. And I think that we have to be more cognizant of utilizing the tools.
00:09:06 Sonya
Out there to be able to figure out these things and say, you know, how do we, how do we reach it? Because I think that is one of the things that we hear consistently is well, I didn't know. And they're like, well, it was in the newspaper and we already know, you know, the newspaper has a dwindling population that reads it and and physically gets it. It's even less.
00:09:26 Kevin
Oh yeah.
00:09:27 Sonya
Right. And so some of the things that we have to do, we have to publish and I've been advocating.
00:09:34 Sonya
If we have to publish, what does that mean? What can we change it to in terms of publishing? Because if we publish it and listen times, herald is doing their job. Local news is really important in getting the news out, but how do we publish it so that most people see it so they know or that they know that there's a, you know, we just had?
00:09:53 Sonya
To public meetings to be able to talk about things like tax cap and and sewer or water.
00:09:59 Sonya
Place no one spoke at the public hearing and.
00:10:02 Kevin
Right. Oh, yeah. It's always just smack. You know, anybody here to speak on that? Nope. Smack the gavel. You wait. Your pre generated pre generated 5 minutes. I don't even think there's a number on that cause, but I would.
00:10:09 Sonya
Yeah. Then we have, yeah.
00:10:13 Sonya
Ohh, there was this time. So if the poor people were probably like, why are you waiting? Well because it was 6-6 or five, yes.
00:10:18 Kevin
It was published and it's legally, yeah.
00:10:20 Kevin
Yep, when I was there, Tiffany would set them all. Like, I think I think she said him at the same time, she.
00:10:25 Kevin
Or at least with.
00:10:26 Kevin
The committee meetings she would set them all at 6:00, so it's like then you could pick and choose. Well, we can't start finance because finance isn't until 6:30 or 6:15 or six O 5 or and so you had to, like kind of follow a we can wait 5 minutes. We can start that one and then we'll just bang out.
00:10:26 Sonya
Yes, with the committee.
00:10:28 Sonya
Meetings we do.
00:10:41 Kevin
And it was like.
00:10:42 Sonya
Yeah. So with the public hearing, I guess it's and and it, you know, I think that people.
00:10:49 Sonya
Honestly, this time around with the budget I didn't, you know, it was my was it my second or third year as finance chair, I guess it was my third.
00:11:00 Sonya
And so I feel like I learn more each time, right?
00:11:03 Kevin
Oh yeah.
00:11:04 Kevin
There's definitely a learning curve like 2-2 years like I guess because it's not. It's like it's not.
00:11:10 Kevin
I don't. I don't want this to come out weird, but it's not hard to win, Alderman. So it's like 2 year term, but like you don't like, I was still learning it in Year 5, right? Like and it's like, but what do you do about it, you know?
00:11:25 Sonya
Like. Yeah. And, you know, I had somebody say, oh, after three months, I was kind of up and running. I'm thinking how in the world is that?
00:11:31 Sonya
Possible because then you're.
00:11:33 Sonya
First, you gotta like there's, you know, you get some information, but like, I didn't quite. I got. Yes. Like I got this handbook, but figuring out how do you put in a PPL who what's the chain of command in terms of communication all of those things. I feel it does. And so I think that this time I I really had a much better handle on it and.
00:11:37 Kevin
And then some of it's wrong.
00:11:53 Sonya
And when I talk to people about.
00:11:55 Sonya
Budget. You know, I think people were more understanding this time about about the tax increase. And I think that we've tried to and I've tried to educate people about, you know, of 76 or 75% of our our city budget during the general fund is related to salaries and fringe benefit.
00:12:16 Kevin
Sure.
00:12:16 Sonya
I mean, for every salary there is, there's 55% of fringe benefit. That doesn't leave a lot for everything else.
00:12:25 Kevin
Right. Yeah. And then the cost of everything else goes.
00:12:28 Kevin
Up.
00:12:28 Sonya
Yes, and there were many years in which.
00:12:31 Sonya
There was 0.
00:12:34 Sonya
Percent 1% in terms of increase and and that kind of put us to where?
00:12:37 Kevin
Sure.
00:12:39 Kevin
We are now. I remember being on COVID and it's like, you know, and the consensus was everyone was like in panic mode. Yeah. Like I remember we did a 0%. I think it was the first time we ever did it 0%. I was kind of just like, following the wave, you know, like, hey, keep it under the tax cap. People don't. It's the third rule of politics. You don't raise taxes.
00:12:39 Kevin
And.
00:12:56 Kevin
They'll come out and get you when you guys, when? The When, the paper wrote an article saying like 6%. Like I got a call from from Nate Smith and he was like.
00:13:09 Kevin
Remember, being on the Council and if we went over the tax cap there was like, like, pitchforks and lynch mobs like looking for us. And it was like I was like, I I remember I remember it was.
00:13:20 Sonya
Well, and that is the challenge because you know, if we look over the last 15 years, I mean the average was 1.3% for those 15 years I think.
00:13:29 Sonya
Of increase.
00:13:31 Sonya
Of.
00:13:32 Kevin
And what's what's inflation?
00:13:32 Sonya
Tax.
00:13:34 Sonya
Yeah, right. And.
00:13:35 Kevin
It used to be 1 1/2%, now it's 2% two.
00:13:37 Kevin
And a half percent since.
00:13:38 Sonya
And when we're talking about salaries going up and everybody knows who has health insurance, health insurance going up and we look at retirement, so the city pays out all of that and and 2% can't keep keep adding. Look, I'd love to be at 2%. You know, I'd love to be, would that look good in terms of?
00:13:59 Sonya
Sign you getting.
00:14:00 Sonya
Sure. But but that would do the city no good.
00:14:02 Kevin
That exactly. Sometimes you're like, yeah, if you don't punish your kids, your kids will love you. The problem is, in the future, like, if you don't discipline your kids, your kids become monsters. And then it's like.
00:14:13 Kevin
Well, now they're monsters, like they can't love you. You know what I mean? It's like one of those. It's very difficult. Like you don't you don't want to discipline your kids. You want to be their best friend. But at the same time, you have to do what's necessary to fulfill the role.
00:14:26 Sonya
Yeah, because if we don't this year, then next year it's just going to be worse and whoever is, whether it's me or somebody else sitting in that seat is going to have a much higher tax rate because there was you know.
00:14:39 Sonya
Do I have some concerns about the budget that we, yeah. And we should have some concerns about the budget. You know, like we put in there 104,000 the mayor put in his budget $104,000 for the downtown QR code.
00:14:55 Kevin
Is it for the? Yeah. OK.
00:14:56 Sonya
Parking. But here's the deal, you know, and I went around and I talked to the business owners to see what they thought and stuff. And if we're going to go with that and we go to other places and and they have it and they're successful with it, but.
00:15:10 Sonya
It has to be the the amount of money we'll make has to be worth the pain.
00:15:15 Kevin
Of doing.
00:15:16 Sonya
That residents will go through right if we're going to make 50,000, I don't think 50,000 is enough to make on it, to put our residents through that amount of paying so.
00:15:25 Sonya
I know that theoretically that $104,000 may not be there, you know, and on the same token in last year's budget, there were things like.
00:15:30 Kevin
Right.
00:15:37 Sonya
You know, $70,000 was somehow they were able to come up with when they went and purchased trucks that were or vehicles that were more costly than they had come to the Council for, you know. And they found money to pay for the buy out for the insurance that somehow.
00:15:56 Sonya
And I got factored into the budget last year. So I know that there's some wiggle room there, even though we're told, like, OK, this isn't clean as possible.
00:16:04 Kevin
There's definitely, yeah, there's always. There's definitely been.
00:16:08 Kevin
Finance.
00:16:08 Kevin
Full.
00:16:09 Kevin
Hiccups over the years.
00:16:10 Sonya
Yeah, right. So we we have to make sure that you know I want to be a good steward of people's money. You know, I want to make sure that.
00:16:16 Kevin
Sure.
00:16:19 Sonya
We don't want to price anyone out of Olean, you know, and I don't want to be down the road though. Leaving it to somebody else, whether Dunkirk and it's 84% or Buffalo, that's 50 million in the hole with there is the fact that we.
00:16:33 Sonya
Last year.
00:16:36 Sonya
Or this year we are actually we're not going to make the the sales tax, you know that put us almost $1,000,000 in the hole. So you know when when Alder and Crawford and I went to the mayor it was like we've got to we've got to halt things right now because how are we going to make up that our general fund is only $1.8 million.
00:16:56 Sonya
If if you think about that, that's not much.
00:16:57 Kevin
And and.
00:16:59 Kevin
And is it? Is it 1.8 million waiting with like an IOU in the cookie jar from the state for the oats buses. So it's really like point $8 million to kind of be working capital, right?
00:17:09 Kevin
That that's something I was talking about with Amy and I like. Obviously she's not in it, so she doesn't. She's not there yet, so she doesn't know like how the different funds work. And I was kind of explaining it to her in the show. And I was like.
00:17:23 Kevin
When you, you don't. Your general fund isn't a savings account which has tons of money in it. It's just like that $1.8 million is spread out over here and here, and where this employee group get their paychecks from. And where over here, where they're paying out workers comp insurance and, you know, property, insurance, casualty, whatever else like, they have all these little like.
00:17:42 Kevin
Bank accounts with money in them, and that makes up the 1.8.
00:17:45 Kevin
You know what I mean? And then some of it at 1.8 is like, well, the state owes us one.
00:17:51 Kevin
Or we have grant money coming in in a big check, but we also were floating it for three years. You know, you got to float the whole project in your bond or ban or whatever it is. And then you get reimbursed. And it's like there's a lot of working capital. You almost need that two $3,000,000 reserve to to have working capital to run a bit to run it. It's like a business.
00:18:11 Sonya
Well, and and you do and.
00:18:12 Sonya
And.
00:18:13 Sonya
You know, also thinking about, you know, what happens if we had an immediate need, right. The goal is to have 15% of your budget. That's what the city has down in, in the water fund, in the sewer fund and the sewer fund. We're good. We got about 3 million in there. The water Fund, we're we're significantly below that. And then in the general fund, we are we're nowhere.
00:18:34 Sonya
Near 15%, which is what they would want to have in there in case.
00:18:36 Kevin
I.
00:18:39 Kevin
We need it and I would want to keep building that sewer, especially with all the other, you know, the DC consent orders.
00:18:47 Kevin
You know, with everyone coming to the Council with complaints about our sewer and infrastructure, it's like.
00:18:53 Sonya
Yeah. And I went with the mayor and Brad Camp, who is over the Superintendent of Sewer and water, to meet with President Seneca and the other Council members.
00:19:06 Sonya
And and you know, I'm hopeful to continue to work on that.
00:19:11 Sonya
With everybody, because I think that, you know, we can say, Oh well, it's X amount and this and that. But the reality is that any is not OK and the problem is that when we have the heavy rain that then we it bypasses so that it doesn't back up into peoples basements which nobody.
00:19:30 Sonya
Nobody here wants it backing up into their basements.
00:19:33 Kevin
Right. So you gotta have something that can handle the flow. Yes. You gotta send it somewhere. Yes. And but I think that there is still a lot of PR. Like, you know, if you talk to anybody like, you know, my uncle used to work for the DNC. So I like, I know a ton.
00:19:44 Kevin
Those guys, and I'm sure like they could explain to you like when poop hits the river, like by the time it gets down to to the nation to Salamanca, like you're not like these people. People come to the Council and say, hey, I saw toilet paper floating. It's like did you because that stuff all kind of degrades like that. Most of that stuff doesn't look like toilet paper when it leaves your house.
00:20:05 Kevin
Like it hits the main sewer, so by the time it gets anywhere and then it hits that pump station like it's, you know what I mean? Like, I think that a PR thing there is definitely was lacking you.
00:20:16 Sonya
Know well and I think transparency. You know, one of the things that we had asked.
00:20:20 Sonya
This is.
00:20:21 Sonya
Of of the mayor and of sewer and water is on the city website. You know, put what we're doing in real time so people can see not just historically what we've spent, but what what what our project is, what is our plan, not just the 2016 plan but what is our plan to rectify it because.
00:20:41 Sonya
You know, we also don't want anything backing up into resonance basements, right? So, I mean, there's the potential for that too, if if it doesn't bypass into the.
00:20:45 Kevin
Sure. Yeah.
00:20:51 Kevin
Or if it yeah, right and it or if it or if it's taking too.
00:20:51 Sonya
Into the river.
00:20:54 Kevin
Much right. And so like we don't have a flow meter on that. So like there's nothing that the same way you don't have one in your house, right? Like have a meter for water coming in, they just assume water in water out. So they say you know, so to have a like some sort of like they just kind of take a best guess the site is the pipe is this the amount of rainfall was this if the pipe was completely to the.
00:20:55 Sonya
Absolutely.
00:21:15 Kevin
Brim and like flowing at this velocity, how many gallons? How long was the rainfall, for instance, really like a wag, right?
00:21:23 Sonya
It's.
00:21:23 Sonya
Yeah. And the challenge is, you know.
00:21:26 Sonya
And this predates you and I on the Council is that, you know, in in 20 in in 2002, they had the survey done, you know, then they came back and they identified all these issues with storm basins with homes and businesses being tied into the sewer. Not a whole lot was done on it. Right and then.
00:21:33 Kevin
Right.
00:21:45 Sonya
You know, we kind of inherited that and then, you know, I.
00:21:50 Sonya
They wanted to do another study, but I'm like, and we eventually, well, what happened is nobody really, the RFP went out, nobody was like hey, right, so we said, you know, and I was like, well, why? Why would we have another study and spend 100 and some $1000 when when we didn't do?
00:22:01 Kevin
Yeah.
00:22:05 Kevin
Just update the 1:00 we have.
00:22:10 Sonya
What's in the first one? Why don't we go back and take a look and look at those storm basins and say, OK, what part is the city?
00:22:17 Sonya
If the city kind of disconnects from the storm basins, you know what's left. And then we go through and we look at the businesses, we look at the homes, they did the smoke testing, why would we repeat the same thing, right? So I'm about, let's.
00:22:32 Sonya
Let's not.
00:22:32 Kevin
Because if the work was done, you can verify it. You can go there. Be like, hey, we've got 6 problems in the street. Ohh. Three of them are handled good. We just have three to deal with.
00:22:39 Sonya
So I said go out take.
00:22:41 Sonya
This amount.
00:22:42 Sonya
Per you know per month right, let codes go out. Look at the houses and stuff. I mean, we would be way further if we had just kind of done that piece.
00:22:44 Kevin
Right.
00:22:53 Kevin
Because I remember that was part of the reason we passed. Like the landlord rental inspection, because it allowed codes to go in and then and at the point of selling houses like so the infiltration. I always forget what I I and I or I and I it's whatever it is. It's the infiltration of storm water and whatever. Making sure that people's gutters aren't.
00:23:11 Kevin
Tied.
00:23:11 Sonya
Yes, yes.
00:23:11 Kevin
In and I don't know how.
00:23:13 Kevin
Because I I don't know if that's actually like was implemented, but that was the like the discussion we're going to implement this because of this.
00:23:22 Kevin
You know, to make sure that rentals are safe and to make sure that house sales have something from the city saying like, hey, we walk through them and then it allowed us to satisfy the the consent decree with the DC. But I don't know how many times that's actually like I don't know if that was because then when we did the rental inspection they came back to the Council with this is what our checklist is.
00:23:42 Kevin
For rentals, yeah, but I never saw one that was for the housing inspection.
00:23:47 Sonya
Yeah.
00:23:48 Kevin
And so I don't know if, like, maybe there's a loss in communication between what was passed and the intent of it and what's actually being done. So I'm not like, I'm not going to fault anybody, but it's there's government.
00:23:57 Sonya
Fault. Yeah, and I, you know, I think that that's a.
00:24:01 Sonya
That's a good thing to go back and revisit because when we when we looked at rentals, you know, I go out, I'm a home health nurse, I go out and I see I see the apartments and I see some really deplorable things that nobody should really be living in, you know. And so one of the push I want is I want to have safe, affordable housing for people and.
00:24:20 Sonya
And that means that we as a city have to make sure that landlords are accountable. You know, nobody wants to live next to the house that is full of cockroaches. And I get calls on that, you know, or.
00:24:32 Sonya
You know, I worked with residents on one of the streets because there was a house that it was in deplorable condition, though actually the the woman living there with her children had called me and said, you know, look, this is what's going on in this house. And I went up and I looked at, I took pictures and I went to codes. And I'm like, hey, you know, and they're like, and there's drug dealing coming.
00:24:50 Sonya
Out of it, and ultimately that house.
00:24:53 Sonya
You know, isn't occupied now? There were some arrests made because, you know, I always say codes. No, I'm going to go and look at the apartment. So if somebody is saying, hey, this is it, I'm going to go look at it. But the other thing is we should be having those. And now it's on a.
00:25:11 Sonya
I would have preferred like a three-year. It's on a five year plan, so that if you've rented your apartment for 10 years, it would.
00:25:17 Kevin
Did that.
00:25:18 Sonya
Have done.
00:25:19 Sonya
We just did it.
00:25:22 Sonya
Beginning of the year and in that ballpark end of last year, I think so. So if you have, yeah, if you have an apartment that is that you've lived in for 10 years, guess what? If you're not moving, nobody was looking at it, right?
00:25:25 Kevin
OK, I must.
00:25:27 Kevin
Missed that once.
00:25:35 Kevin
And that was the big that was the big put on the brakes. I know that.
00:25:40 Kevin
Tiffany's predecessor, she gave us a lot of like Flack about it. I don't want you coming to my apartment. I rented the apartment. If you inspected it before I came in, that's fine. I live here. I have an expectation of privacy and we got a lot of that. So that's why we did it upon. And so, like, but that's just like any law, right? You pass it.
00:25:59 Kevin
And then you put then you renegotiate for the other things that are going to work better. You mentioned they were gonna work better, but no one wanted. They wanted to see how it would work at first, you know?
00:26:09 Sonya
Well, and the problem there is it was incumbent upon the landlords to call codes, let them know like hey, my person moved out. So I started hearing things like.
00:26:18 Sonya
You know what? So, and so this landlord is moving people in in the middle of the night.
00:26:23 Sonya
You know this person? Like, I'm pretty sure there was no inspections on you because you know this day when they moved out this day, somebody moved in. So a lot, we have a lot of really good.
00:26:31 Kevin
And then I know they're using water bills. They were using water. So if you come in to change water, but if you're like, I'm a landlord who keeps water in my name, I don't want to deal with the headache. I don't want surprises. Yeah, I don't want to have. Well, we can only send the water bill to the tenant or you you can't. You like I could get the e-mail, but the tenant got the paper copy. Like they didn't have it set up properly.
00:26:40 Kevin
Yeah.
00:26:51 Kevin
And so I was like, no.
00:26:53 Kevin
I'll just. I'll just keep all the water in my name and then I don't like, because if you also have a tenant switch in the middle of the month, then you get a double bill. And so it's like I'm paying the minimum.
00:27:02 Kevin
The tenants paying.
00:27:03 Kevin
A minimum the tenant says. Screw you. I'm moving out and like I'm not paying that Bill. And so then it goes back on my taxes. I pay 2 bills. It's like I'd rather just pay it. No, it's paid. So I don't get some big surprise.
00:27:14 Kevin
It's all going on my taxes at the end of the year. Yeah, so. But I'm also one to call the guys down in coach and be like, hey, I got an apartment that's just got rented like I was I.
00:27:24 Kevin
OK.
00:27:25 Sonya
And there's a lot of good landlords like you that do that, but unfortunately.
00:27:28 Kevin
Oh, there's a ton that don't. Oh, and I yeah.
00:27:30 Sonya
Right. And so the ones whose properties are not in good shape, they're not going to call codes and those are the ones that actually are at risk for our residents, you know, so that's also.
00:27:43 Kevin
What people don't like? People don't like their doctors that speak up, you know, like, hey, you know what? Maybe you should exercise a little bit more. Nobody wants to hear that, right? Like, do you wanna call? Do you wanna call the the apartment doctor in to tell you what's wrong with your apartment or since the money's coming in, let's just.
00:27:50 Kevin
Yeah, right.
00:27:58 Sonya
Right. No, absolutely. And so I you know, I think that we, I had certainly seen enough and called out enough times to to have that that I would have liked it to be 3 years. We went with five, but if there were other circumstances and we can we can take a look at you know if it's a concern and there's five apartments and one then we can look at all 5.
00:27:58 Kevin
Dan, that's the philosophy.
00:28:18 Kevin
Right.
00:28:19 Sonya
And I think you know that we just have to be consistent in doing that. So we're not targeting any landlord, but I I agree.
00:28:29 Sonya
I think that a lot of the landlords just figured it's, you know, what? It's easier just to do the water myself. And and I think a fair amount of landlords went with that, which meant then that you weren't getting those triggers that were like.
00:28:40 Kevin
Hey, somebody moved out. Somebody moved in. Oh, hey, you know, deep change or whatever. And and like the code guys are pretty, like, good about it. Like I I just got to meet.
00:28:50 Kevin
Couple they just bought a place in Olean and they dropped.
00:28:53 Kevin
15 grand on electrical service and they went with another contractor for heating and they they're looking to have it site.
00:29:00 Kevin
Did and they've got nice tenants moving in and then they got a letter because yours truly pulled a permit for the electrical, and it sparked a oh, hey, we have to update our records because this is new owner and the new owner and then we need to know who your who your local contact is and we need to. If you're renting it you need to get it inspected. And I think the girl was moving in the same day and.
00:29:20 Kevin
Ohh work with because like you're out of town you don't know. But hey, we want to let you know that this is something that's required. And now they're, you know, and now they call me like every other day asking me questions about, like, all the different things, like oh, you're very knowledgeable. Can you who can you recommend for a roof? Who can you recommend for siding? How about blown in insulation? It's one of those things it's like.
00:29:39 Kevin
But like at least, Coach was able to work with them and they have little things that trigger and say, OK, you need a housing inspection, you need the rental inspection, you need to have this landlord form on file. So we know who to call in case it's 11:00 at night and you're more than 20 miles away, which somehow I got lumped on that.
00:29:52 Sonya
Yes. Yeah and.
00:29:55 Sonya
Right. Absolutely. With those things too, that vacant landlords or people who live, you know, out of state and stuff have been a challenge. Banks who own own houses have been a challenge, right? So.
00:30:05 Kevin
Oh yeah.
00:30:07 Sonya
You know, we have to have a vehicle to, you know, I had a woman call me one of a Ward 4 residents and she's like, look, I spent all this money working on this house, making it nice, trying to sell it in this House next to me, this is it. So I went up, you know, it looked at it took pictures and stuff and codes, worked with them in the bank. It was with the bank.
00:30:27 Sonya
To say look, these things have to be done because this has.
00:30:30 Sonya
To be, you know, up to code, you know, because it's not fair to the person who bought a home with the idea of, you know, what, I'm going to fix it up. I'm going to resell it. And then the house next door is like.
00:30:41 Kevin
Do you really want that house? Sure, right. That's why I've ended up buying all the houses around me. But not everybody has that, like, ambition. Some people just want to live in their home and then, you know, maybe their job switches and they move and they want to sell their house.
00:30:52 Kevin
Well, the the dumpy rental next door just got dumpier and.
00:30:56 Sonya
Yeah. And and I think that a few people have done that when things have come up for option to say, you know, do I want the house or do I just want to?
00:31:03 Kevin
Bulldozer, yes.
00:31:03 Sonya
To kind of yeah, right. And and kudos to them. And you know, I think the cities tried to work with people too, that if there's something or there's a small lot or there's something there.
00:31:13 Sonya
To say you know.
00:31:13 Kevin
You're the land bank would sell it to you for a dollar sometimes, yeah.
00:31:16 Sonya
Yeah, but then making sure that they're on top of it and fixing it up and not just letting it kind of.
00:31:21 Kevin
Sure. Oh, I meant like, if they tear it down. Like. Yeah. And so I've had to get him in touch with some people before, too, cause, like, I'll like friends of the county and I'll be like, oh, you know, hey, you live in this neighborhood. It was actually a lot down on the hill.
00:31:23 Kevin
Yeah. Oh.
00:31:33 Kevin
And they tore down that huge. It was a Linda Bartlett Firehouse.
00:31:37 Sonya
Ohh.
00:31:38 Kevin
Yeah. And I think it scorched the neighbor's house, which was another one of hers. And well, there was a lady that lived in between. And so I I want to say I think they even were about to demo the next house over. So I went to the lady who lived in between. And I was like.
00:31:56 Kevin
Reach out to the county. They're looking to unload this lot, and I don't know if she ever did. I think they were. I think it was like, listen, if you get it for a dollar, I'm pretty sure vacant land title change is like 350 bucks. Like you might have to pay those fees. But for 350 bucks, you got a nice huge lot. And I, I don't think anybody ever bought it. I'd have to check the tax rolls. But it's been a couple of years, but it's like.
00:32:18 Kevin
Anytime I have the opportunity to see a lot or I see a land bank sign, usually I'll make a call and be like I know the neighbor. I can get you in touch with him if you haven't already, you know? And sometimes that that's just helpful, you know.
00:32:28 Kevin
But they'll sell to you for a dollar. And hey, a dollar keeps them on the tax rolls because now you're paying 200 bucks a year.
00:32:34 Sonya
Yep, absolutely. And and you know, trying to make sure that people know those things or that there's there's a program for rehabbing and you know how, how do individuals know? Because we don't want to penalize people for making improvements. And I think that people will tell me that too. And I think, you know.
00:32:54 Sonya
The city is not going out and doing a reassessment because one of the cost in part, but people feel like oh.
00:32:59 Kevin
It was 100.
00:33:00 Kevin
$50,000 a year cause it's gonna be $300.00 some crazy number.
00:33:04 Sonya
It is right, and so people worry like, well, if I put siding on, well, only if you have your house reappraised, you know.
00:33:11 Kevin
Right. And that only is to the bank or you who's paying?
00:33:14 Kevin
For it like. Yeah, like.
00:33:16 Sonya
It's cause the city hasn't reevaluated.
00:33:17 Kevin
You know if who wants to send that to the city like ohh my house is a place for 300,000. Well, don't send that to the city cause.
00:33:20 Sonya
Yeah.
00:33:23 Sonya
Well, and I don't know how that that piece works, but no, just make you know, we want people to do that. You know, it's like I love the sidewalk program. You know, it wasn't utilized as much as it could be. But before I was on the Council.
00:33:38 Sonya
Martin had my husband had found out about it, and we ended up doing 20 blocks because we have that big, long sidewalk condo for it, right?
00:33:45 Kevin
Sure. Call pointer. Lots. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:33:47 Sonya
Welcome to my world. Right. And and it was great. Now we decided to do 20 blocks. I mean, basically I think that paid for may not even 10 but but cool it was helpful for us so.
00:33:48 Kevin
Yeah.
00:33:58 Kevin
Right, because it also gets cheaper when you have the contractor there. Cause if they have to come and do 2 blocks, there's there's a minimum like I guess some my guys out I gotta set up like that's that's it's it's like if I do your whole right who wants to do 2 blocks like so you get a discount by having them go there and hey took an extra day and I just.
00:34:08 Sonya
And who wants to do 2 blocks?
00:34:16 Kevin
Put an extra you know, put an extra grand in your pocket and it's like, hey, that's a win. That's worth it.
00:34:16 Sonya
Knock them out.
00:34:19 Sonya
Yeah, right. Absolutely. And that was kind of where we could started, right with with about people knowing that about the sidewalk program and the fact that the city has to pay prevailing wage is kind of where we were just about when we got online. And that is you know, so if you are going to take advantage of the sidewalk program, if you have your own contractor.
00:34:39 Sonya
You can get more blocks if you go with the city contractor. The city is paying prevailing wage, which is significantly more, so you're getting less bang for your buck. You're getting less service for them.
00:34:49 Kevin
Right.
00:34:49 Sonya
Dollars.
00:34:50 Kevin
And then those guys gotta pay their guys and it's like and and and and I've I've talked to a few contractors in the area that are like.
00:34:56 Kevin
They don't mind coming and helping the city out, but it like sometimes it like it rubs everybody the wrong way because, like, the business owner doesn't see any more money by paying his guys prevailing wage. If anything it creates like well, when can we get more of those jobs? When can we get more of those jobs? It's like.
00:35:06 Sonya
Right.
00:35:11 Kevin
It costs a lot of money because there's a benefit package and you're competing with other people. You have to up your insurances. There's all these like risk that you take on as a as a as a business owner and then you might not get all the jobs or the city doesn't have that many jobs for you to do. So it's like and it creates this little animosity where these guys are like, oh, I won't rate work.
00:35:32 Kevin
You know what I mean? And it kind of like it builds this like, no, it kind of takes away from the camaraderie. If you've got a good work team.
00:35:37 Sonya
Yeah, and and it's the same thing with the with the tree program, which the the whole thing about subways and the trees for me is kind of I I think that's such a hard thing for land owners because we say.
00:35:50 Kevin
Because you own it.
00:35:51 Sonya
You own it. You got to take care of it. But you can't do anything on it unless the city kind of approves it. Right? So you can't park on it. You can't concrete it over. You can't black top it. You can't plant. You're right.
00:35:55 Kevin
It tells you so, right? It's you're that you're that.
00:36:01 Kevin
You can't. Even you can't even plant a flower box. There was a lady on, was it right at the right in the right, on the the South side of the ward. She used to right on 6th and Henley. She used to she used to plant flower boxes and codes would leave her alone when EJ was there because he's like, well, it looks nice and then, you know, obviously.
00:36:14 Sonya
Yes. Yep.
00:36:22 Kevin
EJ left and it was like, yeah, but it doesn't meet code and so.
00:36:25 Kevin
Like.
00:36:26 Kevin
You can't. Like you can't discriminate against somebody because they made it look nicer, which is is.
00:36:34 Kevin
It's sad, but at the same time it's like well, but if my place looks like garbage, like who are you to say that? That looks nicer and that's.
00:36:40 Kevin
Where it comes in. So it's like right, everyone's.
00:36:40 Sonya
Yeah.
00:36:41 Sonya
Yeah. And because, yeah, you have to be consistent, right? There's fair and consistent, right. So fair is letting that stay there consistent means somebody else puts something out that looks horrible. And you got to be.
00:36:44 Kevin
Yes.
00:36:53 Sonya
Like, OK, you can.
00:36:53 Kevin
What's your cinder block yard? Art is A is a tripping hazard like.
00:36:56 Sonya
There you go. Right. So and so with the trees. It's the same thing though.
00:37:01 Sonya
You know, if you have somebody takedown your tree, it's going to be less cost then if it's prevailing wage in the city, has their their contractors come and do it right and you know and it's hard because that's probably one of the things I've heard most about is, you know, Sonia, look, I asked them to look at my tree. I mean somebody sent me, it was all hollowed out.
00:37:08 Kevin
They're arborists to mountain, yeah.
00:37:21 Sonya
And you know.
00:37:22 Kevin
And then what happened was they got they shot themselves in the foot because they realized that they just tattled on themselves because they didn't realize it was their responsibility.
00:37:26 Sonya
And.
00:37:28 Sonya
And they while they took the tree down, they got the city's approval. And you got to get the city's approval to take it down and, you know, and and unfortunately, I think the city planted some trees.
00:37:38 Sonya
That were not.
00:37:41 Sonya
Trees that should be planted where they were and you know what happens is we see it buckling the sidewalks then, or buckling the black top and and and that's, you know, that's a challenge. So I do think the city has responsibility in those pieces and trying to, you know, how do I advocate best for the residents who come to me that say, look, I asked for this to be done before and now they're telling me.
00:38:03 Sonya
It's got to come.
00:38:04 Sonya
Down by us three years to have it down.
00:38:06 Sonya
You know.
00:38:07 Kevin
Yeah.
00:38:07 Sonya
And say, well, find the documentation you show me, I'll go advocate for you, you know.
00:38:11 Kevin
Right I. That was one of the first ones to pull a permit because it was like you're responsible. And I said OK, so I went down after a council meeting. I I went down and they were like, we need to have a tree contract to remove it. And they had no idea either because it just came down from the Council. And there's a disconnect because not all those PL's get to where they have to go. Sometimes they just.
00:38:15 Sonya
Ah.
00:38:31 Kevin
Sometimes there's a procedure and sometimes if it's new, it doesn't have a place to go. So I remember walking in and talking to the girls in DPW and saying what do I do to remove these two trees in front of my house? They're like, oh, just get a contractor.
00:38:44 Kevin
So I called my insurance company and said, hey, I need to add a rider. I need to be a tree contractor. How much tree work you going to do? I'm like.
00:38:50 Kevin
If you have to put a number down, I don't like a dollar because I'm doing it only at my places. I'm not doing it for anybody else. It's just me. And so they were like, OK, there's gonna be no extra cost, but you know, like you're only doing property you own. And so they put all these, like, limits on it. So I wouldn't go out and be a tree contractor for other people, but I was for me. So I'm like, I'm a tree contractor. Here's the writer. And I went and I took out the two trees. And it was like.
00:39:11 Kevin
When Sue Cooper was still alive and she called the mayor, flipping out, Alderman Doherty took out those two young 17 year old oak trees in front of his house.
00:39:12 Sonya
Oh yeah, yeah.
00:39:22 Kevin
You would have thought I drove. I drove by and pulled the gun out in front of the school or something. Like she like. I mowed two kids down outside of graduation. It was like, that's how she like conveyed it. Like she.
00:39:32 Kevin
You.
00:39:32 Sonya
Have you have to have you had to get? You have to get approval for it.
00:39:32 Kevin
Loves her trees.
00:39:35 Sonya
And so that's.
00:39:36 Kevin
They didn't have that in the they they didn't know any of that. And then they finally came out with here's our protocol. They sat down with the mayor, the Council, the Council and, you know, like it all took it just took me. I was like, well, I mean, if that tree is my responsibility, if all the trees on my subway are my responsibility, I'm gonna take them all out and.
00:39:37 Sonya
Ohh.
00:39:55 Kevin
That that's what sparked the actual protocol that you have to get permission from the Council. You can't just.
00:40:02 Sonya
If it's in the subway like we had a big pine tree right in our yard and we had that taken down, go for it. Go take care of it. Right. And the city's not going to pay half of that either. But the tree has to be deemed to be not salvageable.
00:40:03 Kevin
Right. Oh sure.
00:40:15 Sonya
In terms of it, you know, it really needs to come down or it's a safety hazard.
00:40:18 Sonya
You know, and you know and and we have beautiful trees, but we have trees like in Oak Hill Park that are really old that you know are. And there's a couple of franchise that I've noted that they're dead. Right. So they become safety hazards that we need to.
00:40:32 Kevin
I was gonna say there was. That was always a gripe for me cause like like one of the last things I did on the Council was we authorized $45,000. It was me and I think, seconded by Dave Anastasia.
00:40:44 Kevin
He had a couple of trees at Boardman Park.
00:40:48 Kevin
Not boardmanville boardmanville is in Ward one in Boardman Park. Is right across from AT and right there on the extension. Yeah, so in Boardman Park there was like a couple trees that need to come down. And Oak Hill had a ton of them. And so we authorized Sue Cooper, put a package together she goes. I have under our current like thing. I've worked with the contractor and that's why she was so awesome.
00:40:53 Sonya
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:08 Kevin
And she would reach out to National Grid, and she'd get them to do extra stuff. And then it's like now she's gone. And now that guy who, like, I'm pretty sure one of the people that she was dealing with had retired. And so it's like now.
00:41:13 Sonya
Yeah.
00:41:21 Kevin
We really are very limited on like what we can pull because that position is not there, but we earmarked 40.
00:41:27 Kevin
$5000.
00:41:29 Kevin
And I remember then I'd stepped down, and I like every time I turn around, I would hear about a windstorm taking dead trees down at Oak Hill Park. I'm like, what happened to the money? What happened to the money? And I, I think I think there was always been a disconnect where you, like, if the Council earmarks something, you don't have to move it to a separate fund. Like, if you just say we're authorizing this money to be used for this purpose.
00:41:49 Kevin
I think there's sometimes is a disconnect with the implementation on like. Well, OK, so we're going to move the funds over to the emergency Tree removal fund and then.
00:42:00 Kevin
The people that are using that utilizing living in and out of that fund through their whatever through the course of the year or whatever, depending on what their position is.
00:42:09 Kevin
I don't think they see the notes attached and I think that becomes an issue like because like if you hear Mark something in the general fund like it's, that's what it's for, you don't get.
00:42:17 Kevin
To take it for something else.
00:42:19 Sonya
Right.
00:42:19 Kevin
Right, right. But then they, then the money goes, then it's like, well, we had another storm and we had this or we had that or it rolled to the general fund and now it's gone. It's like, but it was earmarked for this.
00:42:28 Sonya
Yes. And so we have been trying to do capital projects to prevent that from happening because we put in last year.
00:42:37 Sonya
I don't know. I think it was. Oh, 100 + 1000 dollars to take down the ash trees that we need to.
00:42:44 Kevin
Right.
00:42:44 Sonya
And then we kept saying, well, where what's up with the program? Like, did we take them down, how many are left? How much money is left in the fund because we didn't hear anything. And so there's, like, $40,000 left in it. And and we need to go through and say how many ash trees do we need to take down, you know? So we don't endanger other.
00:43:03 Sonya
Trees too, right?
00:43:05 Sonya
So that's one of the things that we had set up because.
00:43:10 Kevin
2 because sometimes you also fall in between seasons. You're like, hey, we need to take all these trees out and you're coming right up on the budget end. And and all that money will.
00:43:17 Kevin
Yeah.
00:43:18 Kevin
Disappear if it's out of a capital fund.
00:43:19 Sonya
Yes. So that's why we've tried to put things into a capital fund because then it then it's earmarked there and we can go there and we can say versus if it's just the line item and at the end.
00:43:30 Sonya
Of the year.
00:43:32 Kevin
Right where, where to go? It just rolled into the general and they take all the little sticky notes off of it. And they say, OK, here's general fund money. And it's like where's where's my sticky notes? All they're in the trash, cause they were last year. Sticky notes, like.
00:43:32 Sonya
Right.
00:43:35 Sonya
It rolled into the general or it was used for something else.
00:43:40 Sonya
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:45 Sonya
Yeah, right. So that's what we've tried to be.
00:43:47 Kevin
And that's and and most of the sticky note stuff that's a.
00:43:51 Kevin
I have to clarify. So it's there's nobody that's actually pulling sticky notes off. It is just a.
00:43:59 Kevin
It's just a how the law works with how it rolls to the general fund. So yeah. But yeah, any earmarks you have, I believe they automatically dissolve like that money is not still earmarked into the general fund.
00:44:09 Sonya
Unless we ask to encumber it, which means to hold it over to the next year, to add to it so.
00:44:14 Kevin
Right, right. And the easy way for the Council to do is at a capital fund, which is like kind of.
00:44:18 Sonya
So we might look.
00:44:19 Kevin
Kind of the the sunsets on Earth. But like you, these capital funds are like little little moons outside of the orbit so.
00:44:24 Sonya
Yes, that that are untouchable. Except for those things. And so we've tried to do that more.
00:44:27 Kevin
Right.
00:44:30 Sonya
Consistently so that we can have.
00:44:34 Sonya
So that we know right that it's there and that's what's going to be used for, not because there's not enough money in this line item. Sure. You know because within the general fund line items you know get adjusted but you know we need to be mindful if we want something earmarked then we.
00:44:52 Sonya
Have to put it.
00:44:54 Sonya
Because one of the things that drives me a little bit bad is.
00:44:57 Sonya
There's no comprehensive plans for things like, I think like the like vehicles, right? Like there should be like a comprehensive plan for how we're going to. Yeah, versus like last year, it was like, OK, we need $200,000 for this. And then we need then this rent over by $70,000.
00:45:08 Kevin
Replace vehicles.
00:45:19 Sonya
Well, how is it we needed all those at one time instead of saying, you know, we're going to replace four at 4 at a time, right?
00:45:25 Kevin
It's yeah, but and there's like 28.
00:45:27 Kevin
Vehicles or something?
00:45:28 Sonya
And and well, unless.
00:45:28 Kevin
And you don't want them to get beyond like.
00:45:30 Kevin
Five to seven years so.
00:45:30 Sonya
Oh, and it's oh, we have way more than 8 vehicles, right? And and my thing is, you know, can we share these vehicles right for cost savings? Can DPW share with parks and, you know, how do how do we share things so that we don't need that or if we have a big truck that we need, can we share that with?
00:45:33 Kevin
Ohh I oh is it OK?
00:45:51 Sonya
The town of Olean, or with the school, you know, even things like the city garage. We need a new city garage. You know we need a new city garage, right?
00:45:55 Kevin
Sure.
00:45:59 Kevin
Right, they showed.
00:46:00 Kevin
Me that at 1st and I gave them some advice when I was first on the Council and I think it was under.
00:46:05 Kevin
The Windows administration for the DPW, and he was like this thing is like, listen, like I told the same thing I told the Tom Windows, what you need is you need some kind of general maintenance crew to come in here. Tuck point it.
00:46:16 Kevin
Give the building a pressure. Wash a paint job. You know what I mean? Like you can you can spruce it up because they were talking about uh, the brick is crumbling. It's like cinder block. Dude, you gotta general maintenance. Like, that's things that need to be done. But there is no Masons for the city, right? And I was.
00:46:28 Kevin
Like.
00:46:29 Kevin
I'm like that. And then if you had the paper failing ways, that's when I started learning about prevailing wage was because of that. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things. Like, my first job, my first like year as a on the city. Like, I got. I looked at city roof or the city garage roof.
00:46:44 Kevin
And.
00:46:44 Kevin
There was like 22 roof leaks.
00:46:47 Kevin
In in a four hour afternoon I had patched all.
00:46:50 Kevin
And three came back. So we're down to like 3-1 three of them. And it's like I need a little bit more than what they're, you know, and it's one of those things like, OK, the roof still there's asbestos in the building. There's all these little things that like you have to worry about.
00:47:03 Kevin
Because I know the the most recent DPW.
00:47:05 Kevin
Directors, like every time I see it on the Council meetings, I'm listening to it. I'm like, he's like, where do you where do?
00:47:10 Kevin
You what do we do with this building?
00:47:12 Sonya
I said come to us with a comprehensive plan for what you want to do with it, you know, versus thinking the Council's not going to do that. Ours is about policy and and and where is the money. But we need the experts to come to us and say, you know, here's either a plan to fix it or the salt garage, the salt shed. Right.
00:47:29 Sonya
There's a plan to.
00:47:30 Sonya
Fix it? Sure or.
00:47:31 Sonya
If we do need a new one, which seems to be the consensus, how do we partner with the town of Olean or the school to say maybe we have a shared facility, right? Cuz I think we can be creative because and not put it all on the city taxpayers.
00:47:49 Kevin
Right.
00:47:49 Sonya
You know, or do we need to just fix something up? And you know, I I think that a number of the councilmen and the DPW directors have kind of said, you know, we do need a new city garage.
00:47:59 Kevin
And I think it was like a definitive, like, sudden. And I've had conversations with other Alderman about this like.
00:48:06 Kevin
Who comes up with The Who comes up with the master plan like I know exactly like, right, the, the, the Alderman are like well the professionals. And then from what I see the professionals say no, we're not elected by the people to make these. You know what I mean to make these these big huge decisions like we're going to buy a new house kids we're moving the family like. Yeah the kids don't make that decision.
00:48:27 Kevin
But who are the parents? Who are the kids in this situation, right?
00:48:29 Sonya
Right. But if you come with a plan, right, you have to come with a plan. I always said I never went to.
00:48:29 Kevin
Like who's running the house?
00:48:35 Sonya
My executive director or anything with a problem that I didn't have solutions for.
00:48:40 Kevin
Or at least a you know at least a. Hey, I wanna. I wanna head in this direction to start coming up with solutions.
00:48:40 Sonya
Right, an idea.
00:48:47 Kevin
Can you give me a little guidance to let me know?
00:48:48 Kevin
If this is something you want me to work on.
00:48:49 Sonya
Absolutely. Or I would say to them, here's everything I have, you know, help me triage cause here's where I'm at. But not, you know. And so when I would say, you know, where's that going to come from in terms of funding, you know, because you're looking at your budget every day? I'm not right. I have an I, I have a snapshot, but I don't know, you know, did it cost you?
00:49:05 Kevin
Sure.
00:49:10 Sonya
10,000 more for chemical.
00:49:12 Sonya
Because I'm not getting that, you know. And so where is it going to come from? Where do you think you have dollars from and and I think the same thing, I think the DPW director's job is to come and say, you know, look, I have evaluated and this is where our deficiencies are. And then the Council's job is to say, well, OK, where do we have money?
00:49:33 Sonya
Or where might we need to borrow money to be able to do that? Sure, you know. But you come and you say here's here's. You know, if I got 62 leaks, what's the one that's going to cause me the most difficulty? Right. And then you come to us and we say, OK, great.
00:49:47 Sonya
But what's your long term plan for the fix, right. That's what I think I'm.
00:49:51 Kevin
And.
00:49:52 Kevin
Looking for and it's. I know that what community development puts together the 25 year plan, but I don't think they talk about facilities in there they may.
00:49:59 Sonya
Yeah, I think there's a little bit, but, but I.
00:50:01 Sonya
Mean how do you?
00:50:01 Kevin
I've never read it. I know that it exists. I know. Like, it seemed like when I was on the Council like we never talked about it, we was talked about doing it and.
00:50:08 Kevin
Then.
00:50:09 Kevin
After I left, I saw that it got done. Yeah. And then it got approved. And it's like, well, but what happens when you?
00:50:14 Sonya
Make need to make adjustments. Yeah. So I think that, you know, you need to have this, this road map and that's what I see it as. It's like a road map, and it should include things like, you know, how do we bring people into the city, you know, because that's kind of my thing.
00:50:29 Sonya
You know, I remember when I was younger that it was 20, some thousand, you know, and now, you know, I think we're squeaking by on being able to call ourselves a city.
00:50:37 Kevin
Like 12, maybe yeah.
00:50:39 Sonya
Right. And so, you know, I think how do we attract people and that needs to be part of that 25 year plan or that comfort, how do we attract people? Because if I can live anywhere, why would I want to live in Olean? Right. Well, there's lots of reasons. I mean, weather, climate of variety of things, you know, I.
00:50:55 Kevin
Sure. Yeah, it can be cold, but we get Four Seasons. The summers are nice.
00:50:56 Sonya
Mean we've had water.
00:50:58 Sonya
And but we and we don't get some of the crazy weather, right. So we live in kind of this haven where where we're not having some of those weather events that other people are. And I think people are looking for that and and we have you know I hear people complain about.
00:51:13 Sonya
Crime, but overall, we have a safe community, you know.
00:51:16 Kevin
Right. Yeah, I wouldn't.
00:51:17 Kevin
Let the Facebook memes get to.
00:51:17 Sonya
You know. Yeah. And and we do have a safe community and we have a community that does look out for each other no matter what people say. You know, I have no doubt if something was going on for me and I knocked on somebody's door, I think that the majority of people would help, right, or they would see what they can do. And so I'm like how you know? So one of the things I had gone when I first was on the.
00:51:18 Kevin
You.
00:51:39 Sonya
An Alderman. I went to our Chamber and I said hey.
00:51:43 Sonya
How can we get a different sign when we come into Olean? That kind of says? Like here's our event. Like when you go into Ocampo and I said, how do we get signed on 86 because?
00:51:49 Kevin
Right.
00:51:54 Sonya
There's a sign on 86 going into Allegheny that tells you there's a McDonald's. Well, McDonald's is an Alliant, but only and has no sign that says.
00:52:02 Kevin
That yes, you got to go off an Allegany drive through there.
00:52:06 Sonya
So I would like to and so you know, I talked about this and then I know Alderman Robinson brought it up. I said, how do we get signs on 86? Right. And so, you know, that's kind of.
00:52:16 Kevin
Guys gonna use some.
00:52:16 Kevin
The bed tax.
00:52:17 Kevin
Money for that? You said that, yeah.
00:52:18 Sonya
Right, we can community development because we are my understanding from doing some researches, we're responsible for the signs and the maintenance of the signs. But I talked to a number of the downtown businesses, yeah, and they're.
00:52:26 Kevin
Kind of like the adopt A highway program.
00:52:29 Sonya
Yeah. And I think like, wouldn't it be cool because I go through other places and I see small diners that are listed on there, would it be cool if we had one for our downtown district that just had some of the different businesses that are down there? And then another one that had some of our restaurants on it because now why would anyone stop?
00:52:47 Kevin
Sure.
00:52:48 Sonya
Right. I mean I when I'm traveling.
00:52:50 Kevin
And if you're and if you're a restaurant, that's good advertising. Yeah, who's not going to pull off to see the beef and barrel, like, not just the corporate Burger King McDonald's, you know, subway.
00:52:56 Sonya
Right.
00:53:00 Sonya
And.
00:53:01 Sonya
That's kind of where I've been with it, you know, because I go and and you.
00:53:04 Sonya
So.
00:53:05 Sonya
If I don't know what's there, I'm not getting off an exit just to get off an exit. I also think we have an opportunity with electric vehicles to get get a pin on the map that says, hey, here we have these where because I drove a high.
00:53:22 Sonya
In my life.
00:53:22 Kevin
Google, that's always what I wonder, because like you get those like when they just.
00:53:25 Kevin
Just like E State St.
00:53:29 Kevin
Do you think somebody would tell the truck drivers, you know what I mean? Like you can't. Where's the truck route? Yeah, well, is it? Is it still this way? Can you go? Yes, this way. If you if you go straight and then so these guys see they're going into a pile of roundabout. So they turn left and they've been smoking all those signs right there by by the church at at state. And Barry. And it's like.
00:53:49 Kevin
Just you know what I mean? Like that's that, that things probably been hit 47 times in like 6 months. Yeah. And it's like, but who who updates Google? I don't think MapQuest is MapQuest still.
00:53:58 Sonya
Around well, MapQuest does come up when I put maps in for mine. You know, it does come up, but yeah, it's a good point. And and how do we how do we market ourselves? Because I think you know.
00:54:10 Sonya
Listen, my husband's from Virginia. We have kids in in Georgia and Kentucky, you know, but we've we we chose to live here. We raised our kids here, you know. And and it's.
00:54:20 Kevin
Right.
00:54:22 Sonya
You know, and I go lots of other places and you do who I'm sure and. And the reality is that yes, they might have more of XY and Z.
00:54:30 Sonya
But we have a good thing here. We do, right? We it's peaceful. It's a good place to raise your kids. You know, our kids went to Olean School and we were blessed with that. You know, the teachers are wonderful, you know. I know there's struggles there right now. And right now the education of itself is is really.
00:54:34 Kevin
It's peaceful.
00:54:50 Sonya
Struggling with a number of things but.
00:54:53 Sonya
But I think we have good schools, we have good parks. You know, if I were.
00:54:57 Kevin
Everybody knows the teachers like it's a small community.
00:54:59 Sonya
You know, like one of Michael's friends, Bethenny shout out to Bethany because you know, and and who's here and who's teaching now, right? Those are the cool things. And those are the things that that excite me because I see my kids.
00:55:15 Sonya
Friends here doing and working and stuff and and we want our kids to stay, right. I don't want my kids to have to go to Buffalo or to Virginia or something to get a job where they can afford to have their own house. You know, we want our kids to stay. And what do we do? And I know people are like with the.
00:55:35 Sonya
Splash Park like geez, why is that? Well, you know what? Here's how I view it.
00:55:41 Sonya
People are going to come from other towns to the Splash park and when they come from other towns, they're going to eat in our restaurants. They're going to go shopping in our in our business.
00:55:50 Sonya
You know, so if we are at a break even with that Splash Park, kudos to us because.
00:55:56 Sonya
I see it as a draw for for the businesses because our businesses need the city's help to to maintain. We don't want to lose more businesses, you know.
00:56:05 Kevin
Right. You don't want to have your business. I'm a small government guy, so I want, you know, I want police fire. I mean, I grew up in a town in Connecticut. That Volunteer Fire. So it was just. But if you know what I mean, you take the threes, you and you want level roads for commerce and nobody wants to come to your shop.
00:56:20 Sonya
Yeah.
00:56:22 Kevin
If every time.
00:56:22 Kevin
They come through. It's like driving on 86.
00:56:26 Kevin
Ohh.
00:56:28 Sonya
How about that right and. And you know what happened? We asked to say, hey, will you send something to the state saying, look, these roads, nobody wants to stop and only in and guess what? We got some hot hills building.
00:56:38 Kevin
Well, they do because.
00:56:39 Kevin
They have, they have to fix their flat, they their tie rod broke as.
00:56:41 Kevin
What?
00:56:44 Sonya
Well and and so. But we got some of that going on because you know, actually, Alderman Robinson brought that up and we all said, hey, can you send a letter to the state just saying, look, we need to have this fixed, this is horrible. And so they came out and started fixing things and.
00:56:56 Kevin
Right.
00:56:59 Sonya
You know, so I think it's like that what do we need to do and how as a Council, you know?
00:57:04 Sonya
Talking about businesses and that I.
00:57:07 Sonya
Looked and I said, you know, when I go through some smaller towns, I think like how can we model that here? I see people walking all the time. So I got together with a few small a few of our locally owned businesses and I said look.
00:57:21 Kevin
Just said I left one of them the other day and she was like, I gotta go.
00:57:24 Kevin
I gotta go. And she was heading off to your.
00:57:26 Sonya
Meeting, I said. What can I do? And so I invited. I said, well, I can't invite all the businesses, cause too many and and you just can't get things done. Right. So I started with invite at six and I said, what can we do? You know, what can we do to get more foot traffic? What can we do so not another downtown business.
00:57:44 Sonya
This is so we brainstormed and we had four businesses moving up to the corner right. One knew that came from Portville and the other three were were relocating only in Wellness collide Oscope 2 Sweet desserts and color at Creative Right.
00:58:01 Sonya
So we said, well, you know what, we'll have a shop. The block event May 3rd. Everybody come out, shop the block and.
00:58:08 Sonya
We're going to say come see the new businesses come, come visit them while you're here. Come hang out at our other businesses. We're going to have a raffle and I want to tell you.
00:58:18 Sonya
We are so blessed to have the businesses that are hometown businesses that when you go to them and you say, look, this is what I want to do, you know, every business I went to was like, yeah, we'll give you a gift certificate for that. You know, we'll give you some.
00:58:32 Sonya
Thing for that, so I'm going to have this great basket that is still in in the works, but every business I went to said they would donate to give me a gift certificate or something. And by the time I'm done, this basket is going to be worth hundreds of dollars that somebody is going to win. And if you go to each one of the new shops, the four new shops, you get 4.
00:58:54 Sonya
Chances to win, right, you know.
00:58:57 Sonya
How? How fun is that those you know? And then?
00:59:02 Sonya
Working with another, shout out to beat City and Connie for creative ideas she has and I won't steal her Thunder about it to do something else. It's going to bring some really cool things into downtown for that, and so this won't be our last event. You know, we'll look to, you know, I said we might have an oldies day or an oldies night where you know because.
00:59:22 Sonya
Businesses, we're like, hey, we've been here 10 years, we've been here 33.
00:59:26 Sonya
Yeah, let's do something for them too. And and how do we create more buzz about it? You know? And I go around, I try to go around once a week. I was a little slack in the winter and go to different businesses and and and introduce myself and, you know, and or remind him who I am, right. And then take pictures. And I post it up on my Alderman.
00:59:30 Kevin
Right.
00:59:46 Sonya
Site I posted up on my site to say hey, you know, you know, I just want to color it creative. They have so many cool things in there, but I went into.
00:59:57 Sonya
Three stores last week posted up pictures and sometimes.
01:00:02 Sonya
If if it's the employees, not the store owner, they might not know who I am and they're kind of like because I'm like, hey, I want to take some pictures and they're like, wow.
01:00:09 Sonya
Let let me call and see, right, right, the restaurants.
01:00:12 Kevin
Are usually that way, like the health department.
01:00:13 Sonya
Yeah. And I'm like, I won't. Yeah, I won't get picture. Yeah, I have to reassure him. I'm.
01:00:18 Sonya
Not.
01:00:19 Kevin
Oh.
01:00:19 Sonya
This.
01:00:19 Kevin
Is the the the alcohol board? They're pretty bad. I was gonna say that's I lived in San Antonio, TX for.
01:00:26 Kevin
About 8 months and one of the cool things about working down.
01:00:30 Kevin
At the end of the river walk.
01:00:31 Sonya
Oh, love the Riverwalk.
01:00:32 Kevin
Right. So at the end of it, they have the Blue Star complex and they have, jeez, it's been forever since I've been down there. It's been over 10 years.
01:00:40 Kevin
Almost 15. Anyways, there was a Joey virial has. He owns Joey Blues, which is a little like cause of the way their liquor licenses are set up. He had to own this little liquor shop and then he had a brew pub so you could brew on site. And that was one of the restaurants that I worked at. I got tried to get my foot in the door doing brewing and so and.
01:01:01 Kevin
You know, bartending, waiting tables, stuff like that, working in the kitchen.
01:01:04 Kevin
Brushing up on my Spanish, but those guys were awesome and they did.
01:01:06 Sonya
Yeah.
01:01:10 Kevin
It was called.
01:01:12 Kevin
1st Friday, so the first Friday of every month the entire complex. It was this big parking lot with an L shape and then people within like 6 blocks. They had all these little diners and they had these ice houses.
01:01:24 Kevin
Which an ice house in Texas is just a vacant lot with a trailer on it. And then they, you know, they put down wood chips or gravel, and they set up picnic benches and usually a stay.
01:01:33 Kevin
Each and the trailer is usually outfitted to either you like to cook with with beer coolers in it, and so you can just kind of like sling mini tacos and hand out beers. Obviously, people are paying for it, but they're going to sit down and they're going to like.
01:01:47 Kevin
You come in, it's all gated off with a little picket fence and you just come in and it's like cool. I get to catch. I just went shopping down the road at the new, you know, where they had an art gallery in the complex.
01:01:57 Kevin
And and the. The downside is like Texas is like they're strict on their their booze laws, but not as strict as New York. And so it kind of made it like exciting because you were able to like kind of like you could walk out of the ice house and walk down the street, finish your beer, they had trash receptacles on every corner. So you could throw it in and then go to Joey Blues. Or you could, you know, and then they would always have a band in the parking lot.
01:02:18 Kevin
So we would always pay for the band and it would sit in the parking lot so he didn't have to like waste table spots and we were booked. People were making reservations like a month in advance like.
01:02:29 Sonya
Well.
01:02:30 Sonya
But we are looking to model something after first Friday because first Friday is actually the the the title that we're so yeah. So isn't that funny? Like, right. So I'm excited.
01:02:36 Kevin
Oh, OK.
01:02:39 Kevin
I may have. I may have said something to Colleen over the years about, like, my time in Texas and maybe because she's right next to that vacant, that little like we call one of the buck tooth is what they call those little lots that are. And like I always told her I was like, it'd be phenomenal if you.
01:02:43 Sonya
So right so.
01:02:49 Sonya
Yeah.
01:02:53 Kevin
Bought this and.
01:02:53 Sonya
Turned into an ice house. We we have and. And Connie came up with this super cool idea and.
01:02:59 Sonya
And we've been meeting and so I'm not going to steal her Thunder on it because.
01:03:04 Sonya
I respect her coming up with it and and being passionate about it and being passionate about, you know, those are the things I'm passionate about. You know, how do we?
01:03:15 Sonya
How do we keep what we have? How do we enhance what we have?
01:03:19 Sonya
And ultimately everybody wins.
01:03:22 Kevin
Right. Because if you don't like if you don't want it and like maybe you're an introvert, right, you'd rather just stay in your house. It's like, OK, great. You can stay in your house.
01:03:29 Kevin
You choose to do that, but if you want something to do, there's something going on and.
01:03:33 Sonya
Yeah, because we want to. And you know, I I think you know.
01:03:37 Sonya
People don't realize that, you know, people say to me all the time I don't think they realize that Walmarts in in Allegheny and so the tax money doesn't come to Olean, you know, so how do we take our businesses?
01:03:46 Kevin
Right.
01:03:50 Sonya
Because ultimately the tax money.
01:03:52 Kevin
I can't remember who I was talking to yours recently. Within the last few days.
01:03:57 Kevin
Was telling me that it was because of older councils. They they blocked. They blocked Walmart from going in where the, you know, Applebee's and Walmart from where they were going to go, Walmart was going to go into the mall and then eventually they're going to go in where the.
01:04:07 Sonya
OK. Yeah, yeah.
01:04:14 Kevin
Down over by where? Where the Hampton by dresser. Was it Jack Norton Drive or?
01:04:20 Kevin
I'm screwing up the name on it, but it's right, right, right. So they were gonna go there and they kept blocking them. So finally they said screw.
01:04:22 Sonya
And something like that.
01:04:26 Kevin
It Allegheny took him and.
01:04:27 Sonya
Yeah, right. So people think all the time that, you know, people say to me all the time, I don't think people realize that, you know, that that Allegheny. Ohh. That that we don't get the taxes from there. Right. And so if we can shop local flowers, you know we have beautiful flower shops, you know 2 sweet desserts.
01:04:41 Kevin
And.
01:04:47 Sonya
Wildflowers from Uptown, florist and.
01:04:50 Kevin
So.
01:04:51 Kevin
Down floors OK.
01:04:53 Sonya
2 1/2 weeks later, those flowers look just as fresh as they did. Tell me. You can get that at a Walmart. You can't. You know, you take it home. Your roses look like after a couple of days.
01:05:03 Sonya
You know, sometimes hours.
01:05:04 Sonya
Sometimes hours, right? But.
01:05:06 Kevin
Because they've been shipped in from China wherever they're growing the flow.
01:05:09 Sonya
And they've kind of sat there for X number and they're not getting water.
01:05:12 Kevin
Right. And they're getting sprayed. Like, have you ever seen?
01:05:15 Kevin
Like so, I'm not a big fan of how like supermarkets do this, but they they have to to stay competitive, right? Is they they send fruits and vegetables like unripe, and then they have like ripening agents, whether it's CO2 or it's another chemical that breaks down. So by the time you eat it, it's not, like, harmful, just like round up. They said that wasn't harmful, but.
01:05:36 Kevin
You never know, right? So you go down these rabbit holes, but.
01:05:39 Kevin
The like the problem is they got to ship you the food and then you've got.
01:05:42 Kevin
To ripen it.
01:05:43 Kevin
And you have to have fruit food ripener's and all this stuff, and that's what Walmart's doing. They're shipping in flowers from they they could be coming in from the Middle East. They could be coming in, you know, to be wherever. Yeah, somewhere. They're flash frozen and sent in, and then they're sprayed with a chemical to stay alive for.
01:05:52 Sonya
Somewhere.
01:05:59 Kevin
At least three days so.
01:06:00 Sonya
And listen, I love me some Walmart desserts, but they're frozen, right? But we have we have like.
01:06:05 Sonya
It's not ready. We have the food barn right, the lamp and barn, and we have park and shop. Jimmy Hart. Kudos to him for taking on that project, right, we.
01:06:07 Kevin
Bowling.
01:06:08 Kevin
All your food.
01:06:14 Kevin
He's the last. He's the last holdout. He's the last parking shop.
01:06:14 Sonya
Have 4 things.
01:06:16 Sonya
Yeah, we have very cool things that we have businesses here that you know we need to frequent because people say, oh, the businesses are leaving.
01:06:26 Sonya
Well, visit them, shop in them, right. If you don't want them to leave shop in them. You know, because the downtown businesses, they'll tell you, you know, I am in a couple of them every week we have an Arts Council that is so cool. Right? You want to learn to make pottery? I love pottery. I'm not so.
01:06:29 Kevin
Yeah.
01:06:46 Sonya
Making it but go there, right? They have cool artists and we have so much talent, so much talent, right? I mean, and we have people.
01:06:55 Sonya
Honestly, I had to tell you the first podcast I watched of yours was the one where you were talking about the mayor and what the mayor does. And the Councilman people need to tune in more because you honestly you have a wealth of information. You, you you do right, like I listen to you talking about Amy and all those things.
01:07:06 Kevin
Right.
01:07:09 Kevin
Thanks.
01:07:15 Sonya
And.
01:07:16 Sonya
Yeah, it's a rabbit hole. But man, you know, a lot of different things about different things, right?
01:07:21 Kevin
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's.
01:07:23 Sonya
And and and you own a business, right? Utilize our local businesses.
01:07:27 Kevin
Oh yeah, and I had a storefront business. I had that coffee shop for a while, and that man it you have to swing a lot of coffees. And people were like, oh, we have to compete with Tim horton's. I'm like, only because people are so impatient to get their coffee that they have to go in line. But then they don't have a problem going to Tim horton's.
01:07:27 Sonya
If you don't.
01:07:41 Sonya
And stays 16 deep in the waiting, yeah.
01:07:43 Kevin
Sixteens even you wait like man you how many of those people lose their jobs because they're waiting at Tim horton's? I would think, like, if you get there and you're running late, like, or even if you're just on time for work, you're like, I'll be on time. I might stop for coffee.
01:07:55 Kevin
Like I'm on 1/2 an hour late for work like how do you like?
01:07:58 Sonya
It and and we had great sandwiches cause you had great sandwiches there, you know, Martin and I had gone there. We had great sandwiches. But yeah, you, if you want our businesses.
01:08:02 Kevin
Yeah. Ohh yeah.
01:08:07 Kevin
I got stuck in the kitchen for the last like year of there so.
01:08:10 Kevin
I was like.
01:08:10 Sonya
You're.
01:08:11 Kevin
I well, I didn't mind it. It's just it was like.
01:08:15 Kevin
You know, it was like, you know, when you when you own a business, you're like, like you will clean the the grease trap. You will work in the kitchen.
01:08:22 Kevin
You don't want to. I I would rather have been doing the accounting for it and cashing out the drawer or dealing and talking with the customers and waiting the tables. But you know, sometimes you gotta do it. I was just like it felt like the last year I was there. I was just making egg sandwiches and just doing everything we had to do. But.
01:08:38 Sonya
Well, yeah, and and so kudos to our businesses, you know, Green Acres and home plate and those that, yeah, they're there and they're there every day because I think running a business is so hard and so much work. And, you know, sometimes with little little payout. And so you know, I go to the different businesses and you know, you want to find something cool.
01:08:42 Kevin
Oh yeah.
01:08:58 Sonya
You know, go down to the paper factory. I mean, they've been there 33 years. I mean, that's very cool. You know, where we look at skin deep that, you know, all our cool businesses, you know, go in and look at them, go meet them and and chat with them, use our local contractors. What we have and and we have beautiful things. You.
01:09:16 Sonya
Know we are.
01:09:17 Sonya
When I say this, I'm we truly are blessed. You know my husband and I, you know, we have, we have 5 kids and our.
01:09:26 Sonya
Variety of ages, right, and our last is up in into Pew now. And you know I.
01:09:32 Kevin
Which one worked? Which one worked?
01:09:33 Sonya
At Home Depot. Marcia. OK, you know and and Marcia is is here in, in Olean with us. And you know, we just, you know, we were. We had such good teachers. You know, if I were to give a shout out. Randy Samuelson is amazing. You know, he really helped us with.
01:09:49 Kevin
OK.
01:09:51 Kevin
I brought. I just brought him up today. We're we were talking about just all the different people you see running around town, right. Like you have Bill Gilroy and his wife. Yeah. I don't know if she.
01:09:53 Sonya
Did you?
01:10:00 Kevin
Runs anymore. I don't see her as off. I see Bill because he's retired. But I don't. I don't see her, but they would always run independently, you know? And then like you always have, you know, the Samuelson's, they're always going, yeah. Biking or walking. And sometimes you see him together. Sometimes you see him apart. Yeah, they're.
01:10:10 Sonya
Thing or.
01:10:12 Sonya
Yeah.
01:10:15 Sonya
Yep, and. And I always tell people, you know, we were so blessed to to have Randy as my 2 youngest kids teachers. One of their teachers because he was so helpful in so many ways and in helping us be able to manage a couple of.
01:10:30 Sonya
Things. And you know, those are the things that, you know, make me a little sappy and teary, but those are the things that I want other people to see are are truly, are treasures, you know.
01:10:40 Kevin
Right. Sure. Because yeah, people getting the first impression off of Facebook.
01:10:43 Sonya
Yeah.
01:10:44 Kevin
And that's depressed. That is depressing because in Facebook will drive you down like a real bad rabbit hole like.
01:10:50 Sonya
Yeah. And I think of it as I've come to think of it. And and I had to learn this a little bit of a hard lesson with like.
01:10:56 Sonya
Oak Hill Park and the the Dog park is I was listening to the vocal minority is what I call it the people.
01:11:02 Kevin
Right.
01:11:05 Sonya
And didn't realize just kind of getting into government and politics that ohh, that was a vocal minority. It wasn't the voice of everybody because of.
01:11:13 Kevin
Sure. And people used to criticize the mayor over that because he would quote, cause. It's a Nixon quote, right? Richard Nixon used to say, like, I listen to the silent majority.
01:11:22 Kevin
And so. And he used that like some of the different meetings over the years and people would criticize him all you, you right winger. And it's like, no.
01:11:30 Kevin
Cause that's that's.
01:11:31 Kevin
An actual statement like just because a right winger says it, or a left or on the left, or somebody in the middle. It doesn't mean it's that type of statement. It's it's literally a truth like because if you look at voters, how many people vote 15% of the.
01:11:43 Sonya
Maybe and and with that you know.
01:11:44 Kevin
Like.
01:11:46 Sonya
With with politics in the town, honestly, it doesn't matter if you're Republican. It doesn't matter if you're Democrat. It doesn't matter if you're independent.
01:11:56 Sonya
There are seven of us and we need to. We need to do the best for our city as we can as a Council and at the end of the day.
01:12:07 Sonya
We all like each other. We're going to go to the beef and barrel or we're going to talk as we walk out. It doesn't matter and and and politics at that.
01:12:16 Sonya
Point.
01:12:17 Sonya
Is really.
01:12:17 Kevin
Because you gotta see these people the next week.
01:12:19 Sonya
Yeah. And and.
01:12:20 Kevin
I remember getting to drag out screaming matches during my like my I think it was my second budget season. I remember walking out of there like.
01:12:27 Kevin
Kelly Andriano yelling at me over something and then like we walked out of there and like within 20 minutes like I was like, was I angry? I don't even like you because you get so intense. Sometimes they do get intense and then you walk out and you.
01:12:42 Kevin
And then the next day, you know, you come in for another because we had, like, backed up sometimes. Like there was some years that we it was like 6 it was like 6 days a week.
01:12:49 Sonya
Yep, and. And you know, and and we come out and at the end of the time, we all respect each other. And it's not like Ohh Jr. is Republican and it's nothing like that. It's rather, you know, hey, look and and listen I.
01:13:05 Sonya
Have.
01:13:07 Kevin
Chairs a little on the harsh side.
01:13:09 Sonya
Well, but you know, here's the deal. You always know where you stand, right? There's no question.
01:13:13 Kevin
About it and you need that sometimes and it takes it takes all types to, you know.
01:13:14 Kevin
Right.
01:13:17 Sonya
And you know and and there is not an alter person on that that is not passionate about wanting to see the city succeed. And you know, and we all have our.
01:13:29 Sonya
Pieces that we're more passionate about and you know and and John is a numbers guy you know and and keeps you know because I don't think people otherwise would understand like there's 76% of the budget is salaries and fringe. You know that doesn't you know go into a business and take 76% and just put it over here. What do you have?
01:13:42 Kevin
Great.
01:13:49 Kevin
And I I've talked to John about that too, because it's like, you know, and I talked about on yesterday's Yesterday Mornings podcast was.
01:13:55 Kevin
You have half of your. I used to think it was 25%, John, correct me. It's half roughly half of the budget is property taxes from the General Fund. So cut your water and sewer out. So like out of money you bring in for the general fund, half of it is property taxes. So if you if.
01:14:02 Kevin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
01:14:09 Sonya
Yeah, about 9000 I think.
01:14:11 Kevin
Yeah, right. Or 9,000,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you have to, if you.
01:14:12 Sonya
9 million. Yes, I forgot some zeros.
01:14:15 Kevin
If you bring it in and you're like, I've got to cover 2 1/2% for inflation over the whole budget in order to raise to meet inflation on a yearly basis, you need to bring in 5% as an increase to and the tax caps at 2%. And so like that's what everyone is griping about it and it's like.
01:14:28 Sonya
Yeah.
01:14:35 Kevin
I and I I've talked to John about this. I said John, you know what? It's you're gonna shoot yourself in the foot, but you're gonna have to try to bite the bullet and do a 10 or 15% increase this year or the year after, or do larger than 6%.
01:14:47 Kevin
And then you're gonna have to cut back some spending. Like you're going to find spots. Either it's going to have to be both.
01:14:52 Sonya
And and we've looked to do that, you know, I I think that we've questioned.
01:14:55 Kevin
I know Dave is cringing, watching this, by the way, cause Dave, if you raised Daves Daves garbage stickers by like $0.10 he I know he he skips it.
01:15:02 Sonya
Well, and you know, I I I think he his focus is on a certain population and and and being mindful of that and.
01:15:11 Sonya
And on the other hand, I'm aware that we need to be able to take care of what we have, you know, and I'll give you an example, you know.
01:15:17 Kevin
Sure.
01:15:22 Sonya
Our.
01:15:23 Sonya
Police budget is, I think, about 4.7 million, I think are.
01:15:28 Kevin
Fires five and a half six.
01:15:29 Sonya
Fire is 4. Well, no, I think it's 4.3 I think, but.
01:15:31 Kevin
Isn't it OK? There's a second one. There were are.
01:15:34 Kevin
There six and six apiece or together.
01:15:35 Sonya
They're pretty comparable. Yeah, so, but here's the deal. You know, I was with.
01:15:37 Kevin
It used to be.
01:15:42 Sonya
A patient and.
01:15:46 Sonya
Honestly thought he had a stroke. You know, I waited 30 minutes with him before the violent and by the way, let me preface this by saying I have the greatest respect for Volunteer Fire departments. No one can work harder and be more.
01:16:02 Sonya
Just more altruistic, quite honestly than Volunteer Fire departments. But I waited 30 minutes and all I could think of is, oh, my God. Thank God he didn't have a heart attack. Thank God that he was breathing right because I waited 30.
01:16:19 Sonya
While waiting for in another town not in our town, look in two or three minutes they would have been there, right? But I waited almost 30 minutes because Volunteer Fire departments have to. They have to get everybody together. People have to leave their jobs and.
01:16:33 Kevin
Sure, they get the Patriots out. Yeah, I grew up in a town in Connecticut that we were volunteer.
01:16:33 Sonya
I have such right?
01:16:36 Sonya
Such such great respect. But man, I'm a nurse and I'm stressed because I was waiting almost 30 minutes, you know.
01:16:44 Kevin
So the only thing I the only thing I do point out to that is like.
01:16:47 Kevin
Cause cause police officers are also like in these emergency situations, right? It's not fire, but it might be a domestic violence. Yeah. Which you would think that more like medical emergencies would happen or just as frequently happen on duty with as a police officer as as in a fire situation where the smoke inhalation, things like that.
01:17:08 Kevin
And it's it's kind of and this is not to like point at anyone or point at problems, it's just to show that like the evolution, right, the Police Department kind of evolved.
01:17:19 Kevin
They didn't really evolve towards in the direction of becoming doctors, but that the fire divisions seem to all become as if you meet a firefighter that a lot of them are EMT's, a lot of them are like sometimes they go back to school to become, to become an actual doctor or a nurse or whatever.
01:17:37 Kevin
But there's a lot of this medical training that is kind of like grown out of the fire industry.
01:17:42 Kevin
And and not so much in the police. And I always thought that was like cause you could reverse the roles, you could say well, like this. Yes, this is, you know, Officer Brown and he's an EMT, you know, like, why does he have to be an EMT? Ohh, why is.
01:17:55 Kevin
A.
01:17:55 Kevin
Firefighter have to be an EMT. Yeah, so it's, you know, it's one of those things. So, like, but then you would also be waiting for one of the private ambulance services to show up too. So.
01:18:03 Sonya
Right.
01:18:04 Sonya
So so I so I truly appreciate and I have great respect for the the services we have and at the same time saying how do we be more efficient with them, right, you know?
01:18:15 Kevin
Because people have a tendency to get a little emotional when you start talking.
01:18:17 Sonya
Yeah. Yes, right. So you know we we look at and you know how many calls we get. Well, if the ambulance goes out, the fire truck goes out, right.
01:18:18 Kevin
About their paychecks? Yeah.
01:18:29 Sonya
How do we maybe be more efficient with that? Because I'm going to bet that it costs a pretty penny to take the fire truck out, right? Like gas is not cheap, right?
01:18:37 Kevin
Right. And I don't know. I yeah, I guess I don't know their.
01:18:39 Kevin
Contract like that. So I don't know.
01:18:40 Sonya
So we look at that and I think we have to look at, right.
01:18:44 Sonya
If that if, if our largest percentage then is that how do we look at that? And and we've said from the beginning I said how do we be more efficient you know instead of if somebody retires just replacing them, let's look and see do we need that job right or can it be a?
01:18:50 Kevin
You need. You need to.
01:19:03 Sonya
So I'm not saying, hey, get rid of Jimmy or Johnny or anyone, I'm saying, you know, how do we, you know, at my job we would do time studies.
01:19:14 Sonya
Right. And say, OK, how much of your time is allocated to this, how much is allocated to that, you know, and maybe we do need that position. But when that position that person retired, that was the time to look at it and say, do we need it right? Because if we know 70?
01:19:28 Kevin
Do we need it?
01:19:29 Kevin
Yeah.
01:19:31 Kevin
You don't wanna. You don't wanna do it while someone's there. You're you're gonna have a lot more resistance.
01:19:36 Sonya
Right. But but we have people retire, we have people leave. Let's look at it and see.
01:19:41 Sonya
If we if we really need it, because here's the deal. There are positions that aren't going to be filled in fire and in in the Police Department because if we fill those positions, we would be.
01:19:57 Sonya
Probably 12% right, 10% at least. And So what we said is, well, how about if we know people are getting ready to retire?
01:20:06 Sonya
Or we know people are going to make a left or a move or something. Can we start the the new person a couple of months before and have a transition phase? And can we pay them a training salary versus bringing them right in at at you know where the starting salary is. So I think there's some ways to be, yeah.
01:20:24 Kevin
Right is a full-fledged they're.
01:20:26 Kevin
Fully trained like, yeah.
01:20:26 Sonya
Because they're yeah. Because you got to go to training. You got to do XYZ.
01:20:28 Kevin
Right. I have that with I have that with you, we call them grunts, right? They come in and like they might know a little electrical, they might know a little.
01:20:35 Kevin
Plumbing. They might know a little HVAC.
01:20:38 Kevin
They can. They can pick up something. They can carry parts, they can run to the store, they have driver's license. And that's pretty much most of them though, like they most of them like, they can turn a screwdriver and they can drive to the store. But it's like they don't make what a technician makes because a technician has use of experience. They can diagnose stuff, you know, I mean, sometimes and everybody needs a hand, right. Everyone needs to call tech support.
01:20:57 Kevin
Which is, you know, like you know.
01:20:59 Sonya
It's one of those, but if I'm going to pay for your training, maybe then you start out at this lower salary. So I think that there is some ways and and that's one of the things we've asked the mayor to do.
01:21:01 Kevin
Right.
01:21:11 Sonya
Is to look at positions, particularly by attrition. Do we need them? And then if we're going to have, you know, people coming on and they're going to go into the fire department and they're going to have X number of weeks or months training.
01:21:26 Sonya
Right.
01:21:27 Sonya
Can we start them at a salary that's not Step 1, so to speak? You know what I mean? Because then then we can have that transition period where we're not going without a fireman because we know that, you know, jimmy'z retiring in July. But we can start somebody now. So they come July, they're ready.
01:21:32 Kevin
Right. Yeah, it's gonna. It's any, any career is going.
01:21:35 Kevin
To be tough to learn.
01:21:46 Kevin
And it's nuts and it's.
01:21:48 Kevin
So cumbersome to the budget because you, yeah.
01:21:50 Sonya
Yes, because I think there's creative way.
01:21:51 Kevin
Now you've got two people making the same or. Well, not the same, but similar, yeah.
01:21:53 Kevin
Yeah.
01:21:55 Sonya
Yeah, right. Because I think we can be creative that way, right? And I just think it takes some thought because I I go back to, there's no comprehensive plan for like vehicles and vehicle replacement like there's no comprehensive plan for the parks, right?
01:21:58 Kevin
Yeah.
01:22:11 Sonya
We know that we need to do these things, but we should be having a, you know, a five year plan within the overall comprehensive plan, because I think it would save money.
01:22:20 Kevin
Right.
01:22:21 Kevin
And so having, yeah, and having those conversations, though, I think those conversations need to be had because I think there is a miscommunication like who develops it right, like the 25 year plan talks about where only once in the future, it doesn't talk about where they're moving the city garage in the future. Yeah, it doesn't talk about what's going on with the airport in the future. It doesn't talk about, you know, water.
01:22:41 Kevin
Water, like infrastructure replacement and you know and that's always one of those things, right, like we.
01:22:48 Kevin
We got all this money to go down W 8th St. because our goal is to touch the infrastructure.
01:22:52 Sonya
Yes, yes, yes.
01:22:53 Kevin
And but like every other project that happens with the city.
01:22:58 Kevin
Like when N Union St. was being done. I think I got on there in the tail.
01:23:02 Kevin
End.
01:23:02 Kevin
Of it like they were just cutting the ribbon. The year I got there, but it was like the entire purpose of the project was to take and do up to and to redo all the infrastructure. And it's like all this like there's spots where they didn't have the money, where they they tried to cut things out.
01:23:18 Kevin
And now this project.
01:23:20 Kevin
Had very minimal infrastructure. It's like that was the entire reason, like Beauty was an added touch. It was like a hey, thumbs up. But the infrastructure is more important and they kind of like lined a couple sewers, got people by and then did the beautification. It was like and it still ran over budget. And it was like when you missed it and it like you missed.
01:23:39 Kevin
Yep.
01:23:40 Kevin
You missed the plane. You know what I.
01:23:42 Kevin
Mean like the ship sailed?
01:23:42 Sonya
So that's where we, you know, we have put a PL. through recently that said the infrastructure won't be touched on on the project if we have to cut, it's going to cut from someplace else, it's not going to cut from the infrastructure.
01:23:54 Kevin
OK.
01:23:55 Sonya
Because that's that's the problem, people all the time are like.
01:24:00 Sonya
We need to work on the infrastructure and then when we talk about the West State project.
01:24:05 Sonya
People are like, well, why do you got? Well, here's the deal.
01:24:08 Sonya
We, you know, we can't take the West State project money and fix the sewer because people don't quite get that. You can't do that. That's because that's not what that money is for in the state.
01:24:17 Sonya
'S not going to give you that money for that.
01:24:18 Kevin
The the state gave it to you for beautification.
01:24:21 Sonya
Or they gave it to you to to do this and part of the reason we got this project is because we demonstrated how is it going to.
01:24:22 Kevin
4.
01:24:29 Sonya
These pedestrian and motor vehicle safety and no matter what anybody likes to think, if you look through the United States and you look at the research, it says what increases it? Roundabouts increase driver safety and pedestrian safety and bump outs. And by the way, I hate bump outs. Absolutely hate them, but I understand.
01:24:48 Kevin
Ohh.
01:24:48 Kevin
Hit them all time, yeah.
01:24:49 Sonya
I understand why it decreases the space between where people have to walk.
01:24:54 Kevin
Yeah, curb diet. Yeah. You give you give it a road diet and people go slower if you have widened streets, people go faster. And then, yeah, no, I I get it.
01:24:55 Sonya
Right.
01:25:01 Sonya
So so I get it and I get why people are like, well, why do we?
01:25:04 Sonya
Have to have it because dot.
01:25:06 Kevin
Has to sign off on every Rd. project.
01:25:07 Sonya
Yeah. And you have to.
01:25:08 Sonya
Joe, how are you going to improve something? If I wrote a grant for a a homeless program, not for the city, mind you, then my previous job. So I want people saying like, because before I know that people will be like, oh, Sonny's bringing all the homeless. No, Sonny's not. We have homeless, but we're trying to, you know, make better. But in my past job, when I would do that is you had to demonstrate.
01:25:21 Kevin
Right, right, right.
01:25:30 Sonya
If I have this program, what am I? What's the improvement? What are the goals? What am I going to? What's going to be better because of it and what are right? And so that's what W State has to.
01:25:40 Sonya
Say is, how is it going to improve driver safety? Pedestrian safety? You know. Yes, we're going to get our sewer pipes done and that's what we want because no one wants $20 million attached on to the city's budget or us to go and get a a ban for 20 million. That's going to cost us.
01:25:57 Kevin
Band ribbon. Yeah, right.
01:26:01 Sonya
A gazillion in interest.
01:26:03 Sonya
This is a way to get what we need.
01:26:06 Kevin
Sure. And they're paying cause. You gotta open it anyway. So now you gotta put it back together. So how can you put it back together? Yeah. And it's like, OK, well, this state funding is for this, but at least it allows us to put the tarp on it. You know what I mean? It puts the puts the title, the, the, the final cover on it.
01:26:09 Sonya
At the minimum.
01:26:18 Sonya
Yes, yes, you know.
01:26:22 Sonya
And so and so I think part of it is again about education.
01:26:28 Sonya
And helping people to understand that.
01:26:31 Sonya
We can't.
01:26:32 Sonya
Take money that that the state gave us or the federal government or whatever for a road project and put it on the sewer, right. And we can't, you know, take this money and move it there because that's not what the grant was for. And you have to do certain things.
01:26:47 Kevin
Right.
01:26:50 Sonya
If I wrote, you know I was I I was actually really pretty successful at grant writing. But if I wrote a grant and I didn't put in there something new or innovative.
01:27:01 Sonya
I didn't get.
01:27:01 Sonya
It.
01:27:02 Kevin
Right.
01:27:02 Sonya
Right. If I didn't show how I'm going to improve people's lives and stuff, I didn't get it right. So I I I think that we can do a better job of of just educating people too, you know. So I try to put some things on my website and even at the.
01:27:08 Kevin
Sure. Yeah.
01:27:21 Sonya
Meeting and and I want to say I appreciate everybody who's come out who's been passionate. It's not always easy to hear as you probably sat on the other side. It's not easy to hear and you know and and social media is its own animal in terms of things, but but, you know, educating people to say, you know, look, when you come in.
01:27:41 Sonya
And we don't say anything. It's not because we don't care. It's not because we're not listening. It's because that's the public's time to talk. It's not a dialogue. And I think that's hard for people.
01:27:51 Kevin
Because and then if you if you conversate with one person, now you've got to conversate with everybody. And these meetings have a deadline like.
01:27:59 Sonya
Well, and and and it's not.
01:27:59 Kevin
No one to a degree, you don't want to.
01:28:01 Kevin
Be there till.
01:28:01 Sonya
Yeah.
01:28:02 Kevin
If you guys can send you.
01:28:02 Sonya
And it's not ours to tell people. You know you're right or wrong or or that it's ours to listen and then to take that information and see.
01:28:10 Sonya
What we can do?
01:28:10 Kevin
And compile it with everybody else's information, because you might get 20 emails for every one speaker.
01:28:16 Sonya
Yeah, and an example is N 12th Street, right. There was a proposal to make it non parking N 12th St. between like 7:00 AM and.
01:28:27 Sonya
4:00 or whatever it.
01:28:28 Sonya
Was well, guess what? A number of residents came and said, hey, look.
01:28:28 Kevin
Right.
01:28:33 Sonya
It's not the whole street that's an issue, it's this corner. It's this block. It's this. Yes. And guess what? We adjusted it right and we adjusted it because there were there's trucks that park right on that corner that make it difficult for everybody.
01:28:40 Kevin
It's always been that lock.
01:28:47 Kevin
Yeah, that commercial business being there, I, but it's always been it was a grocery store back in.
01:28:52 Kevin
The day it was a.
01:28:53 Kevin
Pet shop I think. Yeah. Like it was. It's been a series of commercial things.
01:28:53 Sonya
How many told me?
01:28:57 Kevin
And it's like it's just a I would never want to buy that as a commercial business building because it's just there's no parking and I have a tendency to buy buildings that have no parking and like, I'm like, I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to that.
01:29:03 Sonya
Yeah.
01:29:03 Sonya
It's hard.
01:29:07 Sonya
Right. So so we talked to them and and we listened and we adjusted the PL. and now it's only the second block you know, so you know we do, we do try. I don't think there's a Councilman and people I think.
01:29:16 Kevin
Right.
01:29:23 Sonya
Don't run. We all, with the exception of Dave, who's retired, and he did his time working as a state employee. The rest of us all work full time or work full time. Plus right. And so we all have jobs. And so we're doing the city's business. So when people call me, sometimes I have to say, like, you know, I'm I'm just walking into a patients house, you know?
01:29:32 Kevin
Sure.
01:29:44 Sonya
Can I get your number? Can I call you back?
01:29:46 Kevin
Right I used.
01:29:47 Kevin
Take the missus, get angry with me because I would. I would take. I would take. There's a there's a reluctant constituent named Tony who was on 6th St. and he would, if you know Tony, Tony would call me at least once a week for 45 minutes every night. Like every time he called, it was consistent after I wasn't the Alderman anymore. He called me a couple more times. And then.
01:29:56 Sonya
Ohh, I yes I do.
01:30:09 Kevin
He kind of fell off, I'm guessing he.
01:30:10 Kevin
Calls you now.
01:30:11 Sonya
Well, I I go around and when I talk to people, there's some that you know.
01:30:18 Sonya
It.
01:30:18 Sonya
Just takes longer because they have things that they want to talk about, and sometimes it's things that they really like, you know, and sometimes it's things that the Council can do nothing about, you know. But if if it's not. Yeah. And I'll, you know, and if it's not, listen, I'll still shoot an e-mail out, you know, and say, hey, look.
01:30:25 Kevin
Right.
01:30:30 Kevin
Sure.
01:30:31 Kevin
They just want to be heard.
01:30:38 Sonya
This, you know this came.
01:30:40 Sonya
Up or, you know, is this something we can talk about or if I don't know I'll, that's the other Alderman, if it's ever come up. Because sometimes.
01:30:46 Kevin
Right.
01:30:47 Sonya
I'm like has.
01:30:47 Sonya
Anyone ever brought this up before? You know, or cuz I'll say, geez, nobody's ever said that to me before. So let me go see if it's ever been an issue before, you know?
01:30:57 Kevin
Right.
01:30:59 Kevin
Let's say.
01:31:00 Kevin
Poor John. I keep thinking of. I keep thinking of just like.
01:31:04 Kevin
Going back to the.
01:31:06 Kevin
Giving people the opportunity to speak at the Council meeting and stuff and it's like.
01:31:11 Kevin
It is their time, but you know, it's also not like it's not like the school board almost got rid of it a couple of years ago, like the public comment. And people think it's like this free speech and and it's a good spot to speak. But you got to think it's still somebody else's meeting. It's still a place to conduct business. And that's that's where open meetings is. There's your free speech comes in, you get to watch government happen.
01:31:31 Kevin
And so, like, I think Johnny's been getting a lot of Flack because he's he's trying to maintain order at the meeting.
01:31:36 Kevin
And they kind of stuck to it and I, you know.
01:31:38 Sonya
And and I think and I do think we have you to thank for the YouTube right, that was your idea.
01:31:43 Kevin
Yeah.
01:31:45 Kevin
I I yeah, cause I would set down a 360 camera. I'm probably one of these two tripods here. I would set it down and I would just record it and there was a there was a big stink at the beginning. It's like we're already on Channel 4, it's like.
01:31:58 Kevin
Cable like.
01:31:59 Sonya
So yeah, so one of the things I learned and and I knew this is that you know, the YouTube channel is is definitely thanks to you and.
01:32:06 Sonya
And I think that the other.
01:32:07 Kevin
And then COVID happened and we had to do something more formal through the city instead of just like 1 Alderman making a public record and publishing it. They did something more formal just because there was a lot of I couldn't integrate.
01:32:20 Kevin
I mean, I probably could have, but I wasn't kind of donating that much of my my finances to to because you had all the zoom people. Everybody was zooming in at the time and and it was, yeah, there was a whole pile of it and.
01:32:26 Sonya
Absolutely.
01:32:33 Kevin
Then I remember I I must.
01:32:36 Kevin
I think I was. I was just getting off the counselor. I was off the Council by the time they switched over to the the.
01:32:43 Kevin
Ohh where they go broadcast. It's the broadcast box, the pod box. Ohh box caster. OK. Yeah, it's the software that they use. And then then they bought Sheldon. The mayor's big computer screen and stuff. So yeah, I mean it's. But yeah, the transparency is very good. I think that's that's helping people out. I've been.
01:32:47 Sonya
Oh.
01:32:55 Sonya
Mm-hmm.
01:33:03 Kevin
I was watching some town.
01:33:06 Kevin
Hall meetings from the the Township of Brighton.
01:33:09 Kevin
Oh.
01:33:09 Kevin
They've caught my interest recently and they're small Township South of Syracuse.
01:33:14 Kevin
Rochester, Rochester and they.
01:33:19 Kevin
They like for, I'm, I'm sure their their stuff is antiquated, but the way they address it, it's like something from the 90s, but it's really cool. They have a camera on every person plus one in the room and they have like a microphone and a separate camera. Like they they went a little bit like they go like I was kind of watching a couple of their meetings. And I thought that was kind of interesting.
01:33:40 Kevin
So it was one of those, like, there's always room to.
01:33:43 Kevin
Proof.
01:33:44 Sonya
And I think Brighton I was looking because one of the things I'm mindful of is is the safety of everyone and and when we had those issues, part of what I I said I couldn't see. I couldn't, I didn't know what was happening behind me. I was just focusing on whatever was going to happen. I wanted to make sure it was as safe as possible and I was aware there was at least one student.
01:34:05 Sonya
In there, because we have students that come. And so, you know, we have to make sure that things are safe for everybody who come.
01:34:12 Sonya
And so I think that we need to rethink how we do things in terms of public comment and that and still we are still all of a mind that that we want to keep because public not everybody has public comment, not every it's not a requirement.
01:34:26 Kevin
Right.
01:34:28 Kevin
Right. Like like I said, it's not a, it's not a. It's not a First Amendment issue you're blocking. It's your meeting. It's to do conduct.
01:34:29 Sonya
But me?
01:34:33 Sonya
Yeah, and but we want people to be able to, you know, and every now and then somebody is like, hey, you know, we appreciate this or that, but I get that it's not what it's for and you know, and so I think that you.
01:34:36 Kevin
Sure.
01:34:46 Sonya
We we go back and we we look at if we don't learn from something, it's a lost opportunity, you know, so we go back and we look and we say, well, OK, what could we do differently right. And if we don't do that then shame on us. Right. But I think that we need to do that and then we need to say what do we do and how do we do it.
01:34:57 Kevin
Sure.
01:35:06 Sonya
Maintain.
01:35:08 Sonya
Safety and security of of everyone and and still give you know everybody an opportunity to speak and and I think that's really what we want to do and and yeah we've we've gotten some Flack and you know you have to.
01:35:27 Sonya
Have a little bit of a a thicker skin at times, and but sometimes it's hard, you know, because what people don't realize is, you know, we look at bullying and bullying. Adults bully too, you know. And the reality is like, we talk about kids and it's like 24/7 access.
01:35:43 Sonya
You can be up there in your basement or wherever you are making comments and telling us what blah blah blah. We are right, right and.
01:35:54 Sonya
And at the end of the day, you know, we still are people too. I'm trying to do the best we can and and I think that that's, you know, that's hard and I sell to people, you know, if you have a specific issue or concern come.
01:35:58 Kevin
Right, yeah.
01:36:06 Kevin
To your make the roundabouts go away. That's all I see on social media is make the roundabouts go away or some issue about something somebody did years ago.
01:36:13 Kevin
So and a lot of times it's like I can't fix that issue.
01:36:16 Sonya
Right. And and I always say you know what?
01:36:17 Kevin
And then you can't argue with somebody who thinks.
01:36:19 Kevin
That you can.
01:36:19 Sonya
Yep, I.
01:36:20 Kevin
Or wants it to go back in time and they don't want change and I.
01:36:23 Sonya
And when I tell people when I work with patients and they've had things that have not gone right or something, I say to them, you know what, the only thing you can be is a better person tomorrow, right? The only thing I can be is a better Council person tomorrow. And, you know, and I'll tell you, people have short memories. I would work at the hospital and.
01:36:41 Kevin
No, you wouldn't say.
01:36:44 Sonya
I would drive at, you know, maybe midnight, maybe 7:00 AM and to drive from Olean General to my house.
01:36:53 Sonya
Could take me 10 or more minutes.
01:36:56 Sonya
While nobody's on the road in the middle like midnight or something to get down the road, and so people forget how long it used to take, I was coming to a meeting and I was one minute late and when I got there I said to them if we had roundabouts on West State, I would have been late.
01:37:14 Sonya
Because I hit every.
01:37:15 Sonya
Red light, you know.
01:37:18 Sonya
Thankfully, they were gracious.
01:37:19 Sonya
But you know people for that.
01:37:20 Kevin
Ohh yeah, I remember 5:00 traffic every. It was like strolling in every Friday. Was strolling. Yeah, it wasn't strolling like you couldn't get out and like, go shopping or listen to a band.
01:37:31 Kevin
And.
01:37:32 Kevin
You were just stuck in traffic for an hour.
01:37:35 Sonya
Yeah. And and people forget, and they'll say, well, they're backed up. Yeah, they're backed up, but it's moving. You know, it's not in his pants. Still, I didn't have to wait for three lights because there were six cars ahead of me.
01:37:35 Kevin
Or you know.
01:37:40 Kevin
Right, it's moving.
01:37:46 Kevin
Right. Yeah, yeah.
01:37:47 Sonya
You know, so I'm appreciative of that and I. And so I take it with a grain of salt and I get that not everybody likes the.
01:37:54 Kevin
Roundabouts and there's another. Yeah. You, you, you. You're barking at Dave again. Dave hates the roundabouts. He represents that demographic. Very well. You have to.
01:37:59 Sonya
But you know, I mean.
01:38:03 Sonya
But.
01:38:03 Sonya
Know. Listen, it's easy.
01:38:07 Sonya
Yield to whoever is in the circle. That's it, right? If there's somebody in the circle, yield to them. Don't be thinking like, oh, I got 2 seconds to run out in front of them. No yield if somebody's.
01:38:13 Kevin
Right.
01:38:18 Sonya
In the circle you don't to them.
01:38:18 Kevin
If you can make it, yeah. If they're on the other side of the circle and you got plenty of time.
01:38:21 Sonya
If they're just starting out, absolutely.
01:38:23 Kevin
Yeah, if you can make it. Some people have a Jack rabbit start. You gotta look at how the front of their vehicle noses up. Like there's an art.
01:38:29 Sonya
To it, but right? Or if you're the person that's gonna sit waiting while 16 people.
01:38:35 Kevin
Or you see them? I you sometimes. Well, and it's hard to see you don't see plates on the front of their vehicle. You know it's from Pennsylvania. And see you get in line waiting for them to go. And then they just wave you through and you're like, whatever, at this point, I'm not gonna argue with them like I know I shouldn't. I should just stand there and hold my ground. Like this isn't the rule. Go. And I've thought about.
01:38:53 Kevin
That before and then I've held up traffic because like.
01:38:55 Sonya
Yeah.
01:38:56 Kevin
You can't convince these people. They will not let you go.
01:38:58 Sonya
Well, or anyone. Or you're like, ohh, that was my turn. Well.
01:39:02 Sonya
OK, so so So what, Sonya, you're just going to take it, but yield, you know, if somebody is in there yield that's, that's all you have to remember, right? It's like a yellow yield sign there and then you're good to go, you know? And and it's made downtown beautiful, you know, I mean.
01:39:10 Kevin
Right.
01:39:15 Kevin
Yeah.
01:39:19 Kevin
Right.
01:39:20 Kevin
We used to get we, not editorials. What do you call them, like those those lovely, the lovely hate mail letters they'd go.
01:39:26 Sonya
Oh, letters to the editor.
01:39:28 Kevin
Kind of, but they would go to the mayor and then he would distribute them down so we'd get one. It would be like mayor and C Council, but he wouldn't see. They wouldn't see the Council, they would just send it to the mayors. The mayor would CC the Council.
01:39:30 Sonya
Oh.
01:39:38 Kevin
And we get some from older residents who would like, you know, old business owners and stuff that are just, you know, they're setting their ways. You know, how many kids you're putting at risk cause the roundabout on West State Street, and it's like.
01:39:50 Kevin
What? What? Like. Where do you where? Where's your? But you can't argue back with these letters because you spend more time writing letters back to people. Then they might not respond. And.
01:39:58 Sonya
Then you're like, and I'm like, call me. You know, we can we can have a dialogue. I have. I have literally.
01:40:04 Sonya
Because I had a patient in Randolph, in one, in Olean, from Randolph to Olean, with the exception of limestone, there's that little dead zone had to come back, had a conversation with with a resident because they had a concern, you know? So in my work day, if I'm driving from Randolph to Olan, absolutely call me. We'll talk about it, if if I'm not.
01:40:16 Kevin
Right.
01:40:24 Sonya
And I'm and only and seeing people that's not going to happen, but I'll call you back. But yeah, if you got that concern, reach out to your Alderman. Right. And we're kind of the the first line, so to speak, right. Bring it up and.
01:40:35 Kevin
Yeah.
01:40:37 Sonya
You know, we've had a number of people and I've had a number of conversations recently about things and yeah, and and if it's something that I, I don't think I can, I'm upfront about it. But I'll say to them look.
01:40:40 Kevin
Sometimes you can't fix everything.
01:40:51 Sonya
I don't think there's anything that can be done about this given where it's at right now.
01:40:55 Sonya
But I will go forward.
01:40:58 Sonya
You know, I'll bring it forward. I'll see what I can do. But yeah, and sometimes people will be like, well, that's not what I was hoping to hear. Listen, I, same thing I tell my patients, I'm never going to tell you something that is not manageable or doable. You know, I'd rather up front, you know where that is. Then you're being, then you're going to just be disappointed.
01:41:18 Sonya
If I say to you and then if I can get it.
01:41:21 Sonya
To work.
01:41:22 Kevin
Sometimes there's sometimes there's parliamentary things too. Like. Yeah, I want to know parking sign next to my driveway and it's like, listen, we don't do that. We you know what I mean? But sometimes you get one that it's like I.
01:41:22 Sonya
Great.
01:41:32 Kevin
Want a no.
01:41:32 Kevin
Parking here to corner. Like, listen, I I'll do.
01:41:36 Kevin
Good.
01:41:38 Kevin
I don't think anybody's going to agree with it, but I'll propose it and I'll pose it propose on the floor and even though you know what's going to die, it's not going to make it out of committee. At least it's in the record you made the attempt. Listen, I attempted it and.
01:41:48 Sonya
And and and we can look and see, right? Or I have somebody call me who's who lacks the ability to really is really not mobile and they want a handicapped sign in front.
01:41:58 Sonya
Of their house.
01:41:59 Sonya
It it's not manageable because you know what?
01:42:01 Kevin
Then everybody wants.
01:42:03 Sonya
Right and.
01:42:04 Kevin
And then, like, what's the? What is the like, the determination? Now I remember when I was like a kid. You had to be like in a wheelchair. Like, there was a lot more. We're becoming more and more LAX. Like I feel like if you have restless leg syndrome now you can get a handicap thing for your car. Like you know what I mean?
01:42:19 Kevin
Where there's people that actually need it.
01:42:21 Sonya
And and I think there are some people that is not readily apparent that they have a disability, you know.
01:42:26 Kevin
Like my aunt has Ms. she's in a wheelchair. Like she she like if she if somebody told her she doesn't get one.
01:42:28 Kevin
Yeah.
01:42:32 Kevin
Maybe like, but the restless Leg syndrome guy does. You know what I mean? Like.
01:42:35 Kevin
It's one of those.
01:42:35 Sonya
And I think you know it it it comes down to doctors and stuff making those determinations. But I I think there are some people that you look at and you're like.
01:42:39 Kevin
Sure.
01:42:43 Sonya
But, but we don't know, you know, because some people have horrible, horrible pain and really can't walk far. But you wouldn't know to look.
01:42:49 Kevin
At them, right, because they stand so stoically.
01:42:51 Sonya
You know and and so we can't. So I know that I can't help that person out by putting a a handicap parking because.
01:43:00 Sonya
There's lots of places that don't have driveways.
01:43:04 Sonya
You know and and I'm sorry that you bought a house without a driveway. I'm sorry that you rent a house without a driveway, but that doesn't mean we can put a spot in front for you.
01:43:04 Kevin
Right.
01:43:14 Kevin
Right. Yeah. Because what happens when you move? Because people move quicker than signs do?
01:43:17 Sonya
Yeah, absolutely. Now I have with the sign up and you know, and I, I, I forget there's a couple of we'd always say I I think it is.
01:43:24 Kevin
The Deaf children areas, there's the blunt.
01:43:26 Sonya
Well, Jason would be like you know, do we need another sign? Right. You know, dear, you know, Constitution.
01:43:30 Kevin
Yeah.
01:43:35 Sonya
Well, but you know what? We know there's deer there, so we should be mindful. Deer aren't paying attention to the sign.
01:43:40 Kevin
Right. And if you're, and if you're traveling, if you're not in, if you're not from Oley and you might not know because I'll look for deer. I'm a hunter. So, like, even though they're in in the city or something, I'll see them and I'll be like, OK, there's three of them that live there. Like, I just. It's just natural. Like, as you never know, you'll use that same skill driving down, you know, the back Hinsdale Rd.
01:43:58 Sonya
Ohh, coming back from Buffalo and you're like.
01:44:00 Kevin
Right. You just you see them, you know where they are.
01:44:02 Sonya
Like, but they don't pay attention to the.
01:44:04 Kevin
Sign they don't pay attention to the sign, but if you're not from here, you're not me. Knowing that there's a group of 6 deers that live between.
01:44:11 Sonya
Ohh.
01:44:13 Kevin
You know right by the bike track.
01:44:14 Sonya
26th St. and stuff that they hang out or Walmart, you know the.
01:44:16 Kevin
Oh yeah.
01:44:17 Kevin
Right home behind Home Depot or next to the Kubota.
01:44:19 Kevin
Yeah, I was.
01:44:21 Sonya
I just drove by somewhere the other day. There was. Yes. In this day there were 6 deer in the front yard. I'm like.
01:44:28 Sonya
Hey, how cool is that? That we have deer living here, you know?
01:44:32 Kevin
Right. Yeah, right. But you should put a sign up.
01:44:34 Kevin
Depending on accidents too, like I would say if you know that there's a lot of crossings you want to put some signs up deaf child area like OK, you got like 10 years before the kid, you know what I mean? Like or 20 years.
01:44:44 Sonya
And and then.
01:44:45 Sonya
We need to take those signs down because there's still some of those up.
01:44:47 Kevin
That I know there's no deaf children living in the earth, they've graduated, they've moved somewhere else, and they put a sign up that says deaf, deaf, adult.
01:44:49 Sonya
Yeah.
01:44:55 Sonya
Right. So we so we need to be mindful and we've talked about that before, you know.
01:44:59 Kevin
Because yeah, we had some put in, I think I, I I think I only did one.
01:45:03 Kevin
And Vernon brought it up for his ward.
01:45:06 Kevin
And it was actually like my brother's tenant. And I knew who she was. And she was a County Attorney or an attorney that worked for the county. And she she had her grand daughter grandson come through. And so I knew that, you know what I mean? I was like, oh, I'll support that. And the House has since sold and she doesn't live there anymore. But she was there for five years and that's.
01:45:26 Kevin
It's long enough to need a.
01:45:27 Sonya
Sign. Yeah, yeah. And then we need to be mindful.
01:45:28 Kevin
But.
01:45:29 Sonya
Then to to to sign down.
01:45:30 Kevin
But if every yeah, right. But if every person who's handicapped needed one, like that's there's not a lot of deaf and blind kids.
01:45:36 Sonya
Right. So but but we want to be responsive to those that are because I. But then again you know we we don't want to put so many signs up that people don't pay attention because there's a sign everywhere. So where do we need them to go? It's kind of.
01:45:37 Kevin
I mean.
01:45:45 Kevin
Like yeah, this.
01:45:50 Kevin
Right, like the hawk systems Uptown. Those those someone is crossing.
01:45:50 Sonya
The same thing.
01:45:54 Sonya
Oh.
01:45:55 Kevin
They those are called the hawk systems.
01:45:56 Kevin
I believe, and they they put 2IN.
01:45:59 Kevin
And I know Linda Whitt wanted, like, three more, four more put in across the city and it's like you start putting.
01:46:05 Kevin
More of them. People start to disregard them.
01:46:07 Sonya
Yeah. And that's what we watch.
01:46:07 Kevin
And they're very powerful now because only two of them. Yeah. So you know where they are when they go off, like, it startles you. They don't go off that often. But if they go off all the time, you're you just ignore them. And that's when.
01:46:18 Sonya
People get hit, you know, so yeah. And those are the kinds of things that I think that we try to be attentive to while while looking out for.
01:46:27 Sonya
Both individual residents, but then collectively as the city right, because individual need and the collective need can be two very different things.
01:46:35 Kevin
Sure. Right. Yeah.
01:46:38 Kevin
Got anything else anything?
01:46:39 Sonya
Well, I saw you looking at your watch and I know you. I was looking to see.
01:46:41 Kevin
Ohh, it just keeps going on. It just keeps going off. It's don't forget to take your vitamins before bed. The 8:00 ones went off so but.
01:46:47 Kevin
Oh.
01:46:49 Sonya
Oh, no. I I think you know, I I appreciate this. And you know I'm, I'm always somebody who.
01:46:57 Sonya
My husband used to say how long is that training?
01:47:00 Sonya
You're doing and I'd be like 2 hours, but I got 8 hours of material just in case, right? So I'm always a little bit.
01:47:07 Sonya
Anxious and over prepared, trying to. But I want to tell you how how great this was, right. It was like just a conversation. And I want to tell you how much I appreciate that because you never know. Are you going to be quizzed. So I want to tell you.
01:47:14 Kevin
Right, that's.
01:47:20 Kevin
People were, yeah, people were asking. Well, not a problem. People are. People are asking me cause I like.
01:47:20 Sonya
How much I truly appreciate.
01:47:26 Kevin
You got so and so on. The show you got. You got Vernon coming on the show. You got Sonya. Amy sherburn. You gonna ask all these questions? Let me get your questions. And it's funny, cuz all the people that say they gonna get questions, they don't get your questions and it's like I'm not coming out of left field. I'm not. You know what I mean? I'm not going to like, have a conversation with somebody and have some, like, real just nasty grill.
01:47:46 Kevin
Questions like you'd see like if you just put one political figure on the opposing sides news network like you.
01:47:53 Sonya
Yeah.
01:47:54 Kevin
Just I was like, no, I I I want people to be able to come on the show. I want people to be able to watch the show because you do that once and then you'll have nobody ever come on your show again and it's like.
01:48:04 Sonya
True. True. Yeah.
01:48:04 Kevin
And it's then.
01:48:05 Kevin
It's not. It's not helpful. It's not helpful like people. People keep asking me to get John on the show and ask him what happened to ask a certain basketball game.
01:48:13 Kevin
And I know that's like.
01:48:15 Kevin
Why? Why would I do that like.
01:48:17 Sonya
Yeah. And and people you know.
01:48:20 Sonya
I think sometimes we we just.
01:48:24 Sonya
We forget everybody is human, everybody's human, everybody and and.
01:48:26 Kevin
Right.
01:48:29 Sonya
You know, I always say, you know, does anyone want to be judged by their worst moment? Right. Do do. Is that how we want to be judged as people? You know, if we have a bad moment, you know, and and you know what it is, you know is you can have this money and then you have this and and.
01:48:35 Kevin
Yeah, we've you had them.
01:48:47 Kevin
This is what defines you, and that's or that's what people think.
01:48:47 Sonya
Is what?
01:48:48 Sonya
You.
01:48:48 Sonya
Know.
01:48:49 Sonya
And and that's you know, any one of us, right. And so I say, you know, so I appreciate that because you you never know and you know sometimes.
01:49:00 Sonya
People have a set group of questions, but this honestly.
01:49:06 Sonya
I had listened to Vernons. I listened to Amys, I listened to a couple of others and you know, and. And I was like I'm. I'm like, oh, it's kind of like a conversation.
01:49:15 Kevin
That's it. That's the. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, they could be 10 minutes. They could be 3 hours.
01:49:15 Sonya
Right. So.
01:49:19 Sonya
Cool, right? Yes, I I told you I was like. And I thought. And you.
01:49:23 Sonya
Were right I.
01:49:23 Sonya
Was like, oh wait, there's and then I look at the time clock down there and.
01:49:26 Sonya
I'm like, oh, there's 55 minutes left there on Thursday. I was gonna say, yeah, she she set the bar high for Bill.
01:49:32 Kevin
That's that's why I mentioned to her at the the last tail end of it. And and then she said she wants to do a debate. So that's also kind of.
01:49:35 Kevin
Oh.
01:49:38 Kevin
Like.
01:49:40 Kevin
That'll be interesting. It'll keep things.
01:49:41 Sonya
And we should have, you know, we should have competition, right? And, you know, would it be nice not to just kind of the answer? Sure. Who won? Wanted to. But, you know, at the at the end of the day.
01:49:57 Sonya
If I've done my job and I've done my job well enough, then then.
01:50:00 Kevin
Right.
01:50:03 Sonya
The people who support me will will choose me right and and I still have to get up the next day and go to work regardless, right? But I would hope that, you know.
01:50:14 Sonya
And I believe I have right, I believe I've. I've done a good job, I've I've represented my residents well. And so I do hope to be able to continue to, you know, be their representative and and bring a voice because I I think we're at a time where people don't feel like they have a voice which is in part why there's so much on social media. I think because they don't feel like they have a voice.
01:50:33 Kevin
Right.
01:50:35 Kevin
There's nobody stopping at their house.
01:50:36 Kevin
And talking to him.
01:50:37 Sonya
Yeah, and.
01:50:39 Kevin
Which which is an unrealistic task like you can't just stop at everybody's house all the time and talk to them and be the other person to for them to socially bounce ideas off of.
01:50:48 Sonya
But yeah, but but call her that. And so you know. So yeah. So. So yeah, I'm I'm, you know, certainly, you know, I had a primary with with a SRA and the first one.
01:50:59 Sonya
And with Linda.
01:51:00 Sonya
And certainly running against Linda, I had to be. I had to run. Yeah, yeah. Right. Linda is a wonderful woman with lots of community resources and connections and and.
01:51:04 Kevin
Well, Linda, that's true. Ran against you last time.
01:51:06 Kevin
Didn't she? OK.
01:51:13 Sonya
She just it.
01:51:13 Sonya
Just forced me to be better, right? It just forced me to to learn things and to make sure that.
01:51:20 Sonya
I was on point and and so you know, I see that as that it just you know encourages me to continue to be the best I can be and hopefully I'm.
01:51:31 Sonya
Come. You know the beginning of January. I'll still, you know, I'll be in my seat. You know, so.
01:51:36 Sonya
Right.
01:51:39 Sonya
Yeah. So thank you.
01:51:40 Kevin
No problem.
01:51:41 Sonya
I appreciate it.
01:51:42 Kevin
Let me let's all right, gang. Well, I appreciate you guys watching the show and I hope this was compelling and we'll catch you guys tomorrow on life 22. We have a special guest.
01:51:56 Kevin
Kenny Paul Carey's coming on Kenny. Kenny. He's a he's a market strategist. He's down in, he's down in Florida, and he was, I think, over 30 years on the stock market and the Stock Exchange. So he's, he's coming on. He's a friend of mine. I I met him through Twitter because I heard him on the news and I was like, this guy is awesome. And we started a good relationship, and now he's coming on. Now that we're able to start doing.
01:52:19 Kevin
More podcasts and zoom and stuff like that, and it was a nice little birthday treat. Tomorrow's my birthday, so I get.
01:52:24 Kevin
To have my thanks.
01:52:25 Sonya
Happy early birthday. That's cool, though I will definitely TuneIn. I I probably can't listen to it in a lot of versions, but definitely be perfect.