e it goes
that works better okay we're alive
all right good evening folks welcome uh
to a working meeting of the city council
um probably most people know the drill
but just in case you don't you just uh
this is a meeting for the council so
you're just going to basically be
hearing us talking about some city
business some city issues
there's no public comment uh no good and
welfare nothing like that it's just
basically you you're listening to us
talk about uh some city uh
uh what's going on in the city so
uh why don't we get going um
i guess uh we got a bunch of people on
so
uh let's see where should we start you
want to start with uh
mr benjamin this is liz can we just
introduce
everyone real quickly that's on the call
for
just a quick go around if you could just
introduce everyone
uh okay
everybody want to introduce themselves
why don't we start with you liz
elizabeth
city council okay i'm gonna go in the
order of the pictures on my screen at
least
so john bendo city council donna
oh donna gayden city manager mike
mike delorey city council member all
right karen
aaron mcinnes city council member all
right denise ford
the denise ford county legislator okay
matt
i'm matt animal laurel okay monique
monique powell director of community
development all right ron
ron walsh incoming commissioner police
all right rich
rich barrios deputy corporation council
all right
mr frazier uh dave fraser city clerk and
joe who is muted i don't know if he's
paying attention there he goes
joe fabrizio city engineer public works
okay
john uh john mcnally executive assistant
to the city manager and
tommy
and tommy might be eating dinner
so tommy ken is from our uh beach
maintenance department
uh runs our beach maintenance department
but don't let that name fool you beach
maintenance does
uh most of the maintenance around the
city building maintenance things like
that
and he's deputy commissioner of public
works and he's deputy commissioner of
public works
okay um so where should we start should
we start with
uh youth and family services
all right i think that's you monique
that is me okay so uh first up is that
um we can start with the
mlk building all right we reviewed the
safety reopening plan uh
it went through thorough review um
and they are they receive the okay to
resume programming
okay so this is the safety review plan
from mlk inc
correct sorry mlk inc okay so it's there
every single okay
yes good all right liz i think you
were you gonna ask something well karen
i think karen oh it's karen
sorry i thought it was liz oh okay sorry
okay so that's that
we'll move on to the next to our sandbox
program
which is our preschool program we have
extended the program
we're very excited to offer to families
that are in need
so it's a full monday through friday
program
it mirrors the pre-k program which is a
half a day so we swap
in and out between am and the pm of
pre-k programs
um some new things with the sandbox is
that we are using
a new software so we're going completely
remote and digital with our software
which allows parents to pay online so it
increases transparency they can enroll
online it's called procare
i've used it previously they can receive
their balance
tax paid tax information attendance is
taken the covet questionnaire is done
online
um basically that increases transparency
about systems and policies
it puts parents on the node they get
great pictures and activity reports the
calendars
online um so we are very excited to
launch that
we received it today i met with the
staff to onboard that
um and i you know stay tuned to all the
greatness that it can happen
that will happen because of so so it
eliminates the moving around
um the old brick and mortar daycare to
now being more
a competitive advantage is that we have
that software so we're looking forward
to that
okay now just quick question sandbox
that's the one
that we're extending the hours now
longer than it was uh previously so the
kids have more time
yes we did a need assessment with the
families in particular what's in and
their needing was the needs is that they
needed a full week program
we were currently operating three days a
week um so we looked at our market of
families that take advantage of it and
they needed it monday through friday
and also an extended day so we're now
officially opening it
we just had to make sure we had the
people places and things to make it
happen
i want to make everybody aware though
the staff
was working all of the hours so we did
increase hours
they just weren't having kids so the
they're getting
the same amount of hours that they were
getting before
we just extended the time for the
children
okay so it's not costing us any more but
we increase the amount of service we're
providing
yes which will then bring in some type
of program and revenue for us
that would be great now that's also for
our am and pm
program that we have at west end in
addition to the sandbox and at lido
so again that you know that brings the
program more into the
forefront of the families of what they
needs are to be able to pay online to
receive what their child is doing to
receive messages
so we are hoping to increase our
enrollment now that everything else is
in place
um money can um for someone like i don't
have children so i don't know the ages
of the programs that you're talking
about
so when you say program can you just
sort of try to say
exactly what program you're you're
talking about by identifying it by name
but then explaining
like the community that who it serves so
that someone like me
who who isn't familiar with your
programs can understand and appreciate
all the work that you're doing
great thank you good point um so what we
did was the
west end community center which is
adjacent to the western elementary
school uh we have now made that like an
early childhood learning center
so early childhood would be from birth
from families
to expecting families all the way up to
four years old
in that building we have a before school
program for the elementary school kids
of western only due to covet it's only
where we co-located at and we have a pm
program for the elementary kids which
starts after school
so in that building we have the am and
pm which we only service west end
and then we have the sandbox now the
sandbox is the preschool
not pre-k but preschool program and it
operates from 9
15 until about 12 30 and that's what th
that's
previously how it operates what it
operated with three days a week so it
was like monday wednesday and
friday we have now extended it from
monday through friday for nine
from nine to 12 30 and then after that
from 12 30 to
2 30 um and don't quote me on the exact
times but it's the afternoon program
and that is for the preschools so um and
so that's the program in that
building sorry then we have our am
before and after school program
in the elementary school of lito um and
we do the before kid and after care
there
wait elementary when you say leto do you
mean lindell or
lido okay yeah so what has happened
because of covid
we used to operate in more schools um
however due to covid
uh we are now only operating out of lido
which is not our facility right
so that's that now the thing about this
software is great
parents can enroll online they can
register for the programs
we're also using the same software for
our magnolia second floor
when we have youth programs so if you
want to register for any youth programs
whether it's early childhood
uh whether it's um in school age
or older youth adult high schools it's
the same
registration process it's a link they go
online they pick the program
it automatically takes information from
families as far as authorized pickup
any medical allergies and every staff
member receives this information
so it's an easier enrollment
registration if there's any
fees associated with it they pay right
then and there online
now if we didn't have covert
restrictions about how many kids could
we accommodate
uh i mean our capacity is about 60 you
know i get excited over that
um but it's based on our license but you
know to the moon to the moon
okay all right so we got room to grow oh
we do
we do okay good good
um so that was the sandbox um so i could
segue into the youth program so we have
opened up magnolia second floor that's
where i'm at now you probably see my
lucky friend the giraffe here that's how
you know i'm in
um we started our first program tonight
we did a
cupcake decorating program of course we
followed our covet
guidelines we had kids here that were
decorating cupcakes
and they made valentine packages for
anyone of their choice
so today was the first day from four to
six
we plan to have more youth activities we
have a
black history uh scavenger hunt
where we are placing qr codes around our
sydney parks
so during next week when kids are out of
school with permission of course
they can travel around to our load to
the local city parks in their community
they can look for these qr codes take
their mobile device or their phones scan
it and learn more about
african american inventors um and even
some very important information about
inventors who even invented the cell
phone
um the um super soaker
um so it's something that is engaging
for the kids now the good thing is that
they could take it
in they could memorize it but we don't
want them we want them to be able to
comprehend and understand
and we're going to put a live quiz on
our website where they get to
answer the quiz if they get more than
six right we'll pull their names out
and we will raffle them all for a prize
uh the next youth program that we have
we're gonna do one-on-one personalized
tutoring
uh so families of only 10 right now just
because we like to have accurate data to
make sure that it works
we'll have 10 families the first 10
families sign up for one-on-one
personalized training and we believe
there's loss of learning due to covid
and there's only a certain amount that
families can provide i have two kids and
i still can't count to 100 at times
so it's what we can help families with
um so this tutoring can either be of
their choice at home
or here at the magnolia second floor uh
the tutors
uh have decided to do a bromolian as
they wish we will provide the
services here and have the child come
here with the permission slip and take
the tournament or they can do it at home
the next uh the next program is the
stock market game
so we are releasing the kids stock
market game where they get to sign up
and join the app
and compete and virtually invest a
hundred thousand dollars of their money
and learn how to to do the stock market
game so you will see that flyer coming
up
as well can i fight no
yeah i'm doing the high school version
so you could do the high school one with
me
um so you will get the link it will be
on our website
um so we're getting things moving up
here we like to do it slowly just so we
can get good data to make sure that we
are
doing it right and that is getting to
everyone in the community because this
is access to all
and for those who can't make it here
thanks to transportation there's a bus
from
riverside that takes from riverside all
the way to magnolia so we
we are creating our programs around that
time so that
everyone have access to it we're
constantly updating the website so you
don't have to wait for a phone call or
anyone to tell you
we are trying to get the practice of
looking on the website
updating it we communicate with the
school districts
we have street teams in certain
neighborhoods to help us in areas to
help us to get the word out
because we believe word of mouth with
kids means that they're engaged
um in addition to that we're having a
black kid
magic for black history where they get
to come in
and they need they're going to get to do
some black history crafts
listen to some music learn about the
culture
most of these events like i said are 4
to 6 p.m
um it is open to all in addition to that
we're having
yoga and dance movement in zumba so that
will be on the website
as well um and again we limited to 10
kids now because of kovit we just want
to make sure everything is well
yeah yes liz can you just
spell out what uh the website for people
yes it's on a long beach where i have it
on my flyer it is
long beach ny dot gov slash yfs
that's youth and family services so we
are reactivating that department letting
people know that we are providing all
services for the youth family
youth and family sorry and one the next
thing that we do is seniors so we are
moving forward with providing senior
programs
uh we are making this department here a
one-stop shop so
if you youth and families and you need
services information
our phone number is there uh we have
someone there that answers it dominique
uh provides you with resources whether
it's within the community or the city
um and the first thing we've been
getting calls is for seniors because of
the vaccine
but we were able to answer it um we were
able to take in a survey as well for
them
and provide these services so that is
the youth
and family services department in a
nutshell keep eye out on our youth
council that's coming up
so we are going to start recruiting for
a youth council
um and i'm not taking up no more of your
time can you just
explain that youth council real quick
yeah it's similar to
um the advisory board the senior
advisory council
to the planning council it's what better
way
um what a better way is to find out the
needs
to find out what's going on you know we
cannot alone say we know what's needed
we cannot alone say you know the
policies and the thought so it's
gathering
gathering youth from all over the city
of long beach
um they're gonna meet i'll be the
liaison um of course we probably have
fee kids whenever we can
but to get an idea of what their needs
are have them maybe go through
programming and see that we're offering
the best
um and that's it okay great
uh anybody got any questions for monique
i the only one karen do you have a
question no i just want to know if i can
steal her for the police department
oh my giraffe no
no um monique under community
development on the website
it has virtual homework help academic
support
what that is is that i've decided to
also make this website a one stop shop
from
all community programs so the mlk is
having a
academic help so i i broadcast
every program for youth and families on
it even if it's not sponsored or hosted
by the city and that's what you see
there we do a
it's a whatever it's a calendar of
events that's happening and if you click
the link
it'll tell you who's doing it i believe
right it's just and
then you need a zoom link and everything
like that and it's uh
it says virtual homework help academic
support program for elementary and
middle school
i think that's great too well you know
what if we're saying all access to all
right
again if if someone comes in and say
they need help we need to be able to
direct them to who's doing what whether
the city is sponsoring it whether it's a
community-based organization because at
the end of the day their needs need to
be met
so now on our website if there's any
programs that's going on whether it's
youth families or students that's under
the the youth and family services
it will be broadcasted and they know
where to go to find it so
i have my weekly my um bi-weekly
meetings with the non-profits and
community organizations
and i created the email that they can
send me upcoming events that they have
that we
should be able to market and let the
community know and that's that
collaboration and partnership
um that you know that we're broadcasting
and saying access to all
um so the mlk is actually doing that and
they have a financial literacy i believe
we put up there
i also put up the soup kitchen um
because it's you know as transparent as
you could be
is on the website no one has to call and
ask questions
so this is
karen i would just ask on the software
program that you have
um the control am i correct to assume
the controller's access
has is the only one that has access to
that yes
there's a separate um billing and
finance access
that they already have and in order for
me to do the software i had to receive
their
i would say their blessings the
information the bank account because we
accept payments it's a processing
and yes they're very excited too
that's fabulous and when you say that's
it that that is so much work
i'm exhausted already so thank you a lot
of work
thank you yeah good stuff
all right uh i see mr mcnally's on
uh what what's going on in your world
there
john
he might be off yeah i just had like a
computer leg
yeah yeah no there was my computer was
lagging there it stalled out for a
second apologies so good evening all
um a couple of quick updates first and
foremost
was on the the pop-up vaccination site
that happened at magnolia center today
uh which was wildly successful
uh in my estimation but also i know
there's a lot of confusion about so
just wanted to give you all an update
and see if you had any questions so this
is
this pop-up site is part of the
governor's initiative to ensure
really equity in the vaccination
distribution program that's going on
throughout the state and that equity
component is to make sure that
there is a specific uh very
targeted approach to making sure that
low-income and minority communities are
[Music]
given access to the vaccine these are
groups that were disproportionately
affected by covet 19 um
super high in terms of those that had
hospitalization rates and
infection rates uh but also at the same
time had
have a history of not getting vaccines
whether it's through a distrust
of of the science whether it's not
having computer accessibility to be able
to get on to it whether it's not
having transportation to be able to get
to it these are communities that
historically and in present day are
underrepresented
in the ability to get the vaccine so
this was
you know this is a governor initiative
they reached out to us
late last week i believe it was last
friday came and toured a couple of sites
decided that magnolia would be the site
um
and the city you know if we can get
shots in arms for
any of our residents we're all about it
we've been advocating for it for
you know since since the vaccines were
approved by the fda
um and what happened over you know the
really the past four or five days was
we partnered with a number of our
community groups
um the long beach housing authority went
door to door and knocked on the door
within the senior housing authorities so
this was for
65 and over because that's the general
eligibility
they went door to door to the housing
authority senator kaminsky's office was
key
religious leaders were key and
non-profits were paid to really reach
out to these groups that
uh the governor has made eligible to
receive these shots today
um and at the end of the day over a
five-hour period
there was shots in the arms of 386
seniors
in our community um and that accounts
for
more than half of the senior residents
in our senior housing authority
buildings that is huge this is a
population that has been
essentially shut in since last march
afraid to leave their homes afraid to
leave their apartment buildings
um you know and through the governor's
efforts to target this population you
know again this is not a group that
generally speaking can get online
and have the patience you know or have
the know-how or even you know
they don't have the ability to get
online and get this information they
don't have cars so our department of
transportation did a yeoman's job today
shuttling people from all the different
housing authority buildings in the city
to the magnolia center so this was today
was you know i know there's
been a lot of confusion out there there
was some not exactly what i would deem
excellent reporting by news 12 who just
said hey there's a pop-up site from ten
to three
have at it that that was not the
governor's intent
here um and you know that's not
that's not the purpose of these things
this is a very intentional
outreach to populations that are
disproportionately
affected by covet 19. and who
traditionally historically and in
present-day data show
that do not have access to the vaccine
um so you know we're very cognizant
that there is a very limited supply and
the 10 million people who are currently
eligible when the state is only getting
three to four hundred thousand
you know doses a week you're looking at
a six month lag
in getting shots in everybody's arm who
wants them or who's eligible
um but this is specifically targeted to
a group that
would never have been eligible or would
have had a very hard time
getting those shots themselves so uh
we understand frustration of those who
you know
were not able to get in today or we're
not part of the demographic that
this is intended for um but if the
governor is telling us that
they're going to get 386 shots in the
arms the people of long beach who
desperately need them
we're going to facilitate that effort
and that's what we did so you know
thanks to our beach maintenance
department who built a ramp in magnolia
thanks to all of our recreational staff
who shifted their days today
um from what they thought was going to
be a rec day to a help facilitate
um a pop-up vaccination site today
thanks to
all the people that answer phones in
city hall for people that
were you know i had confusion or wanted
to try and get on a list
um you know and just know that we
continue to be in close contact with the
governor's office with senator kaminsky
with assemblyman miller
assembly woman miller sorry um and
everyone that we can to continue to
advocate for
you know a a more permanent site in long
beach and
more of a supply generally speaking to
get to long beach
um but today was for what it was
intended to be by the governor today was
wildly successful i think in our
estimation
so any other questions on that before i
give one other brief hit
yeah will they be returning to
administer this i'm assuming this is
either the modern or fisa will they be
returning to administer second doses
yes so they will be when when the folks
were vaccinated today they were given an
appointment for another three weeks out
um for the teams for the same time slots
that they were allocated for today
um so we'll be doing this all over again
to make sure that everybody got a first
shot uh
is able to get a second shot in three
weeks and be complete with it and
96 um resistant to
to the to the virus
okay that's not bad almost 400 people
john any this is my delorean any um
anything learned today that we could
uh implement when the second shot
is scheduled i
i mean yeah so the group i i neglected
to thank first
um is so stony brook hospital was
the the hospital and the medical workers
that administered it
um but i think our staff got
a really quick training on how to make
this work you know stony brook were the
experts in this
they they managed to through the wreck
facility
and through you know the magnolia center
uh
it was a one-way traffic only flow
how to set up different stations you
know what this process is so i think we
we have a pretty good understanding
we're obviously not going to be the
people putting shots in people's arms
but we know what it takes we know what
you know what spatially it looks like we
know what the process looks like
um so i think that augers well for us uh
you know in being able to interface with
either the county or the state for
um doing this moving forward but you
know as i'm sure you've been paying
attention mike
you know walgreens just starting to get
it cvs is going to start to get it
um i know we've gotten some calls from
local physicians that are starting to
get their deliveries so
and if johnson and johnson's could get
their vaccine could get approved as
early as
next week which would you know increase
the
available supply of vaccines
significantly
um we're hoping that it doesn't get to
the point
where you need to do a community
vaccination center and that the vaccine
can meet people where they are um
but we're obviously you know advocating
for our residents
um you know to to get everything every
resource we can down here and
we've offered up uh some municipal
buildings and if you know spoken with
some of our other
non-profit religious partners uh to talk
about the potential for their buildings
to be activated for something like this
as well so you know we're we're making
every opportunity available that we can
thanks joe you bet um before you go on i
want to say thank you to tommy canner
and his team
one of the things that we had to do um
to make sure that we could uh we were
ready for any of the handicap
accessible um we built they built a ramp
in a very short amount of time to make
sure that the one-way traffic there was
a ramp on both sides
in the theater area so i want to say
thank you very much
tommy um if the ramp looks good i know
the guys were saying
aesthetically it was not beautiful but
it it served the purpose
so make sure um you tell them i said
thank you and when i see them i'll tell
them thank you
yeah and ramp doesn't do it this is a
this was a big big job
um so if somebody just thinks this is a
two foot long ramp
um not the case this was a big big
project for these guys that put it
together in just a couple of days
um and really made this whole thing
possible so
tom shawnee all you guys thank you
all right uh you got anything else john
or uh
and and the other thing which i i think
will serve as something of a segue
of we we have something especially
during the times of kovid we have
a little bit of a conflicting use in the
city hall where
um i think most people know the second
floor of city hall to be
in use by um our court system
um and they typically have very tight
protocols in our court system
with covid you can ramp that up
exponentially
um so we have traditionally there is
there is one room on the second floor
that is used for the den
of the volunteer firefighters that
operate
out of the city hall and there's just
been
with the covered restrictions that have
been put in place by the state
governing the court system it's just
become
essentially untenable for the volunteers
to
effectively use that as as their their
dem their
their crash pad when they're you know
around ready to respond to emergency
calls and fire
so we've been we've been barking up all
sorts of trees and trying to figure out
all sorts of solutions for how we can
alleviate that conflict
and thankfully we have the legislator in
denise ford
and a county executive in laura curran
um and a legislature that is amenable to
the idea
of the the solution to eliminating that
conflict
is uh being able to establish you know
a a suitable trailer for
which will actually be a larger space
than they currently have and probably a
more comfortable space than the
volunteers currently have
in the back parking lot of city hall as
all of you are well aware the city is in
a very difficult financial situation
right
now and legislator floored has let it be
known that
there's a really good degree of comfort
that
the county executive and the legislature
under denise ford's lead
leadership um we'll be able to purchase
a trailer for us for use by
our volunteer firefighters um
as a den um that you know takes a not
insignificant chunk of
money this this needed to happen this
was not a choice
um and really gives a solution that we
did not have in-house so
um thank you legislator ford for that
thank you county executive kern and
thank you to the entire legislature for
um making this happen it's it's very
much appreciated
that is really good news and i'm sure
the
firefighters are going to appreciate it
so that's that's great uh
anybody got any questions for him on
this so uh
all right john you got anything else so
is that it or
i do believe that is it for me this
evening unless anyone's got anything
else
all right uh i would go to
tommy and uh to talk about the benches
because
um uh ron walsh's report is gonna be a
little longer
okay so uh jimmy
yep we can hear you all right i'm live
uh thank you for the the great
introduction there president bendo and
uh
you owe me stromboli because my mouth is
watering since you said so
all right um and uh just to uh
for those who don't know i'm tommy
cantor i'm donna has
moved me to the appropriate title of
director of operations
it's a better suited title i think we
all think um
so i'll just give you a quick update on
the benches
uh as you know the benches they keep
breaking
um people are you know they're working
out on them they're using them they're
they're doing box jumps on them if you
don't know what that is it's
when you you leap from a standing
position onto a stationary object
um and the the uv rays from the sun
it's just it's bleaching out the benches
and it they're like
they're pretty much past their prime i
did get an estimate
um you're not going to want to hear this
if we were to get
the parts we need to fix every bench
again
it would be 100 11 sixty dollars
we have an idea on how to keep the end
from breaking because there are three
legs on the benches
and the parts that overhang the ends
it's probably about
let's say a foot to 14 inches we were
thinking if we added a
fourth leg to the benches there wouldn't
be such an overhang so no matter what
anybody does if they jump on it
it's not going to break as easily to do
the pieces that we need a broken end the
fourth leg
you're talking three hundred thousand
nine hundred sixty dollars
it's a lot of money there are 960
benches
there are 300 people on the waiting list
that that waiting list can be
from yesterday to five years ago
so we definitely need to do something
obviously
um i was talking with greg scott and
donner about
you know billing the people on the bench
uh we have to definitely do something
here because
we're just going to start to get
complaints again that the benches are
broken which they are but i i just the
city can't sustain keep
to keep doing this we just spent i
believe it was about
35 000 not even
four months ago we replaced every bench
that was broken and here we are again
with a hundred and eleven thousand
dollars in parts
so i'm open to anything that you guys
want to do
uh but we we definitely have to make a
move quickly because we can't keep doing
this
one of the ideas was that we um take
some of the people on the list contact
them and ask them
if we could would they like to have the
bench in one of our parks
because three additional 300 benches on
the boardwalk is a lot of benches
um and or other areas in the city
you want to talk about that tommy yes
definitely we would like donna said we
have veterans park
there's approximately 40 benches there
that
were purchased by the city when the park
was built those benches need to be taken
out
they're rusty they're broken so if we
were to go down that list in priority
order and go from
the person who's been on the list the
longest and say hey we're going to put
your bench in the park
one we wouldn't have to pay for the
bench we would be able to
replace the benches in the park it's a
nicer bench it's a better bench
and we'll be able to you know have new
benches in the park and it wouldn't cost
us a dime
um there are a couple you know the other
parks that we have we can do the same
thing
um i think the the best thing we should
do is figure out exactly how many
benches we can put on the boardwalk
which will
all be on the north side now if we
let's just call it 100 benches we put
them on the boardwalk we put the rest of
them in the park
and then we figure out where we can put
the rest of the 300 to clear that list
because we all know that their
that list has been skipped so if we just
we can't shut the list down because
people are going to say hey
i've been on the list five years and
there's a bench that was put in
a month ago so to satisfy that like
donna said we need to do
other areas uh one of the areas we were
talking about is on bay drive from
magnolia down to washington boulevard
if we put benches along that walking
path that's something we can do
we could do the parks uh i don't think
there's really any more spots
on the beach or the boardwalk but if we
put our heads together we could figure
out how to
to beat up that 300 list of benches
i have a question maybe mr barrios can
answer this
um when people purchase
um a bench is it for forever
and it's my bench and the
city is now responsible to fix it or
is there a clause that says after three
years
you know you have to repay a certain
amount of money
i can look into it for you um
fair for for
one person or i mean i i know families
that
have benches and this is not to
disparage the
the memory of anyone just looking at
how much it cost in the long run if you
have a bench
for 20 years is it
does it turn over it
lives as far as far as i know in in the
past history is the bench
was purchased whatever the price of the
bench is
can you guys hear me yeah okay sorry
um the price of the bench whatever it is
there was a thousand dollar one-time
installment fee on top of it so it
usually comes to
anywhere about three thousand but then
the city
i don't know what the legalities are i
don't know what it says but we've been
fixing the benches and
the the way that the residents think is
that we are responsible the city is
responsible to keep
continuously fix that bench and that's
what we've been doing historically
yeah again i think that it's a legal
issue or a
contract issue moving forward perhaps
that
yes it just makes
it just makes sense to if you're
any type of memorial thing you have to
pay for for upkeep not if it's
intentionally broken
but if it's five years old
do you want to have this in your family
then you need to re-up your
tommy tell me what's the what's the
estimated annual maintenance cost for
the benches that currently exist
on the boardwalk if we were to charge
i think we should charge 500 a year
no i'm not i'm not even saying i'm sorry
tommy i'm not even saying i wasn't clear
so i'm not even saying
what we would charge people i'm saying
what what are the current costs of the
city
for the maintenance of the benches uh
an estimated cost per year where we're
putting
i would say a good estimate 75 000 a
year we're putting into these benches
is that is that with time and materials
or just materials
that's just material if we were to put
the time into it
um i'm gonna say we're we're at we're
over a hundred thousand i would say a
fair estimate
is 110 000
and that's every year exactly
and every year that goes by it's more
because as
as the benches become older and you know
the it's a composite material which is
it's like a plastic and sawdust is the
best way i could describe it
and from being in the sun it just it
deteriorates it it's i don't know if
you're familiar with the the material
tracks
yeah we used it for decking i know i
know mr bendo is
um as the sun beats on it the uv rays
it breaks it down so it becomes more
brittle
and with the salt water with the salt
air exposure and with the sun
they become more brittle and there's a
lot of benches out there that are up
there
you know quite some time so they start
to deteriorate and they break a lot
easier
so as each year goes by we're spending
more and more money and more and more
time on these benches
that's why i remember we had this
discussion last year
and that's why i thought we were looking
into
an innovative solution where we have
maybe a
higher one-time cost with a new type of
bench
so that in the out years we don't have
at least 110 000
maintenance because it's just like
you're kind of repairing a broken sort
of
a bench that doesn't have a a
longer life so why are we just going to
fix something that's
going to keep breaking down instead of
getting or using a diff type
different type of product more well
you see except for being on uh you know
on a boardwalk
i i agree with you to use a different
product
we're talking a lot of money we looked
into actually using the ipe wood which
is the same as the boardwalk the decking
but the the amount of money we would
spend in the labor is astronomical
there are different materials anything
that's metal we know it's going to rust
it's going to look horrible
there are a lot of different composite
materials it's just the labor involved
it would be it would be a huge
undertaking and it would be a huge
dollar amount
i think the best way the cheapest
fastest way and it's not
cheap is for us to add the fourth leg to
the bench
so it would be a little it'll be labor
intense but if we added that fourth leg
and we didn't have that overhang we we
shortened the span so to speak
i think that is as expensive as it is
150 000
and legs that would probably put a lot
of
of the breakage to bed because it's it's
like i said if the bench becomes brittle
for the sun beating on it
and if we have a less overhang if we
have like say four inches
past the legs it's not as likely to
break as if you have a foot hanging over
and that's
99 of the problems is those ends
breaking
so tommy if you actually shorten that
overhang how much longer would these
benches last you think
um i don't i couldn't say for sure but i
think
they'd last i'm gonna just go with it
with a guesstimate
i'm gonna say they're gonna last twice
as long as they are now
because that's 99 of it is
the end breaking off so if you shorten
that span it's a lot harder to break it
off
tommy could you uh with the with the
current three legs could you move the
outer legs out
closer to the end um
without adding that fourth one
we could we we looked at that as well we
could do that
we could give that a shot you know then
we wouldn't have to pay for anything it
would be just the labor
right because if if yeah if you move
them out
six eight inches you know might
accomplish the same thing i mean i i
guess you'd have to figure
hopefully we wouldn't get bowing in the
uh right
between the legs but uh
i'm sorry tommy go ahead i'm sorry liz
you go ahead first ladies first
um hi um i would just be interested to
see
the different scenarios and what each
scenario would end up costing over five
years and the one that that is the least
expensive
would probably be the optimal solution
well that's not necessarily true well
then
and we definitely need to look at it
if we go with with president bendo's
idea the only thing we'd have to
purchase is the hardware
and you're talking thousands you're
talking maybe
let's say six thousand dollars in
hardware and we would just it would just
be the labor
so we we could do we could take
maybe ten benches at a time and you know
we could move the legs out refasten them
put them back on the boardwalk and i
could figure out how many we could do in
a day but
i know i know my guys i'm gonna say that
they could probably do
like 20 in a day take a minute take them
off the boardwalk take them to the shop
you know move the legs apart put the new
hardware in put them back in that same
spot
i i know we could do it i think yeah
what we need to do
is uh what karen suggested we need to
cost it out
either way whether we move the legs um
a part in what's the potential of it
being
boeing list uh tommy let's get together
and look at all of the scenarios and
cost it out
um and then we can come back yeah and
the one with just moving the legs
uh out a little bit that we could pick a
few benches and do it as a test
since uh um
just as an experiment to see if it works
yeah we could do a half a dozen each way
and see what what works best i mean
yeah that's what i'm saying yeah the
three legs
is obviously a lot cheaper but we can
def we can do whatever you guys want
yeah hey just uh to circle back for a
second to the
uh to that list i mean
are we talking about potentially adding
benches for the sole purpose
of clearing the list and nothing else i
mean
you know have we actually like do we
need
do we need benches or is it the purpose
just to clear the list
yeah we absolutely don't need any more
benches there's way too many up there
already and that would be
that would be the goal to clear the list
just so we don't get any blow
with with people i don't know i think
this this needs to be discussed because
having more benches up there is is
there's no there won't be no place for
the fair there's going to be no place to
put concert things
well sorry that but people lock their
bicycles up to the railings
it's and if you're going to start
putting it on the north side
you're decreasing the walkability
for and strollers and
the bike lane becomes bigger and more
people are in the bike lane
again i this is something i think that
we should put a pin
in and continue to discuss
great another idea guys just listening
out loud
i know the benches the purpose of the
benches to some degree right is to
commemorate someone's memory
right um that memory need not be
embodied on the bench
well other places on the boardwalk we
can put these things well why can't we
have
such a big cost you know so much money
right i've seen i said why can't we have
like memorial boardwalk planks
or or or other things like that
um i mean one work that one of the
things that we talked about john i
talked about with donna is
we used to do the the commemorative
bricks in front of city hall
yep so we have that there's other areas
that we could just
discuss and put in those bricks maybe
along the bay front on that walking path
from magnolia to washington um and then
we you know one of one of my guys came
up with the idea that
we could have somebody do the same
plaque that they would put on a bench
but we would put it you know maybe uh 50
plaques on one big board
like um the artwork they
that the i think the junior high school
did at edwards boulevard
there's little pieces of the old
boardwalk like a little six foot
six inch piece and they painted them and
put sayings on them and they put them
all together on one big
you know one big area and then we
mounted it to the boardwalk that's
something else that we can look at
yeah so i don't think we're going to
solve any of this tonight i mean it's
obviously other things we could do
so why don't you guys put your heads
together and maybe come up with some
ideas because we're not going to solve
this right now
i would love to hear from the arts
council who is definitely more creative
than me for some innovative
solutions i think i think that that
tommy tommy tommy is looking to to um i
believe
tommy that you want to get it done and
that's your drive and that's what's one
of the things that's great about you
but but the thing is like what's really
the right solution maybe we need
other other other voices to like say
what's the best and compact most
compassionate and
solution you know you could have the
hollywood walk
you know where you have somebody has a
their name in a sidewalk or something
you could have
but i think the longer range um
issue that i have is
the current benches that are on the
boardwalk
will break down have broken down will
need to be replaced
the current people that have those
benches really should pay an annual
maintenance fee
and if it's 50 or 115
um and i don't know rich legally if
we could establish a policy going
forward but
from my understanding people come down
and whether they're out of state out of
town or local
that like to go to the bench and they
sit down they'll put flowers from time
to time
and it's a little quiet time i don't
think a cost to maintain that
good feeling or that product
that they placed there i don't think
it's asking too much if you maintain it
that's my personal opinion um at 111
000 divided by 960 benches you're
talking about 120
to 125 a year so that's the range that
we're looking at on an
annual cost but i like all of the
comments here as well
the three legs stretch them out i like
the other ideas so
this is a multi uh
it's a multi-faceted type of it's not
just picking the bench there's location
issues there's
a lot of things that i just want to give
you my
thought on it at least on the current
benches and the maintenance
thanks and i agree with with you karen
is uh
we need to get more people involved
because i look at it from just
the get it done part and um you know the
more people involved
if we pay attention to this one thing
here then we can solve it and one of the
things that i discuss with with donna
and you know
of course this would have to be
something that would be uh
through rich's office is if we put
something on the city website
that there are there's eight different
parts on the bench
not including the legs which they don't
really need to be replaced very often
and we just put that it's if this part's
broken
it's x amount of dollars including the
labor and
that's it if the bench breaks they know
exactly what it's going to cost
and then you know we can bill them for
that but
how we do that is that's out of my
league right so why don't why don't
you guys get together figure that out
with i guess with rich
and whoever else and uh you can come
back to us with some uh
some ideas on how to how to move forward
okay we'll do all right appreciate it
tommy
okay thank you all right
uh let's see i guess why don't we
talk about uh i guess we got a bunch of
uh
uh stuff regarding uh the police radios
and uh the oem and stuff like that
so uh and the dispatches and services
and
so why don't we go down that path
was that an intro uh i i guess if
if you're gonna handle it uh our our
incoming police commissioner ronald
walsh
there you go how are you how's everybody
tonight all right
all right so um first thing that
um we were discussing uh actually
with uh with donna was
the overall conceptualization of how
we're doing dispatch and dispatch
services
in the police department fire department
and
uh the learning experiences that we had
with our uh
snow storm and without oem is handled
here so
we started to evaluate and look at and
uh donna's asked me to look at the
communication services that we provide
here in the city
and uh we we have uh sort of a
bifurcated system right now it's
actually more than that if you think
about it we have
the police department that does police
ditch patching we have the fire
department that does
fire and ems dispatching and then we
have
all of the other radio capabilities that
we have in the city
for uh public works water department
sanitation
and all of the different disparate um
i guess you just said different
departments within the city so
um the concept here that we're looking
at now is
to merge the police and fire
dispatch units into one unit in one
co-located room so that uh
you have police and fire and making it
much more efficient because you have the
coordination and cooperation that will
take place with
emergencies happening in the same room
so if there's a fire department
emergency and you need police department
resources
to block off a particular steed or
something instead of making phone calls
or getting on the
one radio to talk to one dispatcher to
pick up a phone
to call the police dispatcher who gets
on their radio then to dispatch the call
the fire dispatcher goes we need a car
to block off beach and and
uh and virginia and okay and then she
gets on the radio and
he or she gets on the radio and does
that so the coordinator nation of
services
and just being close together is much
more efficient
not even withstanding that you also have
at times where it gets very busy in
storms and things like that
or with large-scale emergencies one
police spit dispatcher or
one fire dispatcher
the the idea here would be also to cross
train our dispatchers
to be able to handle police or fire or
ems dispatching
and emergencies so that if a large-scale
police
or a large-scale fire emergency was
taking place
they can work together in dispatching
the resources
necessary to handle the emergency and
coordinate that
the other thing you will have now is you
have about 20 to 22
part-time dispatchers that work in the
fire service
with no full-timers and in the police
department you have
four full-time dispatchers with one or
two
i think right now we have one part-time
dispatcher so if you can put them all
into one pool that is cross-trained
together you now eliminate the need to
have a police officer coming in
to do dispatching for the police
department when
someone calls out sick or someone goes
on vacation
or any number of other things happen
where people can't come to work
and you have the ability to train
both sides if you will as one
communications
unit so that's the concept
locating that above oem you have a
conference room i guess you would say on
the six and a half floor
of uh of the city hall building that
really isn't used right now so if it was
built
purpose-built as a dispatch and
communications center
you have the space to do that and it can
coordinate with oem
you reduce the footprint also in city
hall because you take
the dispatcher from the fire department
and the dispatcher from the police
department putting them in one room
building a new dispatch center while
you free up the space in the police
department which is overcrowded down in
that desk
area and eliminating the need for that
third floor room in city hall that the
fire department currently has
you also reduce cost of
equipment so uh i brought in uh
matt uh tannenbaum matt and i became
very familiar with
uh each other in nassau county we just
um
planned out several different radio
systems
and uh matt's very familiar you know in
nassau county i was in charge of the
communications bureau for the police
department and you know there's 37
different
different dispatch locations all
coordinate into one right next to fire
communications
so all they have to do is open up the
door and fire calm is there and there's
seamless communications there so matt if
you want to talk a little bit about some
of the concepts uh
here uh that i was that i was talking
about just to add a little bit of a
technical knowledge to it yeah yeah
thanks thanks
so you know one of one of the things
that um
that we discussed uh on wednesday i came
out and just looked over
what the the infrastructure where the
city is right now and
and really the purpose of that was just
to gather gather data
look at um look at what's uh what's
already installed
um and then kind of review you know best
practices
and uh collaborate with the city to make
some recommendations of
um you know if there is a possibility of
consolidating what's the best way to do
that uh and then
you know capitalize on some some other
infrastructure that
that the county has actually built uh
four cities and villages and towns uh
which the city doesn't currently use
uh so there i mean right now this is
really just exploring
on certain possibilities and then uh
you know coming back and collaborating
with everybody to to kind of
see what's the best practice here what
can be done to
streamline some of the pv operations
with oem
uh and then the other entities uh within
the uh within the city
so matt brought up a great segue matt
because
part of the design of the three radio
projects that i led up when i was in the
pd
was we have this old 800 radio system
that we
just rebuilt with six sites so i'll give
you a little
idea what that means we can drive around
anywhere in nassau county with this
particular system it was designed for
jail operations and for department of
public works county-wide
right and it's not just public works he
uses it
a lot of the villages and even
long beach used it for a while so
you could drive around with a mobile in
your car and talking 97 of nassau county
uh with so yeah with a mobile and with a
portable radio as long as you're not
inside a building or anything
relatively reliable it's not a police or
a public safety network
but i'll get to the how that all ties in
in a minute so
about two and a half years ago two years
ago when i was in
trying to find out we were trying to do
an audit of all of the
radios that we had out in the field that
the county had issued
we lost track of that because
dpw county dpw ran the radio systems for
a little while
and then it turned over to county oem so
too many hit cooks
too many chefs ruined the stew nobody
had any idea where the radios were right
so we did an audit and we sent out
emails to all the different agencies all
19 villages and the two cities
and uh we got answers back from
almost everybody except long beach they
didn't answer
so so long beach never answered whether
or not
they needed replacement radios
for the county issue radios that they
had
they were free we were taking them back
and giving new equipment to
the city or the villages so that
these systems will work and you have
interoperability too
well um i knew the system matt and i uh
worked on building it
it was the first real push that i did
when i got there
uh and uh i called denise ford and i
told her that um
we're gonna call and ask to get some of
these radios even though the city didn't
um didn't respond to the time there's a
great need here
and we're in a terrible financial uh uh
condition and denise
knows all too well so legislator ford
helped
us just get the the permissions that we
need to get
new equipment so i'm working with tommy
canner
and uh greg scott right now to map out
all of the vehicles
that we can put these radios in
so that you now have storm and emergency
coordination for dpw
so it's not sorry for public works but
it's not just public works
everything here is done uniquely so you
have beach maintenance
you have sanitation you have public
works
you have wrecked vehicles you have
outside water uh uh
uh vehicles all that coordinate
to do snow removal and salt who have no
way of cool or no communicating because
all the radios are broken in the cars
so we're triaging right now and
prioritizing
what vehicles definitely need it oh by
the way the buses too need it
so so
the city did put in a couple of years
back what's it uh
what's that what's the system they put
in matt the motors uh
the radio system that they uh recently
put in a couple years ago okay
there's a bunch of technologies that the
city is using one of them being the moto
turbo system that's it
and then there's a couple of point point
systems as well um so it's a you know
we're not looking to replace
every single unit and you know come in
and say oh everything you have
has to be replaced now that's this is
really to augment that
and to streamline up so what we're able
to do now
is take you have about a third of the
radios in all the vehicles that work
so we're going to replace with new
equipment from the county those radios
and
add probably another we're going to add
a total about 60 or 70 radios into our
vehicles
take the existing radios that still work
put them in vehicles
that don't work and on the moto zoom
we're going to
patch the two systems together so they
still can all talk to one another
and have a much more efficient and
productive way of approaching storms and
emergencies
whether it's man-made or natural
disasters and be able to coordinate
ourselves
we're also going to put ron let's go
back because denise is on the phone
let's go back to where we talked about
the oem
and
you can say it if you want no i we made
a call we figured
that it's going to cost us about 300 000
to bring to put oem all of the dispatch
services to the uh
sixth floor and um i called um
legislator forward and said i need some
help
and she is giving us hundred and seventy
five thousand
of the three hundred thousand dollars we
need wow
so i want to say to you on this call
again
and again and again thank you thank you
and
um you will get our documentation in my
letter next week
yes we're looking i'm so quick and i'm
i'm very happy to do this you know
we're all long beaches and uh you know
for me uh you know
as chairwoman of public safety you know
safety is of the utmost importance and
by having a really uh top-notch
communication system
i think will provide protection for not
only our residents
but as well for the offices so i'm more
than happy and i'm glad that i i
have the funding that i'm able to do
this so um you know ron has a lot of
work to do
and he has to go through the process of
dealing with an ima
and getting it through the system and
he'll probably want to
scream by the end of it but um you'll
have to be patient
and uh but i look forward to this i
really enjoy doing i
i thank you donna and this city council
and and our new
uh soon to be police commissioner you
know for your forward thinking and and
making every effort to start uh making
such needed improvements in our city
that will benefit everybody so it's my
place the small part that i'm playing
you guys are doing all the hard work and
thank you
well i want to say thank you to to you
uh legislator ford because
without the money it's not possible
so thank you very very very much for for
giving us the ability to at least even
approach this as
a uh as a cure to some of the ills of
the city it's really great stuff
thank you um so just to finish this up a
little bit
um on like
i just want to touch base on something i
didn't get a chance to mention on the
last working session about the last
the only activation we had of oem on
january 31st
through the february 2nd with that
snowstorm
um you know the snow emergency was
declared
and and with that it
it turns into you you have snow
emergency routes well if nobody
gets off your snow emergency route you
can't fly your street you can't get
you don't have to egress across the city
and it becomes a problem
so the police department was was very
responsive
you should know that over those couple
of days
we issued 272 summons on the snow
emergency route
and we towed uh six a total of 19 cars
which is something that hasn't been done
for a long time in the city really going
out there and trying to enforce these
things
trying to get the behavior modification
so that when people hear
the police department and the fire
department going up and down the streets
we've declared a snow emergency
we need you to move your cars that we're
not simply ignored
because it's life or death if something
bad happens
when those routes are not open so i want
to commend them
for that uh for that for the work that
they did there being out in
terrible terrible conditions and you
know they were pushing cars they were
digging cars out
i mean dona gaiden and i what did we do
uh
uh on uh that monday night we got a call
from a
rather upset citizen who had her and her
elderly husband had just shoveled out
their car and their driveway and the
plow came by and
buried him back in so donna and i went
out with shovels and
we were digging out the cars and the dpw
public works trucks came up and we got
them back and we had
we had a happy customer that night but
uh it's just things like that to be able
to coordinate to be able to be out there
and having the police officers and
specials and
all the different enforcement and the
way the city kind of came together
oem opened up it was a little i'd say a
little shaky in the beginning
uh city manager gayden but it got worked
out before the end of that day and it
was a very uh very good uh test run for
our oem
to see how we were able to handle handle
storms and uh you know tommy played it
tommy and greg both played big big roles
in
getting the city in that so uh all in
all that that's that's sort of my report
today i'm opening up for any questions
any you guys might have
to get a better understanding of the
direction we're looking at
the one thing i want to say is that we
went to the ladies house
um she called i answered the phone i
never identified myself as a city
manager
and so we went to her house and we dug
out her
driveway we started shoveling until
tommy's guys got there she didn't know
really who we were to she called the
police department
and to say thank you and they told her
who we were
and so i want to say to ron thank you
because what we did and what we continue
to do this is not the first time we've
been out there shoveling snow
it's about us helping the residents in
the community
and our job titles does not stop us from
getting out helping people that are in
need
yeah well well it's it's just it's just
great pr leadership what we should be
doing i appreciated the opportunity to
do it
um any questions
on any of the radio stuff or anything
yeah when when matt
inventoried the equipment how many of
them still had vacuum tubes
you're not far off uh john um there's
there's quite a bit of aged equipment up
in that uh
up in the the communications room
that so so you know
the beauty about what we're doing with
the radios is the county
it's on the county's radio system
so we will once we get all of our
vehicles over to that
system we no longer have to maintain
that
all we have to maintain is the equipment
to communicate the radios and the car
and the portables
the the county is providing the villages
and the cities
with radio systems
the small system that they're using
matt and i the big system that denise
and the and the county legislature just
approved
which will be up and operational in
about five
four years for three years actually and
then five years for to get everybody
rolled on
is going to take this six site system
remember i said
it's limited on portables and it becomes
a 24 site system
which will be one of the most robust
public safety radio systems
in the country and it has the bandwidth
for the fire department the police
department
all of our all of our city operations
for the whole county so we built a
system
that all the villages and cities will
have to do
is have end user equipment and
everything else
is on the city side on the county side
because they were doing it anyway
all it was was just creating greater
bandwidth and technology
has permitted that at a much much
cheaper expense than it would have been
capable of
20 years ago looks like liz has a
question
yeah um thank you thank you denise ford
uh thank you incoming police
commissioner thank you matt
uh as so are will our residents see
an increase for for example when we
have to call 9-1-1 it goes to 9-1-1
and then it goes somewhere else and then
it goes somewhere else and then we
and then we get to the fire department
or the police department
okay so will they notice a difference in
time
and not necessarily time response
to the incident but will they notice the
difference in
how many how long they're waiting on no
not at all as a matter of fact what
we're looking at is not changing the
manner in which
emergency calls come in at all all it is
is the end
side so the way this city works as you
understand it is if you're within the
city
limits and you dial 9-1-1 on a cell
phone
right right 9-1-1 should show up here in
the city but if you're any place else
and you hit a tower that's not within
the city limits
you go to county 9-1-1 and then they
forward you
if you dial a landline in the city then
it goes right to
9-1-1 within the city okay
fire com which is not us
if i if you call for the fire department
and you get county 911
they send you the fire comm and then
fire come send you to the fire
department
so you know and that's another thing
we're just looking at at this point is
making sure that we have the best
possible
service to the city
so that we get the quickest response of
our emergency responders
so it's kind of all being evaluated at
this time but as of right now it looks
like what we just want to do
is bring together the current services
that we have
for the city and make that the most
efficient and productive it can be
while lowering expenses thank you sir
okay um ron and matt is there is this a
um this is my delorean
um the uhf or the the band
systems that are supposed to be
um updated upgraded where
um i don't know where we are the city is
today i don't know where the county is
today
but it sounds like the goal is to be on
one type of delivery mechanism
where the band whether it's uhfv i don't
remember but there is a goal to get to
the highest level
of the type of communication
and then delivery as far as like towers
or
repeaters or things like that is that
part of an infrastructure improvement
that's needed as well
so uh i'll take the first whack out at
matt and then uh you could add color
if you will you know what i mean so the
way the way the way you what you're
talking about is
our radios here in the police department
and for the county uh have a tendency of
getting wiped out what's called which is
what's called
tropospheric ducting from around may to
around october
it can happen at any time but that's
generally when you have like this thing
called an atmospheric inversion
where the radio waves start bouncing off
the atmosphere and it comes from norfolk
virginia television stations that
basically wipe out our ability to
communicate
long beach has a rudimentary backup
system that goes on vhf
right matt yeah so which is very high
frequency
and that's not subject to the deducting
the new system that the county built
doesn't experience building out bigger
doesn't experience that phenomenon
because those frequencies aren't used by
television statements
so to answer your question yes we are
going to the place
where there will be less interference
much more reliable
and much more redundant thank you uh
commissioner you're welcome you want to
add anything to that matt
no just just uh you know i started
reviewing just the city's
fcc licenses and uh so pretty much
you're operating
on almost every spectrum
um that's been used over the past you
know 20 years
from 46 megahertz you know low band
up to vhf up to uhf um pretty much
you know all over the the the fcc uh
um radio waves uh the system that
um that we're looking at uh would
migrate a lot of that
over to the county backbone which is a
you know
really really robust uh
you know public safety grade uh system
thank you matt
anything else for anybody you're on mute
john
and i'm assuming these uh heaven forbid
we have another sandy type thing
having tie in with county communications
i assume would also be helpful
um right because this is now when would
local
uh obviously wouldn't be just a local
network anymore
right so the so the the police
department already uses the county's
uh public safety network oh they do okay
yeah but
and so they would be rolling up anyway
so when that system gets turned on for
the police departments
this the county will be providing new
mobile and new
portable radios for the for the city
um and i mean look the radios that we're
installing here now
uh just for these cars out in the field
for dpw
for public i say dpw i apologize for
public works and
all the other vehicles the buses and
stuff it's probably at a
would cost us 250 000 just for that so
we're getting those for free
probably within the next several months
all these cars will be taken care of for
that
and then the building out of the oem
center i mean
we've offset 275 000 of course from
legislative ford's
grant to us so we're making huge strides
to really start to upgrade but there's a
lot more to be done i don't want you to
think that this is
this is oh great we took care of the
radios if you really wanted to do this
top to bottom left to right put
everybody on the one backbone you're
looking at a million bucks
you know so we don't have that right not
including the radios i'm just talking
about the system
you should know that a public safety
police officer radio retail courses
for the one mobile that they hold in
their hand that's thirteen thousand five
hundred dollars radio
for the radios in the car it's what six
thousand now matt for the dual band
yeah roughly yeah right so
that stuff is being given to the city
when the police go over
this equipment is being given to the
city for our public works
type of work and coordination of effort
for
snow and emergency response for other
than public safety
so once we just get this part done
the functionality tommy counter and greg
scott room i offer saying this is
fantastic
you know just the ability to talk to
each other and coordinate
and do it from one location too because
when we have an emergency
they'll be able to sit in the oms oem
office
and talk on their radio to their trucks
out in the field
and being able to direct them as the
calls come in from the public
and from the officers who are saying hey
you know this road is blocked and tommy
says you know what
hey billy get over to whatever whatever
street and knock and clear that out
it's blocked right now that much faster
which you don't have right now it's cell
phones
is what they're using while they're
driving and everything else so it's a
much much greater
level of efficiency
denise ford two home runs tonight yeah
i'd call this a grand slam yeah yeah hat
trick whatever yeah um
this is karen i'm sorry i had some i.t
connection uh issues but um
this unglamorous type of work is the
foundation to professionalize the city
and to move us forward
and it's a lot of work it takes a lot of
time
it takes a lot of cooperation and
communication across all the departments
and it's it go it's it's really
appreciated
by the council i hope i speak for all of
us that
this this is a tremendous amount of work
to move us
to move us forward and um we recognize
that we know it every day and we are um
your enthusiasm is inspiring and
catching
so i'm just excited to see all the
departments working together to uh
to help each other to keep us safer and
to make the employee have the employees
enjoy
you know working together more so thank
you all right
one last piece all of the installs for
all this stuff
they're coming here and doing it in our
garage we're gonna have to take our
trucks out of here
to get it done so they're really the
county's really being fantastic about it
it's
awesome that's all i got done everybody
john
finally the into intergovernmental
cooperation
absolutely nice to see
very nice to see so
all right uh let's see uh
that's all i am all right so we're going
on about an hour and a half so that's
unless somebody's got something else
maybe this is a good uh
good point to call it a night um
but uh yeah i guess before we go i guess
i gotta thank denise again i don't know
if she's still
listening but uh yeah that was
i am john yeah big thank you big thank
you
um but uh yeah good blo well
we're moving in the right direction so
making progress so that's that's
that's all good so uh liz has got her
hand up so yes miss treston
uh just to piggyback on uh
cooperation uh a reminder that
on saturday at 6 00 p.m
denise ford missy miller myself
and denise please help me with the
doctor's name
from the town of hempstead dr dave
newburgh
uh we will be doing uh some an info
on covid and vaccines on
facebook and you could find it on the
city's facebook page
as well as missy miller's
assembly page so i appreciate that
and on a final note if we're closing out
happy chinese new year
do you know what year it is
i do because i have to thank one of our
residents mr clancy who
wrote us at the very beginning that he
would like to see it on the
this year's calendar it is the year of
the ox
the ox okay
all right uh anybody else got anything
all right seeing nothing we don't have
to get mike to make a motion to close
the meeting
so uh all right uh thanks everyone for
joining
uh i guess we'll see you tuesday night
at the council meeting
so happy valentine's day and oh yeah
happy valentine's day
tomorrow is a city holiday but um
sanitation will be taking place as
normal in case anyone was not aware of
that
uh monday is president's day and i
believe the same is in effect but
check the city's website in case there's
any doubts
okay thank you thanks everyone
all right thanks every