Paul Szmal: Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason is here as we recap the items from last night's City Council meeting. Good morning, sir. How are you today?
Chuck Mason: Hey. Good morning, Paul. I'm good. How are you?
Paul Szmal: Good. Good. A little bit on the agenda yesterday. I take it this first item here, this is the formal adoption of the adjustment of the hours of operation for the cannabis dispensaries in the city.
Chuck Mason: That's right. When we do an ordinance to adjust the city code, it's usually a process, but especially when it's a zoning, a change to the zoning code, it sets up a process which requires a public hearing. So this was first read into the record at City Council about a month ago, and the change is to simply, on the local code, change the hours of operation that a legally licensed New York State cannabis retailer can operate. The old hours were 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The new hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. These shops that are popping up the last two, three years throughout the state are the new legally licensed and sanctioned through New York State Office of Cannabis Management shops. They are not the mom-and-pop style smoke shops that you see popping up. So they operate very similarly to how a liquor store operates under the state liquor authority with a liquor license. So the cannabis retailers are licensed by the state. The public hearing was held last week in front of the planning board. We did receive a couple of comments from individuals that were concerned about the change in the hours. But last night, the Council didn't hear from anybody specifically at the meeting, but did go ahead and it was a unanimous vote to make this change, and it takes effect immediately. So the new hours of operation for these stores in Auburn are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Now, Council did have discussion. All members of Council weighed in on making sure that there would be an ability for the City of Auburn to enforce these hours, and Mayor and Council members giving the direction to the City Manager and Codes Department and Police Chief to make sure that we're on the lookout for making sure that these closing hours are adhered to moving forward. So that change has now been made, and it was a unanimous vote, and those stores may now operate within the City of Auburn until 10 p.m.
Paul Szmal: There were a couple of resolutions last night. I'll get to the ones that sound like they're the procedural ones first. The authorization for the sale of equipment and miscellaneous items, and there was also the awarding of a contract for real estate services. The real estate services, that's a renewal, right?
Chuck Mason: That's right. It ended up being a renewal. It's a unanimous vote of the Council to continue to work with the real estate agency, Matt Chelanek in town here. He has had the contract for the last couple of years, and various employees of his have been involved with the real estate transaction, but this approach that the City's been using by utilizing a real estate agent to try to sell some of the properties that the City comes into possession with through the foreclosure process has been very successful in helping us to really find owners that are looking to restore these properties and get them back to useful use in the City, especially owner-occupied properties, and we've had success with getting some of these sold to people that do intend to live in them. Some people, we've sold them, they fix them up, and then sell them to a next seller, so that's part of the process is to make sure there's a little bit of control from the City of Auburn to be able to decide who the next owner is going to be and that the next owner is going to have the interest of the neighborhood that these houses are located in at heart. So last night, now there were quite a few real estate agencies in the Auburn area that did apply through this process. We had great interest in this this time. We thank everybody for their interest. There was a scoring committee. The scoring committee interviewed about four different firms, and in the end, it was the real estate agency that ends up getting the work for the next one, two, or three years. So it's at least one year in the City. Both parties have the ability to renew it for a second or a third year if everything's going well.
Paul Szmal: And then that authorization of the sale of equipment and miscellaneous items, that I guess is classified as just one of those procedural things you have to do every year.
Chuck Mason: Yeah, exactly. Anything that's over $1,000 in value needs to come to the Council if the City's going to sell it off. Any asset, a lot of times the older vehicles, you know, the City, we kind of, we'll use a vehicle as long as it can be used. So a lot of times these might be 20-year-old vehicles, and we can usually sell them to somebody that's looking for parts, but not a lot of use when we get to it. But surprisingly, while you would be surprised that, you know, one person's junk is another person's treasure, is the way the old saying goes, is that there's always interest in these old pieces of equipment and old vehicles whenever they get to auction. A lot of times things do sell at auction. So it's a great way for the City to reclaim some money for some of this old outdated equipment.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Auburn City Clerk Chuck Mason on FLX Morning, recapping last night's City Council meeting. There were a couple of other resolutions. There was the adoption of the Fiscal Year 2026-2030 Capital Improvement Plan, and there was also the establishment of a retirement incentive.
Chuck Mason: The retirement incentive is tied to the budget process in a slight way. We will offer a retirement incentive annually, and a lot of times there's a retirement incentive language in the union contracts that the City has. We have six different bargaining units. However, this year the City went ahead with this special incentive that's available for the next six to eight weeks for people to take advantage of. It offers a little bit more when it comes to assisting retirees with health insurance payments for the five years after they retire. There is an incentive to take that health insurance or take a cash payment. This was adopted unanimously by the City Council last night. It's been talked about over the past few weeks leading up to tonight's vote as part of the budget discussions that have been being had. We will see. We've also been communicating with the local unions and the City staff to see who would be interested. We've held some meetings with New York State retirement representatives so staff could ask questions of the retirement system. There was good interest at the meetings that we've had. So more to come on this. We'll see how many people take advantage. But if a person that's been working for the City for several years and even times it's decades decides to retire, that usually will provide a cost savings that would most likely allow the City Council in final budget decisions to be able to save some of the job positions that quite otherwise might have to be cut. This will be important to see how this ends up in a few weeks. Last year we did have a handful of people that took the early retirement incentive. You never know. But with the budget situation that we've been in and with the transparency that's been out there on taking a good close look at our budget, I think there's a good understanding amongst our whole organization that we're in a financial tight spot right now. So that might provide some incentive for some people to take up the offer for the early retirement. But again, Paul, this last night, approved by the City Council by a unanimous vote.
Paul Szmal: And there were, speaking of the budget, Phase 3 of the budget presentations last night. Planning and Economic Development and Code Enforcement did their presentation with Steve Selvick, Mike Talbot, the DPW presentation, and Nick Garland, the attorney, did the Corporation Council budget presentation. Any particular highlights from any of those that are worth noting?
Chuck Mason: Well, all very important services. And they're kind of the services that happen in every community that we kind of just never really think about and take advantage of. You go to the park, it's very nicely well maintained. You don't really think twice about it. You get up in the morning, your road has been plowed, you get to work on time. These are the budgets that affect the people that are behind the scenes doing a lot of the work that we take advantage of on a day in and day out basis. And all of these departments are very much appreciated. And however, with the situation that we're in, each department did present scenarios for different 8% cuts and 11% cuts, would have some staffing impacts. Not specific recommendations at this point in time for what staffing positions would be affected. But also, you know, these are the budgets that affect a lot of the things that we really love in the Auburn area. Some of the outdoor concerts in the summertime, some of the events that we have in the downtown area, some of the activity that we have down at Casey Park and Falcon Park, such as the pool in the summertime, you know, got quite an education last night about how expensive it is to actually run an Olympic sized municipal pool like we have for a very short season. So more to come on this, there are definitely some cuts in there that will get people's attention if they have to be cut in the end. It does kind of look like this council is going to have to make some of those decisions. Those decisions will be made in May. And Paul, we have one more week next week. We'll be taking a look at the Department of Municipal Utilities budget, which is the water, the sewer and the hydroelectric facilities that we have in Auburn. And then we'll be getting a revenue presentation from the Comptroller, an updated revenue forecast. So next week will be the fourth of four council meetings in April that we took a good, close look at each department in the city. And then the council will be back in May to start making some decisions.
Paul Szmal: And Chuck will be back one week from today to recap those presentations and the other resolutions that might be on the table for next week's agenda. Chuck, as always, appreciate it. Have a good weekend, sir.
Chuck Mason: Thank you.
