City Council

Samanta R. Mykoo From: noreply@civicplus.com Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 4:46 PM To: John Mootooveren; Samanta R. Mykoo Subject: Online Form Submittal: City Council Privilege of the Floor Submission Form City Council Privilege of the Floor Submission Form First Name Christian Last Name Garramone Address City Schenectady State New York Zip Code 12304 Phone Number Email Address Privilege of the Floor PUBLIC HEARING Register to Speak during the Public Hearing - items on Council Agenda for public hearing Council Meeting Comments Christian Garramone Party for Socialism and Liberation City Council Testimony 9/26/21 The city council’s efforts to criminalize dissent while doing nothing to mitigate the police’s criminal reign of racist terror is downright heinous and reveals the reality of our situation here in Schenectady and across the country. Working people here in Schenectady, especially Black and brown workers, know the police as an occupying force that they only interact with when they are being removed from their homes during an eviction, or removed from their families during an arrest. Every day, Schenectady tenants are illegally evicted from their homes and have their essential services turned off by landlords, yet the police do nothing to stop this. The people of Schenectady want to live lives of dignity, lives free of fear. 1  Thousands of people filled the streets this past year, demanding accountability for police brutality, demanding that resources are poured into communities and not the police. The police have responded to this with further brutality and repression. On July 6th 2020, Schenectady City Police Officer Brian Pommer brutalized Yugeshwar Gaindarpersaud. This took place only two months after George Floyd was murdered using the same chokehold, igniting racial justice protests all over the country. He remains a member of the Schenectady police department. He was never charged, and Schenectady city council did nothing to condemn his actions despite the people of Schenectady demanding it. The city of Schenectady’s government and their armed forces, the police, are now involved in a coordinated attack against the very people that were calling for justice for Mr. Gaindarpersaud. They are trying to discourage all those speaking out against injustice and silence protest. Two weeks ago a measure gained traction within the city council attempting to censure anti-racist organizer Jamaica Miles, basing this on Miles’ calls for justice and for the end of police brutality. They used an unconstitutional arrest that Miles faced in Saratoga as part of that city’s similar crackdown on racial justice protestors in order to bolster their case to censure Miles. In doing this Schenectady elected officials opted to stand with racist police from another city, over their own residents. Protestors are facing unconstitutional charges here in Schenectady and all across the capital region in order to prevent progress and maintain the status quo. We demand that the elected officials of Schenectady stand with the people, and sign on to the calls to drop charges against anti-racist protestors across the capital region. Democracy demands it. Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 2 Samanta R. Mykoo From: All Of Us Untitled And Free <untitledandfree@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2021 9:13 PM To: Newsie Gazette; news@news10.com; news@wamc.org; news@wrgb.com; newstips@wnyt.com; Mercedes.williams@charter.com; Pete.DeMola@timesunion.com; albanynews@charter.com; pnelson@timesunion.com; Elaine Houston; Blee@dailygazette.net; Gary McCarthy; Marion Porterfield; Carmel Patrick; Karen ZalewskiWildzunas; John Mootooveren; John Polimeni; Samanta R. Mykoo Subject: To the Mayor and the Schenectady City Council CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. To the Mayor and the Schenectady City Council, I am a life-long resident in the City of Schenectady. I will be 47 this month. I am a mom. I am my mother’s and father’s daughter. I am a woman of faith. I am the co-founder of All Of Us. I am also an elected official, recently elected as a representative for the Schenectady City School Board. Though, I do not stand here before you speaking for the school board. I am a concerned community member. There is a troubling trend developing here in the Capital Region: A coordinated backlash from city council members, DAs, and other law enforcement against the recent protests about racial inequality, structural violence, and poverty. This effort is an abuse of power, fear mongering and intimidation. It is an attempt to maintain the status quo, deter others from protesting, and to prevent any further progress toward justice from being made. The people of this country have the right to peacefully demonstrate and protest without fear of government retaliation.This attack on protesters is an attack on our first amendment rights of free speech and assembly. It is an attack on our democracy. I am here for all of us. People across race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, geography, language, country of origin, and ability levels are uniting, not dividing, to ensure that we reach the tomorrow we all deserve--one of freedom, justice, and opportunity for all of us, not just some of us. What we see happening here in the Greater Capital Region of NY is happening across the state and across the country. People are demanding justice. People are demanding transformative change. And, there are those who seek to stop them. Some in positions of power are ignoring the pleas for justice and demanding silence. Activists, advocates, and organizers everywhere are being targeted and arrested in an attempt to deny them and the 1 people the rights of free speech and assembly, which sends the message that those currently in positions of power are willing to abuse their positions to maintain that power. What we are seeing in real-time is government retaliation. Regarding the statements recently made by Karen Zalewski-Wildzunas we see that instead of choosing to address the concerns that many of our residents face, she has chosen to ignore their lived experiences and pretend they aren’t true. Like other conservative and right leaning politicians, Karen, a registered Democrat, has decided to traffic in fear not solutions, an age-old tradition that suggests that people should fear change. The truth is that investment in the people of our communities is the best tool to address the safety needs of our community. Substantial evidence has shown that investing, developing, and supporting education and economic programs do, in fact, lead to less offenses and safer communities. This will necessarily mean a reallocation or refocusing of government funding. Instead of considering that there are alternatives to the way things have always been done, Karen has dug in her heels to demand we keep the status quo or even strengthen failed programs. That is not listening to the entire community that she claims to represent. How could we not listen to the hundreds and thousands of people who filled the streets last year and all the individual testimonies of other residents that we have heard? The safety of all of our residents means that we listen to all of the voices, not pick and choose who to listen to. For the health and wellbeing of our community, it is important that elected officials and other leaders in the community accept and value the different experiences of the residents in the City of Schenectady, use that information to develop policies and invest our resources accordingly. Doing this not only acknowledges those experiences but transforms our city into one that is equitable and representative of all of its residents. Sent from my iPhone 2 Good Evening Everyone, Let me start by saying that Ms. Miles and I do not agree on many things. However, we have an open dialogue because I know that Ms. Miles as an activist is not standing in the streets protesting by herself. Which means that there are citizens that feel things need to change, or at the very least they feel their voice is not being heard. Question for you all… who has reached out to speak with these citizens in earnest…? I digress, after being in attendance for many meetings and doing a plethora of research to make sure I understood each council member correctly. The importance of words being used properly in this chamber is something I cannot stress enough. So in studying a Resolution that was brought forward by current Councilwoman KZW, the only thing I found “driving a wedge” between citizens and the officers who serve the community is a form of rhetoric that some are choosing to participate in still without relent or caution. Her Resolution was designed to show her unflagging support for our brothers in blue. This is great and I will remind everyone that there are other ways to show your support for our first responders, as was shown this weekend…. During their committee meeting I also heard the misrepresentation of certain buzz words behind her resolution instead of speaking factually and in full detail. Choices were made to speak from a political view only, and with their local election coming up I get it. I caution against doing this though because we've seen the real world implications of misspoken words and fear mongering with the happening at our nation's capital earlier this year. Now to immediately dispel this misnomer, the Schenectady city council to my knowledge has never discussed defunding the police inside any budget vote. So quick fact checks before I finish, Ms. KZW made a statement that no one's first amendment rights were taken away. Obviously, this is true because the resolution was not passed and it would be a gross overreach of power that this council doesn’t have to place a gag order on any citizen or elected official on any level. I would advise Councilman Polimini to be very careful when attempting to verbally spar with Schenectady citizens and other council members with the notion and generalization that people are only defending Ms. Miles because they are “Friends, Colleagues or know each other”. I was born and raised here. As we know, if you lived in Schenectady long enough just about everyone recognizes.. each other. This isn’t NYC. So when the people come to the defense of someone in the community, you should listen, usually it’s because they feel something is being done incorrectly or improperly. Next, I agreed with you Mr. Polimini that I wish we could have spoken about the shooting that occurred earlier this month in Schenectady instead of this resolution. However, when oppression concepts are still being brought forth in 2021 and some choose to use politics to hide behind personal agendas, prejudices, or launch personal attacks this becomes the focus. So I ask has anyone reached out to the family of the young man who lost his life in Schenectady, since it was brought up. His stepmother is an Albany Med nurse and was working the night her son was transported to Albany Med… That family is still grieving. So if you answered no you haven’t reached out, maybe a moment of self-reflection should happen post-haste. Lastly, what happens when people are cursing at you and spewing obscenities? What should happen; is willingness to understand why this is occurring and an attempt at finding a solution. What should not happen is that we attempt to dig our heels into the ground and continue to fight in a position that is improper and unproductive. Lastly, I want to make this clear, you set a dangerous precedent if you begin this process of targeting any persons in a resolution because they disagree with you on policy, view or otherwise. No matter how elegantly or invigorated you speak on it, the notion to stop any person from speaking freely in this great country is indeed a statement being made against their first amendment rights. Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. As elected officials, your true service is to be public servants, if you are not willing to do this job for all whether they support your cause or disagree with you this is what the job is embodied to entail and you may want to rethink your current position. I hope that certain members of this Council move next only looking to focus on improvement and not on frivolous actions for notoriety. Thank you