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ALBANY COUNTY LEGISLATURE COUNTY OF ALBANY

STATE OF NEW YORK

March 17th, 2016

Members of the Albany Common Council City Hall 24 Eagle Street Albany, New York 12207

Dear Members of the City of Albany Common Council:

We write today not only as duly elected officials, but also in our capacities as leaders in our respective communities, concerned about our city and its well-being. We comprise members from both uptown and downtown communities, diverse in population, ethnicity, and socio-economic standing.

The City of Albany is in dire financial straits. Expenditures for costs such as health-care and pension contributions for the workforce continue to increase, complicating and reducing any savings the city realizes through streamlining services and other cost cutting initiatives. Making matters worse, as we all know, a significant amount of real property located in Albany is tax-exempt, limiting the amount of revenue the City can realize through real property taxes. Fortunately, Governor Cuomo has recognized our City’s fiscal condition and pledged a “spin-up” of $12.5 million in committed state aid from Albany’s payment in lieu of taxes (“PILOT”) program for the empire state plaza.

Unfortunately, despite this commitment by the State, as part of the 2016 city budget, a new municipal tax is nonetheless being assessed and forced on a specific segment of Albany’s population, namely those who own and live in multi-family dwellings between 2-4 units for garbage removal. In our view, this tax is discriminatory and should be immediately repealed.

Tenant advocacy groups and landlord associations are in full agreement on this issue. The trash tax is completely arbitrary and fundamentally unfair. Moreover, the tax does nothing to encourage individuals to decrease the amount of solid waste they produce or encourage

recycling. It is an illogical flat tax that will hurt families who can least afford increases in their cost of living expenses.

It is for these reasons we strongly support Councilman Krasher’s Local Law B - 2016 repealing the garbage tax moving forward. If the City wishes to raise revenue off the collection of solid waste, in our view the issue should be looked at in a more holistic and comprehensive manner.

Thank you for your time and consideration to this matter. We look forward to working with you in ways possible to accomplish this goal.

Sincerely,

Luci McKnight Mert Simpson

Lucille McKnight, 1st District Merton Simpson, 2nd District

Wanda Willingham Norma Chapman

Wanda Willingham, 3rd District Norma J. Chapman, 4th District

Chris Higgins Doug Bullock

Christopher T. Higgins, 5th District Doug Bullock, 7th District

Gary Domalewicz Frank Commisso

Gary Domalewicz, 10th District Frank Commisso, 12th District

Ray Joyce

Raymond Joyce, 13th District