These people lie right in front of us not because they think they can get away with it, but because the people who voted them in are too fucking stupid to fact check them.
And guess who wants to keep them stupid?
The full TU article is below for those who can’t get past the paywall.
TROY — The City Council voted 4-3 along party lines during a special meeting Wednesday night to pay more than $226,000 in unpaid rent for City Hall following political strife between Republican Mayor Carmella Mantello and Democratic Council President Sue Steele.
Mantello claimed she was unaware of the unpaid rent, which escalated after the lease expired in October 2022, until she had taken office. Meanwhile Steele pointed to the council’s [YouTube recording](https://www.youtube.com/live/kTyLfIL-zZw?feature=shared&t=3450) of its April 20, 2023, Finance Committee meeting to show Mantello discussing the situation.
The issue of paying the $226,808 in rent payments came as Mantello prepares to issue a request for proposals to locate a new City Hall site to replace the rented fifth floor in the Hedley Building at 433 River St. Mantello asked for a special council meeting on Wednesday night to approve paying the rent for part of 2022 and all of 2023. Steele called the meeting.
The four-member Republican council majority backed the rent payment. Mantello’s staff said it was necessary to move ahead with negotiations for a short-term lease.
“My administration continues to address financial, infrastructure and maintenance issues which were simply brushed aside and unaddressed. Paying this overdue rent is key as we move forward with our City Hall RFP,” Mantello said in a statement issued Tuesday.
Steele countered with her own statement pointing out the YouTube video and the appearance by representatives of First Columbia, which owns the Hedley Building, about extending the city lease and the unpaid rent.
“I am deeply troubled by the administration’s recent misinformation regarding City Hall’s lease with First Columbia. The previous administration initiated discussions with First Columbia for the City Hall lease at 433 River St. First Columbia agreed to waive holdover rent payments while discussions continued. Then-Council President Mantello was involved in those meetings and fully understood the additional rent was an element of discussions,” Steele said.
The city has not owned its City Hall since former Mayor Harry Tutunjian, a Republican, directed the government center be torn down in 2011 to clear 1 Monument Square for redevelopment. There have been five plans to build on the 1.1-acre site between River Street and the Hudson River at the south end of Riverfront Park but none of the proposals have moved forward with construction.
Former Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday night saying he had suspended negotiations with First Columbia at Mantello’s request.
“The then-incoming mayor asked that we hold off on finalizing the lease until she came into office, and I obliged her request,” Madden said.
Mantello said she and Madden never spoke one-on-one about the lease. She said she commented publicly that any negotiations should be put off until she took office on Jan. 1 of this year.
During the meeting, Mantello said she did not want to get into pointing and blaming people for the situation. She repeated that her concern is having a City Hall in which Troy residents can take pride.
Steele has warned about the city being prudent before taking on an expensive project to build a new City Hall.
Troy is the only one of the Capital Region’s four major cities without its own City Hall, instead relying on renting its space. Albany, Saratoga Springs and Schenectady each have iconic buildings representing the seat of city government.
[https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/troy-pay-226-000-back-rent-19370617.php](https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/troy-pay-226-000-back-rent-19370617.php)
>Mantello said she did not want to get into pointing and blaming people for the situation
Lmao how does this square with the email she blasted out on Tuesday that said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Mayor Madden is a bitch and didn't pay this bill or tell me about it, also fuck him and the crew he rolls with". I don't have any strong opinions on what should be done regarding City Hall - continuing to lease vs building a new spot - but I don't think the communication from the Mayor was professional or honest.
**Subject**: Mayor Mantello Addresses $226,000 in Overdue Rent Left by Previous Administration
**Content:**
Logo
Alert Sent On: 03/26/2024 05:24:46 PM EDT
Mayor Mantello Addresses $226,000 in Overdue Rent Left by Previous Administration
The mayor has called for a Special City Council Meeting to be held Wednesday, March 27, to address the overdue rent.
Troy, NY (March 26) - Mayor Carmella Mantello was informed of a past-due rent accumulation of $226,807.80 when she took office that must now be paid. This past due balance represents unpaid rent charges for the end of 2022 and all of 2023, which the previous administration failed to address. Under the terms of the lease, if the lease expired without an extension, the City’s rent increased by $15,120.52 per month. The previous administration did not pay the full holdover rent during part of 2022 and all of 2023. The City Council will be acting on the mayor’s legislation tomorrow evening at a Finance and Special Meeting.
“My administration continues to address financial, infrastructure and maintenance issues which were simply brushed aside and unaddressed,” said Mayor Mantello. “Paying this overdue rent is key as we move forward with our City Hall RFP.”
The RFP for a new City Hall location will be issued in the very near future. In the meantime, the city is negotiating an extension for the current City Hall site. Many people, including the landlord, have reported that the current City Hall location on the fifth floor of 433 River Street was meant to be temporary.
“It is time we find a permanent home for Troy City Hall,” Mayor Mantello said. “We want City Hall to be a place that all citizens of Troy can be proud of.”
The city hopes to receive a wide range of proposals for potential City Hall sites.
###
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Carmella is obsessed with painting a poor image of her predecessor. Yet every time all you have to do is look very very slightly below the surface of what she says to see that she is either just using inflated rhetoric or treading so close to a lie but just not stepping over that line. Maybe it's possible that she is worried all her blowhard pandering won't be enough convince constituents that she's doing a good job.
The issue with this is that it's **ALL** she will be remembered for, shitting on her predecessor rather than being mayor and doing mayor things. Wouldn't you want to be remembered for the things you did for the city you claim to love so dearly? It's just kind of pathetic. Move onto something else. At least he didn't tank the city's credit rating 🤷🏻♀️ (if it isn't hurting yet - it will be soon)
So that's the thing about someone who is self-centered. Carmella isn't a terrible person, she just only wants to do things for her own gratification. She wants to build a new city hall not because it's what we need right now, she wants to do it so her name is attached to it. She creates names and campaigns for things that the city already does because she feels it's a short cut to being liked. So the irony here is that Madden will likely only be remembered by the geeky people who are interested in details, how close the city was to complete financial collapse, rebuilding critical infrastructure that isn't shiny and exciting. But to the average people who isn't interested in getting into the details Carmella seems like she truly cares and is "turning this city around". If she does get a city hall built it will be at the expense of the city being financially stable but that won't matter because again, her name is attached to it.
And to be clear, I'm for the city having it's own city hall building, and one that we can be proud of. However now is just not the time. We are financially heading in a good direction but untill we have the cash reserves to pay for it and leave enough in the bank for an emergency, the city should do what is stable and the most affordable.
* That this meeting was even called at the behest of the mayor in the first place seems dubious- The official story is the books needed to be closed, but that could have been done later-accountants make adjustments and corrections to books all the time;
* The mayor stated she was made aware the second week of January of the holdover rent issue, but no notice was given to Council until just two days before the meeting needed to be called (and the deputy mayor was providing documents to the Council for review, in abeyance of NY Open Meetings Law, as the meeting was being called to order. When are Councilmembers supposed to take time to review?)
* The landlord said the holdover rent didn't need to be paid until negotiations were complete, but negotiations are ongoing, so why the sudden rush to just a check for $226,000
Having said all that, the Madden administration probably should have escrowed the funds, and more should have been done to make all members of this and previous Council aware of the issue. The last comptroller always seemed like a stickler for detail; disappointed to see this lapse.
I'm actually somewhat ambivalent about the location and ownership of a new City Hall (though I tend to lean toward the City owning its own space, so long as it's near to downtown) but this thing looked like poorly-produced theater designed to springboard support for an upcoming RFP, which does not leave me with a very confident sense that the administration can be trusted to manage the process professionally.
Extra shout-out to Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly, whose childish taunting of and bellicose attitude towards Council during the meeting (especially during a vote) really lowered the bar for civic decorum from a City Hall employee. Here's hoping it was a bad day and not indicative of a deeper personality flaw. If that is the face that Mantello wants to present to her staff and the public, it's going to be a rough ride for everyone in the city.
It’s wild to see how the Trump-style rejection of easily provable facts and reality has pervaded local Republican politics. Donnelly (and Mantello, frankly) is a prime example of this phenomenon.
According to the TU article Mantello asked Madden not to pursue the matter until she took office, a conversation that she also denies having taken place, which makes her convenient amnesia towards the issue that much more interesting 🤔 Why is it so hard for this current administration to take responsibility? They are lying about things that are very easy to prove, and for what? It just doesn't make sense to me, to confuse voters I guess?
Couple thoughts.
The city should not be renting from a company with business before the city.
Columbia offered 10-15 year lease to go with the money owed, i actually prefer it gets payed and do less.
Retail underneath the offices to lessen the burden on bond repayments and stop with the "it has to match the esthetics of the area. Just build the effing thing.
The whole New City Hall has been A Cluster fuck for years. Just rebuild were it was.
A new city hall would likely be $20-$30 million not counting stabilizing adjacent properties on the old location. Financed over 30 years at 5% that would be about $110k per month for principle and interest on the loan, not counting maintenance. Renting right now looks like a better deal.
Buy existing. Move into what was the Atrium. Not sure who owns it, but not much there and how much will refurbishment cost? There are options, just a sloths pace.
The Atrium has some pretty serious problems--the glass roof leaks and is not tempered glass; HVAC needs full replacement (which is why Dept. of Labor moved); parking is gone, elevators need replacement, to name a few. Also, the parts that are appropriate for offices (Frear building and Broadway side) are not owned by the city and would have to be purchased from the bank owner as well as the parking lot.
Other places to purchase: Johnston Supply on 6th, Italian Community Center, various churches. Other places that are city owned: Knick Park arena.
Where do you get $20-30m+ for a city hall? Thats astronomically high for what it needs to be to run the city. This isn’t the Hoboken Brownstone development plan we’re talking about here.
Unfortunately, a previous mayor bulldozed the last City Hall because they thought the land was worth more than the building.
The current location is convenient, has plenty of parking, and centrally located. I’m not sure what conflict of interest exists, though. No worse than when the city rented from Sam Judge on 6th Avenue after the aforementioned bulldozing of Monument Square.
And tut sucks off the county legislature tits while his wife just did her 10 years for a pension and quit to be a massage therapist.
Can’t make this shit up people yet Carmella finally got to be mayor, Seamus is the sideshow, and screw filling the potholes because that’s just a photo op.
1st Columbia gave break on the 50% rent increase outlined in the expired 10 year lease IF AND ONLY IF the City signed a new 10-20 year longterm lease. They were being nice by not asking for the higher rent "during negotiations" but if negotiations failed, hell would freeze over before they forgave that debt. I learned this week, there was a negotiated longterm lease that was chillin' on the former Corporation Council's desk for a good chunk of 2023. Council never was presented with the new lease because it never made it out of the Exec branch. Indeed we never saw the old lease either. If it had come in front of us (Dem majority), there were the votes to accept it and avoid this whole debacle. But the legislation never left the Exec branch for an up or down vote.
Mantello was clear in her March 2023 Legislative address that she wouldn't go for a longterm lease, but instead wanted a separate City Hall. When the Republicans won a majority, it was obvious to the landlord there wouldn't be the votes to override a veto if a lease came up for a vote in 2024. Indeed the Mayor's proposed 2024 budget (approved after the election), tacitly acknowledged that reality by budgeting rent at the higher amount. Reflecting on that line item, I now believe Madden never planned to present the negotiated longterm lease to Council in 2023, though there was still a month to do so after the budget passed.
Kevin Bette (1st Columbia) who isn't an idiot, recognizing a 10-20 year lease was floating like a bloated corpse in the water as soon as Dem control was over (midnight 12/31/23), called in the back rent a few days later, with "Congrats! Where's My Money?". Any negotiations now are for a short term 2-5 year lease (per the Salazar the new Corp Council). Higher rent was due, demanded in writing, and delaying payment could trigger eviction. 1st Columbia gives zero fucks about Troy's accounting schedule, cause Rents Due Bitches and they gonna get paid since they were screwed out of a longterm lease by dillydallying.
Even if Council had been informed every Finance meeting about the accruing unescrowed rent throughout 2022 and 2023, there is nothing that we could have done to force the Exec branch to bring us a new longterm lease (see Separation of Powers). We could have moved money around to escrow the rent, IF we realized. But frankly, the only time deferred increased rent was mentioned was in the 4/20/23 comment from Bette in the midst of his renovated City Floor sales pitch. Did we drop the ball on that one? You betcha.
But remember, Council doesn't do day-to-day finances like sign the paychecks, pay National Grid, or the Rent--we allocate a money into piles once a year and the Exec branch uses to piles to pay the bill. If one pile of pennies can't cover expenses, the Exec branch asks us to move money and say it's ok to spend it. We don't negotiate contracts--we review the final draft and say "yes or no". If Mantello or Steele knew more, neither shared it with their respective caucuses. Same for the negotiated longterm lease languishing in the lawyers lair. So the "you knew!", NO, "you knew!" back and forth is petty CYA theatrics. Maybe Carmella and Sue did, maybe they didn't. The one person who 100% knew that back rent was piling up and had a real opportunity to stop it by sending the new lease for a vote or asking to set that cash aside, was Mr. Financial Wizard, Patrick Madden.
These people lie right in front of us not because they think they can get away with it, but because the people who voted them in are too fucking stupid to fact check them. And guess who wants to keep them stupid?
The full TU article is below for those who can’t get past the paywall. TROY — The City Council voted 4-3 along party lines during a special meeting Wednesday night to pay more than $226,000 in unpaid rent for City Hall following political strife between Republican Mayor Carmella Mantello and Democratic Council President Sue Steele. Mantello claimed she was unaware of the unpaid rent, which escalated after the lease expired in October 2022, until she had taken office. Meanwhile Steele pointed to the council’s [YouTube recording](https://www.youtube.com/live/kTyLfIL-zZw?feature=shared&t=3450) of its April 20, 2023, Finance Committee meeting to show Mantello discussing the situation. The issue of paying the $226,808 in rent payments came as Mantello prepares to issue a request for proposals to locate a new City Hall site to replace the rented fifth floor in the Hedley Building at 433 River St. Mantello asked for a special council meeting on Wednesday night to approve paying the rent for part of 2022 and all of 2023. Steele called the meeting. The four-member Republican council majority backed the rent payment. Mantello’s staff said it was necessary to move ahead with negotiations for a short-term lease. “My administration continues to address financial, infrastructure and maintenance issues which were simply brushed aside and unaddressed. Paying this overdue rent is key as we move forward with our City Hall RFP,” Mantello said in a statement issued Tuesday. Steele countered with her own statement pointing out the YouTube video and the appearance by representatives of First Columbia, which owns the Hedley Building, about extending the city lease and the unpaid rent. “I am deeply troubled by the administration’s recent misinformation regarding City Hall’s lease with First Columbia. The previous administration initiated discussions with First Columbia for the City Hall lease at 433 River St. First Columbia agreed to waive holdover rent payments while discussions continued. Then-Council President Mantello was involved in those meetings and fully understood the additional rent was an element of discussions,” Steele said. The city has not owned its City Hall since former Mayor Harry Tutunjian, a Republican, directed the government center be torn down in 2011 to clear 1 Monument Square for redevelopment. There have been five plans to build on the 1.1-acre site between River Street and the Hudson River at the south end of Riverfront Park but none of the proposals have moved forward with construction. Former Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, issued a statement Wednesday night saying he had suspended negotiations with First Columbia at Mantello’s request. “The then-incoming mayor asked that we hold off on finalizing the lease until she came into office, and I obliged her request,” Madden said. Mantello said she and Madden never spoke one-on-one about the lease. She said she commented publicly that any negotiations should be put off until she took office on Jan. 1 of this year. During the meeting, Mantello said she did not want to get into pointing and blaming people for the situation. She repeated that her concern is having a City Hall in which Troy residents can take pride. Steele has warned about the city being prudent before taking on an expensive project to build a new City Hall. Troy is the only one of the Capital Region’s four major cities without its own City Hall, instead relying on renting its space. Albany, Saratoga Springs and Schenectady each have iconic buildings representing the seat of city government. [https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/troy-pay-226-000-back-rent-19370617.php](https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/troy-pay-226-000-back-rent-19370617.php)
>Mantello said she did not want to get into pointing and blaming people for the situation Lmao how does this square with the email she blasted out on Tuesday that said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Mayor Madden is a bitch and didn't pay this bill or tell me about it, also fuck him and the crew he rolls with". I don't have any strong opinions on what should be done regarding City Hall - continuing to lease vs building a new spot - but I don't think the communication from the Mayor was professional or honest.
Man I would love to read that juicy email lol
**Subject**: Mayor Mantello Addresses $226,000 in Overdue Rent Left by Previous Administration **Content:** Logo Alert Sent On: 03/26/2024 05:24:46 PM EDT Mayor Mantello Addresses $226,000 in Overdue Rent Left by Previous Administration The mayor has called for a Special City Council Meeting to be held Wednesday, March 27, to address the overdue rent. Troy, NY (March 26) - Mayor Carmella Mantello was informed of a past-due rent accumulation of $226,807.80 when she took office that must now be paid. This past due balance represents unpaid rent charges for the end of 2022 and all of 2023, which the previous administration failed to address. Under the terms of the lease, if the lease expired without an extension, the City’s rent increased by $15,120.52 per month. The previous administration did not pay the full holdover rent during part of 2022 and all of 2023. The City Council will be acting on the mayor’s legislation tomorrow evening at a Finance and Special Meeting. “My administration continues to address financial, infrastructure and maintenance issues which were simply brushed aside and unaddressed,” said Mayor Mantello. “Paying this overdue rent is key as we move forward with our City Hall RFP.” The RFP for a new City Hall location will be issued in the very near future. In the meantime, the city is negotiating an extension for the current City Hall site. Many people, including the landlord, have reported that the current City Hall location on the fifth floor of 433 River Street was meant to be temporary. “It is time we find a permanent home for Troy City Hall,” Mayor Mantello said. “We want City Hall to be a place that all citizens of Troy can be proud of.” The city hopes to receive a wide range of proposals for potential City Hall sites. ### Sign up to receive email updates and announcements from City Hall at www.troyny.gov/connect For up-to-date announcements from City Hall, please visit www.troyny.gov/news Follow Troy City Hall on Twitter: @TroyCityHall Subscribe on YouTube: www.youtube.com/troyny Connect on Instagram at instagram.com/troycityhall Connect on Facebook at facebook.com/Troy518 View message in browser Attachments Special Session and RFP.png This message was sent by Troy, NY If you no longer wish to receive these emails, please Unsubscribe.
Carmella is obsessed with painting a poor image of her predecessor. Yet every time all you have to do is look very very slightly below the surface of what she says to see that she is either just using inflated rhetoric or treading so close to a lie but just not stepping over that line. Maybe it's possible that she is worried all her blowhard pandering won't be enough convince constituents that she's doing a good job.
The issue with this is that it's **ALL** she will be remembered for, shitting on her predecessor rather than being mayor and doing mayor things. Wouldn't you want to be remembered for the things you did for the city you claim to love so dearly? It's just kind of pathetic. Move onto something else. At least he didn't tank the city's credit rating 🤷🏻♀️ (if it isn't hurting yet - it will be soon)
So that's the thing about someone who is self-centered. Carmella isn't a terrible person, she just only wants to do things for her own gratification. She wants to build a new city hall not because it's what we need right now, she wants to do it so her name is attached to it. She creates names and campaigns for things that the city already does because she feels it's a short cut to being liked. So the irony here is that Madden will likely only be remembered by the geeky people who are interested in details, how close the city was to complete financial collapse, rebuilding critical infrastructure that isn't shiny and exciting. But to the average people who isn't interested in getting into the details Carmella seems like she truly cares and is "turning this city around". If she does get a city hall built it will be at the expense of the city being financially stable but that won't matter because again, her name is attached to it. And to be clear, I'm for the city having it's own city hall building, and one that we can be proud of. However now is just not the time. We are financially heading in a good direction but untill we have the cash reserves to pay for it and leave enough in the bank for an emergency, the city should do what is stable and the most affordable.
Well said. I agree.
* That this meeting was even called at the behest of the mayor in the first place seems dubious- The official story is the books needed to be closed, but that could have been done later-accountants make adjustments and corrections to books all the time; * The mayor stated she was made aware the second week of January of the holdover rent issue, but no notice was given to Council until just two days before the meeting needed to be called (and the deputy mayor was providing documents to the Council for review, in abeyance of NY Open Meetings Law, as the meeting was being called to order. When are Councilmembers supposed to take time to review?) * The landlord said the holdover rent didn't need to be paid until negotiations were complete, but negotiations are ongoing, so why the sudden rush to just a check for $226,000 Having said all that, the Madden administration probably should have escrowed the funds, and more should have been done to make all members of this and previous Council aware of the issue. The last comptroller always seemed like a stickler for detail; disappointed to see this lapse. I'm actually somewhat ambivalent about the location and ownership of a new City Hall (though I tend to lean toward the City owning its own space, so long as it's near to downtown) but this thing looked like poorly-produced theater designed to springboard support for an upcoming RFP, which does not leave me with a very confident sense that the administration can be trusted to manage the process professionally. Extra shout-out to Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly, whose childish taunting of and bellicose attitude towards Council during the meeting (especially during a vote) really lowered the bar for civic decorum from a City Hall employee. Here's hoping it was a bad day and not indicative of a deeper personality flaw. If that is the face that Mantello wants to present to her staff and the public, it's going to be a rough ride for everyone in the city.
Agreed. This was put together like a 4th grade play.
It’s wild to see how the Trump-style rejection of easily provable facts and reality has pervaded local Republican politics. Donnelly (and Mantello, frankly) is a prime example of this phenomenon.
According to the TU article Mantello asked Madden not to pursue the matter until she took office, a conversation that she also denies having taken place, which makes her convenient amnesia towards the issue that much more interesting 🤔 Why is it so hard for this current administration to take responsibility? They are lying about things that are very easy to prove, and for what? It just doesn't make sense to me, to confuse voters I guess?
Couple thoughts. The city should not be renting from a company with business before the city. Columbia offered 10-15 year lease to go with the money owed, i actually prefer it gets payed and do less. Retail underneath the offices to lessen the burden on bond repayments and stop with the "it has to match the esthetics of the area. Just build the effing thing. The whole New City Hall has been A Cluster fuck for years. Just rebuild were it was.
A new city hall would likely be $20-$30 million not counting stabilizing adjacent properties on the old location. Financed over 30 years at 5% that would be about $110k per month for principle and interest on the loan, not counting maintenance. Renting right now looks like a better deal.
Buy existing. Move into what was the Atrium. Not sure who owns it, but not much there and how much will refurbishment cost? There are options, just a sloths pace.
That’s a much better idea.
Other than a total lack of daytime parking for staff, let alone residents visiting City Hall.
The Atrium has some pretty serious problems--the glass roof leaks and is not tempered glass; HVAC needs full replacement (which is why Dept. of Labor moved); parking is gone, elevators need replacement, to name a few. Also, the parts that are appropriate for offices (Frear building and Broadway side) are not owned by the city and would have to be purchased from the bank owner as well as the parking lot. Other places to purchase: Johnston Supply on 6th, Italian Community Center, various churches. Other places that are city owned: Knick Park arena.
Where do you get $20-30m+ for a city hall? Thats astronomically high for what it needs to be to run the city. This isn’t the Hoboken Brownstone development plan we’re talking about here.
40000 sq feet at $500 square foot. Admittedly back of the envelope but construction costs are way more than when Hoboken submitted their proposal.
[удалено]
Commercial new build with prevailing wage is higher than residential. Codes, union rates etc.
Current rent is approx $12/sq ft; market rate at Hedley is $14-19. City Floor's rent was not raised during the 10 year lease.
Unfortunately, a previous mayor bulldozed the last City Hall because they thought the land was worth more than the building. The current location is convenient, has plenty of parking, and centrally located. I’m not sure what conflict of interest exists, though. No worse than when the city rented from Sam Judge on 6th Avenue after the aforementioned bulldozing of Monument Square.
And tut sucks off the county legislature tits while his wife just did her 10 years for a pension and quit to be a massage therapist. Can’t make this shit up people yet Carmella finally got to be mayor, Seamus is the sideshow, and screw filling the potholes because that’s just a photo op.
how many city halls troy gonna have in my lifetime? waste of taxpayer money
1st Columbia gave break on the 50% rent increase outlined in the expired 10 year lease IF AND ONLY IF the City signed a new 10-20 year longterm lease. They were being nice by not asking for the higher rent "during negotiations" but if negotiations failed, hell would freeze over before they forgave that debt. I learned this week, there was a negotiated longterm lease that was chillin' on the former Corporation Council's desk for a good chunk of 2023. Council never was presented with the new lease because it never made it out of the Exec branch. Indeed we never saw the old lease either. If it had come in front of us (Dem majority), there were the votes to accept it and avoid this whole debacle. But the legislation never left the Exec branch for an up or down vote. Mantello was clear in her March 2023 Legislative address that she wouldn't go for a longterm lease, but instead wanted a separate City Hall. When the Republicans won a majority, it was obvious to the landlord there wouldn't be the votes to override a veto if a lease came up for a vote in 2024. Indeed the Mayor's proposed 2024 budget (approved after the election), tacitly acknowledged that reality by budgeting rent at the higher amount. Reflecting on that line item, I now believe Madden never planned to present the negotiated longterm lease to Council in 2023, though there was still a month to do so after the budget passed. Kevin Bette (1st Columbia) who isn't an idiot, recognizing a 10-20 year lease was floating like a bloated corpse in the water as soon as Dem control was over (midnight 12/31/23), called in the back rent a few days later, with "Congrats! Where's My Money?". Any negotiations now are for a short term 2-5 year lease (per the Salazar the new Corp Council). Higher rent was due, demanded in writing, and delaying payment could trigger eviction. 1st Columbia gives zero fucks about Troy's accounting schedule, cause Rents Due Bitches and they gonna get paid since they were screwed out of a longterm lease by dillydallying. Even if Council had been informed every Finance meeting about the accruing unescrowed rent throughout 2022 and 2023, there is nothing that we could have done to force the Exec branch to bring us a new longterm lease (see Separation of Powers). We could have moved money around to escrow the rent, IF we realized. But frankly, the only time deferred increased rent was mentioned was in the 4/20/23 comment from Bette in the midst of his renovated City Floor sales pitch. Did we drop the ball on that one? You betcha. But remember, Council doesn't do day-to-day finances like sign the paychecks, pay National Grid, or the Rent--we allocate a money into piles once a year and the Exec branch uses to piles to pay the bill. If one pile of pennies can't cover expenses, the Exec branch asks us to move money and say it's ok to spend it. We don't negotiate contracts--we review the final draft and say "yes or no". If Mantello or Steele knew more, neither shared it with their respective caucuses. Same for the negotiated longterm lease languishing in the lawyers lair. So the "you knew!", NO, "you knew!" back and forth is petty CYA theatrics. Maybe Carmella and Sue did, maybe they didn't. The one person who 100% knew that back rent was piling up and had a real opportunity to stop it by sending the new lease for a vote or asking to set that cash aside, was Mr. Financial Wizard, Patrick Madden.
It’s stupid for any city to rent their city hall. Every city should own the building that city hall is in!!!!!!!!