Good evening everyone.

Welcome.

Hope everyone had a great summer.

Um get back to normal again.

I want to thank you and joining uh some of us in person, also virtually.

Those viewing the meeting on the um Hartford Public Access TV dot org, uh channel ninety-six, on Comcast, and um Frontier on Channel Sixty Thirty Two.

Public comment, which we normally hold um the first uh council meeting of the month, uh is in accordance with the following procedure.

Each person shall give its name, address, and if he or she represents the group, then in addition to the s uh state the group's name and the address of said uh organization, each speaker shall uh again set their name and the address.

All remarks should be uh aimed at the council members and absolutely uh the council members uh is allowed to ask questions.

Um and if it the speaker becomes um boisterous, we may have to ask them not to um you know attend another public comment.

So we are starting a little bit late, it's about ten minutes after six.

So far, I believe we have gotta find my sign-up sheet.

George, is that one person signed up?

Just built okay, it's just got updated.

Okay, great.

I I just got it updated.

Okay.

So the first person to speak is gonna be Mr.

Bill Katz.

Good evening, Mr.

Katz.

Please come on up.

You have three minutes.

Three minutes, you have time.

Yeah.

I have three minutes to describe how to save the city.

Now I I that was posed to me once at an NRZ when I wanted to go around to all the NRCs explaining little things that we could do to benefit Harvard.

And the first one I went to gave me 30 seconds, and I I walked out and went home.

Anyway, I'm here just for the little picky roomy things that bug me, like um fire uh fire trucks that are first responders.

We send out these humongous expensive trucks, and we've been doing it for thirty or forty years, to go to every uh emergency.

And there's a major expense in wear and tear on these vehicles.

Why not purchase uh a line of Econo cars loaded with the emergency equipment to go out on these calls and stop wasting and wearing down our very expensive fire trucks?

I don't know.

It's it one would like to think that you know this would have been done 30 years ago, and we're we're it still hasn't been done.

That's one.

Another is uh when when a car crashes into a utility pole, the the previous pole is left hanging and tetering, and there are big splinters, and kids could get injured, and they're they're left there year after year after year.

And it's it's just it's horrible to see what how the city of Harford treats its uh neighborhoods to have these things remaining indefinitely, get with it.

They should be it should be cleaned up, they should be repaired.

Um lastly, uh little pet picky roody thing is uh fire hydrants.

Does the fire department used to paint sand and paint fire uh fire hydrants?

And that was sent over to MDC.

MDC doesn't really care about up uh upkeep on these things.

So in our neighborhoods, they're all rusted, they're ugly, the sh uh paint is peeling, but I do know that in downtown Harford, many of these fire uh hydrants are freshly painted.

So, you know, the business community gets theirs freshly painted.

I drove down uh Hungerford Street, the mayor's uh street, and those uh hydrants are one is a brand new hydrant, the others are fairly freshly painted, and I'm not accusing the the uh the mayor of having any influence on it, but it just so happens that all the hydrants on his street are rather newly painted, but we go into our neighborhoods, they're all rusted and and paint peeling, and we're the we pay the taxes here, and we're not being given uh fair shake.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you, Bill.

I neglected to uh let everyone know all the uh council members who are here.

We have uh Councilwoman Rosado, we have uh councilwoman Kelly Billydew, uh virtually we have Councilman Thomas and Assistant Majority Leader TJ Clark, and of course I'm Shirley Surgeon, uh Council President.

So, Bill, would it be really helpful?

I'm gonna take a look at the hydrant in my neighborhood as a matter of fact.

But it'd be really helpful if you see these things, you shoot us a little, you know, a little email or text message to let us know so we could follow up on it.

So, but I do have a note about asking.

I wonder who does the fire hydrant.

Oh, okay.

So yeah, we need to find out who's in charge of making sure the fire hydrants are painted and don't have no rust or anything on it.

And we will certainly have somebody get back with you on that.

But I'm gonna take a look at the one that's about a couple blocks from where I live, just since you now brought it to my attention.

Okay, thank you, Bill.

And it's not picking you things, it's just nice to know that we're keeping up with our city and we want to make sure everything looks good.