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Good evening. It’s my pleasure to join you to present my 8th State of the City Address. I first want to thank Chief City Auditor Dorcey City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, Common Council President Corey Ellis, President Pro Tempore Kelly Kimbrough, Majority Leader Ginnie Farrell, and the rest of the Common Council for joining me virtually this evening. I also want to recognize my colleagues in government who often attend this annual presentation and have been working very hard over the last year to help lead our county, state, and nation through some of the most tumultuous times any one of us have lived through. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congressman Paul Tonko, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Tish James, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart- Cousins, New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senator Neil Breslin, Pat Fahy, John McDonald, County Executive Dan McCoy, and County Legislature Chairman Andrew Joyce have each been great partners and upstanding public servants, and on behalf of the entire City of Albany, to each of you I say “thank you.” I also want to recognize those who are no longer with us. This year we have seen tremendous loss. We have lost national heroes such as Congressman John Lewis & US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and more locally, we have experienced loss in our City workforce, and among the business, religious, labor, and philanthropy communities. Rezsin Adams, Harold Rubin, Gerald Campbell, Rev. Peter Young, Peg Joyce, Matthew Bender, Dwight Bullock, Eddie Person, Bob Dillon, Hank Landeau, and Jake Kelliher. I want to take a moment to reflect on their lives and mourn their loss. Last year when I joined you, I spoke about Albany’s rise – about unprecedented investments and the transformative revitalization underway as we worked to create a city where every neighborhood works. However, little did we know, only a month later our entire world as we know it would change We each began 2020 with a renewed sense of purpose, expecting it to be a year with new investments in Downtown Albany as part of our DRI award from New York State, continued blight reduction through a $1 million grant program from the New York State Attorney General Tish James, new playgrounds across our City, and the ground-breaking of the Albany Skyway. However, by mid-March, we learned about the first two cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in Albany County. Shortly after, we saw a statewide shutdown of non-essential businesses, and a significant reduction in the capacity of essential businesses. In the face of adversity, the likes of which many of us have never experienced, our city came together. Schools closed and courthouses were shuttered, but your city workforce quickly pivoted to ensure that we continued to deliver essential services. DGS crews continued to pick up trash and recycling. APD and AFD continued to respond to emergency calls for service. ---PAGE BREAK--- We continued to provide safe drinking water, we continued to ensure children had safe and engaging activities, and we continued to cite building code violators and ensure development could continue. Albany’s frontline workers literally risked their lives for our community, and I am so deeply proud of them. Thank you to each of you. I also want to take a moment to thank the individuals who don’t always receive the recognition they deserve. Our Department of Administrative Services, led by Rachel McEneny, brought together our Fire Department led by Chief Joe Gregory, our Budget Office led by Mike Wheeler, our Purchasing Office, and our Chief of Operations Brian Shea to create a PPE task force dedicated to ensuring our frontline workers could deliver essential city services safely. The Department of Administrative Services also teamed up with the Clerk’s Office and Treasurer’s Office to create a City Hall ambassador program to help make accessing City services safer and easier for both our residents and our employees. Our Clerk’s Office, led by City Clerk Dannielle Gillespie, continued to ensure our residents could get married, even virtually. Our Human Resources office, led by Peachie Jones, made sure we could continue to hire, onboard, and support our most valuable asset – our employees. Our IT department made sure our employees had the tools they needed to work remotely and safely. Our Law Department ensured that we continued to prosecute building code violators. Our Common Council held their first-ever virtual public meeting in our City’s 334-year history. And our Payroll office made sure all of our employees continued to be paid on time, which was no small feat. Again, I want to say thank you to each and every employee for your hard work and dedication to City. I am so proud of our entire workforce, especially given the new challenges that have appeared before us in 2020. As the outbreak began to take hold, we recalibrated to ensure that as we continued our vital services, we also filled new needs – helping our most vulnerable residents and those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Together with business and community partners, we quickly geared up to ensure people were fed and had access to masks, hand sanitizer, and other PPE. I also created two working groups – one focused on aiding our business community, and one focused on the needs of our residents. We also took the time to ensure we as a City were educating our residents. I held a Community Health Impacts Town Hall with Albany County Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Liza Whalen, Chief City Auditor Dr. Dorcey Black Nurses Coalition ---PAGE BREAK--- Director Dr. Brenda Robinson, and St. Peter’s Chief of Emergency Medicine Dr. Frank Dimase to share information about testing, contact tracing, the disparate health impacts of COVID-19, and preventative measures our residents could take to protect themselves and their families. I provided weekly updates on testing, contact tracing, and other resources available to help residents through the pandemic. And we also worked closely with our higher education partners to ensure our students, and our entire City, was masking up to help prevent a second shutdown. We worked diligently to award more than a half-million dollars in CDBG funding to help Albany residents and businesses recover from the impacts of COVID-19. This includes $1 million for small business assistance, $250,000 for rent and mortgage payment assistance, $130,000 for health resources and broadband access, and $100,000 for summer camps and day care programming to a variety of organizations including the Black Nurses Coalition, South End Children’s Cafe, Equinox, Salvation Army, South End Neighborhood Tutors, and Albany PAL. And in the coming weeks, we will be announcing another round of funding with the goal of awarding another $1 million to our residents, businesses, and community organizations. I want to thank Faye Andrews and the entire team at the Albany Community Development Agency for working so hard to get this funding to those who needed it the most as quickly as possible. As soon as the pandemic took hold, I also knew how important it was to ensure we were ready to reopen the economy on day-one by creating a clearinghouse of information and resources to support businesses during this difficult time. That’s why I asked Capitalize Albany Corporation to convene the Support SmAlbany initiative to ensure we were ready to address the business community’s needs. All year, the Capitalize Albany Corporation helped distribute more than $1 million small businesses across the city. One of these efforts included a new façade grant program funding round, where more than 30 businesses were supported under this effort – awarding more than $130,000 dollars. 89 percent of businesses assisted are located in identified neighborhood strategy areas and 63 percent are minority- or women-owned. And throughout the pandemic we have also worked with the Albany Parking Authority and the City’s Business Improvement Districts to create expanded patios for our eateries looking to provide outdoor seating during the warmer summer months – and the program was so successful, we’re looking to expand on it in 2021. Part of executing a comprehensive and cohesive response to the pandemic has included working with local leaders to share ideas and advocate in the best interests of our residents. I brought together my fellow mayors from Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy, Hudson, Athens, Glens Falls, and Hudson Falls to ensure that we were working together to advocate for our residents as part of the Capital Region Control Room, where I have served alongside County Executive Dan McCoy to ensure that our voices are heard at the state level as well. ---PAGE BREAK--- I want to take a moment to commend the hard work of County Executive McCoy and County Health Commissioner Dr. Liza Whalen. They have been working around the clock since this pandemic began by keeping our county informed, prepared, and safe, and on behalf of the entire city, they deserve a huge thank you. In addition to threatening our community’s physical health, COVID-19 imperiled our fiscal health. Early on, we projected a $19 million revenue shortfall. But we believed that after bailing out cruise lines and Fortune 500 companies, Washington would provide direct state and local aid to replace the revenue we use to pay the frontline workers who kept our city running. Faced with Washington’s refusal to act, I implemented an unprecedented and strategic spending and hiring freeze and reduced my salary to $0 so that we could continue to provide critical services to our residents without having to make painful, draconian cuts to our workforce. However things are finally beginning to look promising, and we are encouraged by President Biden’s recent $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal that would provide $350 billion in much-needed state and local government COVID fiscal relief – aid that would allow us to avoid using our remaining $10 million in fund balance to fill the gap created by COVID. During these unprecedented times we took unprecedented action to provide essential services and programming to our residents. And our response reflected our commitment to equity. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on the health of our Black, Latinx, refugee and immigrant communities, and we worked hard to ensure that our financial challenges did not exacerbate that inequity. In a few minutes, I will talk about how the murder of George Floyd made our commitment to equity even more important. And that is why we opened all of our pools and spray pads, we held a Summer Youth Employment Program, we held recreation camps and clinics, and we opened our Golf Course. And we have advocated relentlessly to ensure that our most vulnerable residents have access to vaccines as soon as possible – including partnering with County Executive McCoy and Mohawk Ambulance to bring vaccines directly to our low-income seniors who cannot access the larger state-run sites that require a vehicle to visit. In the coming days, we hope to have even more information on this innovative partnership. While 2020 has been a year of challenges, we were well positioned to face those challenges, and are better prepared to deliver on the promise of tomorrow because we’ve been leading through the lens of equity and our mission to create a city where every neighborhood works. I talk often about creating a city where every neighborhood works. But what does that mean and how do we rise to that? It means a city where every neighborhood is safe. Where every neighborhood has access to quality, affordable housing. Has access to good jobs. And has access to great amenities. And even in the face of great adversity the likes of which many of us have never witnessed, my administration has continued to fulfill that vision. ---PAGE BREAK--- In response to calls from our residents, we immediately banned the use of choke holds and knee- to-neck holds by any member of the Albany Police Department, we established a duty to intervene when a fellow officer is seen using excessive force or verbally escalates a situation, we reaffirmed training requirements for de-escalation and implicit bias, and we mandated that the history of racism in the United States be taught to all new members of the Albany Police Department. But those are just policies. They are necessary but not sufficient. Our community is demanding that we fundamentally change how we provide public safety in our city. And transformative change requires deep and difficult work. As you know, I am a big believer in measuring. And that is why it was so important that Chief City Auditor Dorcey led a racial bias audit of our Police Department to help create a baseline level of knowledge for the deep and difficult work underway through the Albany Policing Reform Collaborative. This Policing Reform Collaborative, led by me, Chief Hawkins, and more than 30 trusted community leaders, has solicited community input and crafted recommendations tailored to the specific needs of the communities that have been disproportionately impacted by structural racism, blight, poverty, crime, and violence. We are delivering the recommended reforms to the Common Council and will be working alongside our legislative colleagues to implement a series of reforms in the coming weeks. As we dismantle systemic racism, we must also recognize our obligation to keep every neighborhood safe from gun violence. This past summer, cities across the nation, Albany included, saw increases in gun violence driven by the early COVID-lockdowns that restricted our ability to work in-person alongside social workers, violence interrupters, and other community partners to prevent gun violence before it occurs. Under Chief Hawkins’ leadership, APD has re-doubled its efforts to engage in a multi-agency law enforcement strategy that both takes guns off our streets and works with community organizations like SNUG to keep guns out of our residents’ hands in the first place. And we are working closer than ever with our Gun Violence Intervention taskforce that includes SNUG, the Department of Justice, the New York State Police, and the Albany County Sheriff. And because of that, Chief Hawkins and I will not waver from our commitment to the 21st century policing strategies that are proven to reduce crime, including here in Albany. This summer, we also joined Albany County lawmakers, including the City’s own Chairman Andrew Joyce, Legislator Ray Joyce, Legislator Matt Peter, and Legislator Sam Fein, in calling for the banning of all fireworks and sparklers being sold in Albany County, and I am glad to report that the legislation was quickly adopted by the Albany County Legislature and signed into law by Albany County Executive McCoy. Part of creating a city where every neighborhood is safe includes ensuring our neighborhoods are ready to stand the tests of climate change. We have seen some of the most powerful storms in our history over the past several years – some occurring over the past four months. We saw the 8th largest snowfall in the City’s history at the ---PAGE BREAK--- end of December – dropping more than 26 inches of snow over only 13 hours – and we saw a powerful windstorm that knocked power out across the city for days. We are using the storms as learning opportunities to ensure we are responding as quickly as possible, and that our infrastructure is as resilient as possible. We have begun to remove large trees from areas where they are prone to falling during high- wind storms and knocking out power lines, and our City Forester has created a robust plan for planting small- and mid-sized trees in their place. And as we speak, we are evaluating our snow removal policies to increase our capacity to clear streets, crosswalks at major intersections, and ensure property owners are clearing their sidewalks in a timely manner for what has become the new normal. I want to commend Commissioner Sergio Panunzio and the entire team at the Department of General Services for working around the clock alongside our Police, Fire, Water, and Codes Departments to respond to each of these 100-year storms with the utmost professionalism and dedication. In addition to preparing for and responding to these new historic storms, my administration is also doing everything it can to help combat climate change at its root. Even when the previous federal administration withdrew our country from the Paris Climate Accords, I joined more than 150 Climate Mayors and remained committed to its principles. In the last year alone we’ve converted nearly all 10,000 City streetlights to LED, we’ve started a shoreline stabilization study to improve our Hudson Riverway, we’re adding EV charging stations at City offices, we are in the process of reimagining and reinventing our recycling program, and we have launched a historic 2025 Trees initiative – setting a goal of planting 2,025 new trees in the City of Albany by 2025. Part of this comprehensive mission to increase resiliency in every neighborhood and combat climate change is undertaken through our Water Department. Under the leadership of Commissioner Joe Coffey, we have invested more in water and sewer infrastructure over the past seven years than in the 20 years prior. We have relined more than 2 miles of sewer pipes. We have constructed new pump stations in the western half of our city to help control stormwater flows during high-rain events. And we have completed the Tivoli Preserve Daylighting Project – a transformation that recently received an honorable mention from the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2021, we will begin construction on the Beaver Creek Clean River Project – our city’s single largest water and sewer infrastructure investment in decades – and establish a program that will eliminate all lead water service lines in the City of Albany by 2040. Part of our commitment to leading with equity includes ensuring pedestrian safety and walkability in all neighborhoods – especially near our parks and other recreation areas. When I shared this presentation last year, I made a commitment to the residents of West Hill that we would remove the final remaining asphalt sidewalks – and I am proud to report to you that we ---PAGE BREAK--- have delivered on that promise by investing nearly $500,000 in brand new, concrete sidewalks along with repaved streets. We also made investments on Woodlawn Avenue to help make it safer for our pedestrians along this busy corridor where residents congregate to utilize the baseball and softball fields, basketball courts, and Woodlawn Playground. And in 2021 we will invest more than $6 million to replace streets and sidewalks equitably across the City. We have invested nearly $50 million in streets and sidewalks since I took office, and we will continue to make these transformative investments with an equitable focus on historically underserved neighborhoods. And part of creating a city where every neighborhood is safe includes standing up for every resident – regardless of their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. This year marked the 28th anniversary of the passage of our city’s landmark Human Rights Ordinance – inclusive legislation that was championed by scores of advocates including 6th Ward Common Councilmember Richard Conti, the Capital District’s longest serving elected official. We joined Philadelphia, New York City, and municipalities across the country in a US Supreme Court case to ensure cities are not forced to contract with agencies that discrimination against same-sex couples – because no one should be discriminated against based on who they love. And in 2020, Albany was recognized once again as a leader in protecting human rights by being one of only 94 cities in the nation to achieve a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Municipal Equality Index. Albany has been a leader in ensuring protections for the community for decades, and my administration will relentlessly continue being a human rights leader in 2021 and beyond. Safe, affordable housing is vital to creating neighborhoods that work. In 2020, we awarded more than $1.5 million in grants to Albany residents: Assisting 20 New Homeowners 27 Homeowner Rehab enrollments Converted 23 units to lead-safe Provided 7 emergency repair grants 1 home utilized with accessibility improvements through the ACCESS program And in 2020, Albany was among one of only five communities in the state to receive $3.5 million from HUD to provide grants that will remove dangerous lead from low-income families’ homes. As I mentioned last year, if we want to attract investment and improve quality of life, we need to combat blight. And while our Cities Rise program was delayed in 2020, we will not be deterred from executing on this transformative initiative. ---PAGE BREAK--- We have hired another full-time Codes attorney, we are in the process of hiring a housing services advocate, and we are gearing up to implement the rest of these important programs, including the: Mow to Own Program Deep Dive Block Program Good Neighbor School Estate Planning Program And Proactive Demolitions I once again want to thank New York State Attorney General Leticia James for providing this $1 million grant and look forward to fully implementing the program in 2021. We are also going to be releasing details in the near future about historic Fair Housing Legislation we are proposing in the City of Albany. Create the First Good Cause Eviction Law in New York State Modernize the City’s Rental Dwelling Registry Empower the Codes Department to Proactively Address Building Emergencies Clarify and Simplify Rules for Electricians and Plumbers I want to thank our Legal Department, led by Marisa Franchini, our Codes Department, led by Rick LaJoy, and our entire Cities Rise team for helping draft this historic legislation, and I look forward to working with the Common Council in the coming weeks to pass this historic legislation. Even though some major projects have been slowed by COVID, we continue to see transformative developments in every neighborhood. Redburn Development has been working all year to transform Downtown Albany, Jankow Construction is completing the Playdium project in Pine Hills and is gearing up for more development on New Scotland Avenue, and we have seen a new mixed-income development open on Central Avenue – all housing that is necessary to expand our tax base and attract new residents to our city. We have seen nearly $1 billion in completed investments citywide since 2015, with nearly $700 million under construction or approved, and another $250 million in the pipeline – all indicators of continued historic investment in our city. With this historic investment comes attracting new, good paying jobs. And with new jobs comes a need to ensure our residents are ready to fill those opportunities – and that is where our award- winning Department of Youth and Workforce Development comes in. Even in the face of the ongoing public health crisis, we were able to operate a safe, COVID- friendly Summer Youth Employment Program, and we will be fully funding a complete Summer Youth Employment cohort in 2021. ---PAGE BREAK--- We have heard the national call for a $15 per hour minimum wage, and that is why we created a Living Wage for all City of Albany employees as part of my 2021 Budget – setting a minimum wage of $15.52 per hour. We continue to create a workforce that is reflective of our residents by recruiting a diverse group of new employees from every neighborhood of our City. While 29 percent of our residents are Black, nearly 40 percent of our new hires are Black – another example of our commitment to equity and diversity. We will also hold firefighter and police officer civil service exams this spring, and will be engaging with community organizations, Common Council members, and our residents to ensure that this is the most diverse group of exam applicants in the City’s history. As I mentioned earlier, I am encouraged by President Biden’s immediate reinstatement of the United States into the Paris Climate Accords to ensure a coherent and comprehensive climate change policy at the national level but one of the things that is sometimes lost in the conversation about combating climate change is jobs. That is why for the past fourteen-plus months, I have advocated for the placement of the first offshore wind tower manufacturing facility at the Port of Albany, and why our entire city was so excited when Governor Cuomo announced the Port of Albany as the winner of this project in his State of the State. This facility will bring 500 construction jobs, 300 permanent good-paying manufacturing jobs, and the creation of a state-led offshore wind training institute to help prepare our residents for these valuable careers. We are ready for the Capital Region to become the epicenter of all things renewable. And we are also focused on attracting additional innovators and ancillary businesses. This is our future and we are ready to embrace it and the jobs that come with it. Creating a City where every neighborhood works also means ensuring our residents have access to great amenities. While the pandemic cancelled all of our city-led in-person events in 2020, our Office of Cultural Affairs reinvented itself to host a variety of innovative virtual and COVID-friendly programming. Our Office of Cultural Affairs held a virtual Last Run 5K, virtual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day remembrance, virtual holiday tree lighting, virtual Alive at Five, and partnered with the Department of Recreation and General Services, Common Councilmembers, Neighborhood Associations, and other community partners to host a dozen Albany Halloween sites across the City. I want to give Director Alay Medina and her entire Cultural Affairs team a huge shout out for reinventing their operations on the fly and delivering this innovative programming during such tumultuous times. The Department of Recreation also created innovative programming on the fly by kicking off Albany Playstreets – a socially distanced way to have fun by closing off portions of City streets to expand City Parks and bring community organizations together to provide activities for our ---PAGE BREAK--- young people, especially in the height of virtual learning – and we look forward to continuing these programs in 2021 and beyond. I again want to thank Commissioner Jonathan Jones and his team for bringing creative, safe, and effective programming to our young people when they needed it most. My administration has been committed to revitalizing parks across the City, and 2020 was no different. I joined Senator Neil Breslin, Councilmember Alfredo Balarin, and community members to cut the ribbon at Colby Park Playground – the 18th revitalized playground since I took office – and we also constructed an ADA-accessible pathway at Woodlawn Park. In 2021, we will advance my equity agenda promise to revitalize every playground in the City by transforming the playgrounds at Westland Hills, Washington, Mater Christi, and Ridgefield Parks. In 2021, we will add three new basketball courts to the east end of Lincoln Park. And over the next 24 months we will invest an additional $2 million in Lincoln Park with the creation of an open-air amphitheater, improving the Morton Ave overlook, and enhancing the intersections around Lincoln Park to calm traffic and make them more pedestrian-friendly. I want to stress that projects like these are not possible without the financial commitment of our state delegation and want to thank John McDonald and Pat Fahy and Senator Neil Breslin for their continued support. The planning for a new Community Center in West Hill is underway. Thanks to the advocacy of Councilman Jahmel Robinson and Councilmember Joyce Love, the City has issued an RFP to hire a team to conduct a Community Center Needs Assessment and Location Study in the West Hill Neighborhood and I have committed funding in my 2021 Capital Budget proposal to pay for its engineering and design. At the end of this process, after hearing what the community wants, we will not only have a location, but we will have a staffing and operations plan for a true West Hill Community Center. Part of creating a city where every neighborhood works includes creating vibrant, welcoming, and pedestrian-friendly business districts. This fall we also announced a commitment of more than $1 million to begin Phase One of the Lark Street Streetscape Revitalization and kick off a Washington Park Traffic Study. Phase One of this project’s design and input process will commence in 2021, with construction slated for 2022, and will include a new street surface, ADA-compliant sidewalk ramps, semi- permanent curb bump-outs, pedestrian-friendly and vibrant road paint, and lighting enhancements. These investments include a $200,000 contribution by Patricia Fahy and a $50,000 contribution by John McDonald, and were derived from community input via a Lark Street Streetscape Study that was funded in part by a grant secured through Governor Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council Program, the Lark Street Business Improvement District, and the Albany Parking Authority. ---PAGE BREAK--- The South End Connector opened in July and is the City’s first two-way cycle path, which links the Albany County Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail to the Mohawk-Hudson Hike-Bike Trail. This fall, our Department of Planning and Development led an effort to seek ideas about how to make the part of the Connector that runs underneath Interstate 787 more attractive and user- friendly – ideas that will ultimately come to fruition later this year as part of Phase II. We are also in the process of finalizing an updated Bicycle-Pedestrian Master Plan – a plan that will be released very soon. I want to thank the entire team in the Department of Planning and Development for leading this and a number of the other projects that we’ve already highlighted this evening – all in an effort to make our city more walkable and vibrant. We continue to see new vibrant public art adorning walls, highway ramps, and other spaces across our City. COVID delayed the Albany Skyway, but we are committed to teaming up with New York State to award a construction contract and break ground in 2021. Thank you to the Common Council for supporting this transformative project. COVID also delayed the implementation of the other Downtown Revitalization Initiative projects, including the Clinton Market Collaborative, new Quackenbush Parking Garage entrance, and Downtown Streetscape Improvements, but we are already making substantial progress on these projects as we enter the second month of 2021. Capitalize Albany continues to work diligently to move forward with eminent domain proceedings to take control of the properties needed to make Liberty Park a reality, aided by the $15 million award by Governor Cuomo earlier this year. This is one of our most anticipated projects to move forward on in 2021 as we look to create a mixed-use neighborhood and attract new investment. An New York State feasibility study identified potential residential and entertainment uses with approximately $130 million in development potential. Additionally, we’re very encouraged by Governor Cuomo’s creation of the Intermodal Center Task Force that would be located adjacent to the Liberty Park project site. Despite the significant uncertainty we continue to face as a result of COVID-19, our sound fiscal management continues to lead our City to a strong and sustainable future. And because we were able to rebuild our fund balance, we have been able to implement a balanced 2021 budget that fully funds City services and makes important investments in every neighborhood. You will note that we are able to implement this budget because we have been able to build up our reserves and prepare for a rainy day. Something that has taken years to achieve. I also want to highlight $5.7 million reduction in our debt service in our 2021 budget. This reduction is tied directly to what was, at the time, my unpopular decision as City Treasurer to tie the city’s landfill debt to the then projected 2020 closure date of the landfill. I then worked hard as Mayor to reduce our dependence on landfill revenue, which has extended the life of the landfill to 2026. ---PAGE BREAK--- To be clear, without the landfill debt service savings, we would be facing an even more challenging fiscal crisis. This is a budget that reaffirms our commitment to equity in our City. This is a budget that fights for our residents. This is a budget that invests more than $6 million to pave streets and fix sidewalks. This is a budget that invests $2 million into Lincoln Park. This is a budget that invests funds for the design and engineering of a West Hill Community Center. This is a budget that creates a living wage for all City of Albany employees of $15.52 per hour. This is a budget that renovates four additional playgrounds across our City – Ridgefield, Westland Hills, Mater Christi, and Washington Parks. This is a budget that fully funds our award-winning Summer Youth Employment Program. This is a budget that was unanimously approved by our Common Council. This is a budget that will help us lead through the challenges of today and the promise of tomorrow. And I am encouraged that we will be able to do all of this because I am encouraged by our new federal leadership. And finally, I want to conclude this evening highlighting how we developed a new way to deliver on equity and transparency. We have launched a new, user-friendly, and mobile device-accessible website and brand identity for the City of Albany. This is a culmination of collaborative efforts between City employees, The College of Saint Rose, and CivicPlus. As an administration dedicated to equity and transparency, we lean heavily on our City website to publish critical information, and COVID-19 has shone an even brighter light on how vital it is to have a 21st century website. I want to thank Sarah Kampf, the City’s Special Projects Coordinator, and our IT Team led by Mark Dorry, for making this new website a reality. And I also want to thank our collaborators from The College of Saint Rose, specifically designer, Gabriela Gordon, for creating this exciting new brand identity representing our diverse, progressive City and its rich history. This new brand identity will be utilized on various City of Albany publications, electronic and print materials, and other mediums, including on each slide from this evening’s presentation. 2020 was challenging, and many of those challenges remain as we enter the second month of 2021. We all must double-down on the efforts undertaken during 2020 into the New Year. We must continue to wear masks, remain socially distanced, and avoid gatherings to help us bridge the gap between now and the moment when enough of our nation is vaccinated to begin easing the restrictions that are designed to keep us all safe. ---PAGE BREAK--- Despite all that we have experienced together during 2020, I truly believe our City’s best days are ahead of us, and I look forward to guiding us through the challenges of today and the promise of tomorrow. Thank you.