Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan delivered her State of the City address Monday evening.
Delivering a virtual address, the third-term Democrat says the city is in "a very different place" from one year ago.
"We did not know if the Rescue Plan was going to pass," said Sheehan. "We did not know if that funding was going to come directly to our cities. We worked together on a budget. And we fought for and created a budget that we thought fought for our residents, didn't cut, employees didn't cut city services. And then we got about the work of advocating to ensure that we had the funding to balance that budget. But it was not a foregone conclusion. And so we worked hard, and we were able to be successful. Seeing the Rescue Plan signed into law by the President on March 11. Again, thanks to the leadership that we have in Congress. And that resulted in direct aid to the city of Albany, unprecedented funding to allow us to replace our lost revenue, as well as to invest in our communities in ways that address the inequities that were really laid bare by the pandemic."
Sheehan says American Rescue Plan funds will power her Albany For All initiative, allocating $25 million from the city's $80.7 million to fund a limited number of "highly impactful programs that can produce profound results."
"This funding provides us with a unique opportunity to help bring community based organizations, businesses, together to collaborate in new and exciting ways," said Sheehan. " Whereas before, you had funding sources that could be really narrow, right, and tapered, and it really prevented many agencies from being able to do some really innovative things together. So we're looking for collaboration in the applications that we get, we also are looking for sustainability. We don't want more broken promises in a community. So we if we're building something or creating something, we want to be able to sustain it through the time period that it's needed. Legal services to help with evictions, for example, that's a shorter term timeframe. And we want to make sure that we're able to fund those legal services through the duration of what we're going to see with the potential increase in evictions, but then some of the longer term programs that people are proposing, we want to make sure that they're sustainable. And we're looking at what impact is going to have, what impact it's going to have neighborhood by neighborhood," Sheehan said.
Sheehan said the city worked hard in 2021 to connect residents to the COVID vaccine and partnered with the county to distribute masks and home test kits.
"We still have a lot of work to do, we have to get more people vaccinated," Sheehan said. "And we have to make sure that we're doing all that we can to keep our families safe."
Sheehan also emphasized commitments to housing, community revitalization, the restoration of Lincoln Park, the citywide tree planting effort, grants to homeowners, and exceeding her 2021 goal to reduce the number of derelict buildings tagged with a red X by 30%.
She says the city remains committed to increasing public safety.
"I'm pleased to say that we settled the contract with our officers and detectives, they are getting their first raise in six years," Sheehan said. 'This was incredibly important and is going to be important as we move forward and try to recruit additional officers."
Sheehan noted there are currently 52 police department vacancies. She praised the police reform collaborative for several recommendations it has made.
"We're implementing those recommendations, and we rolled out with our budget, the those first investments that we're making in a Public Safety Commissioner, in victim advocate positions, and in a data analysts so that we have access to data that can help us determine where the disparities are, and whether what we're doing is fixing those disparities," said Sheehan. 'We also continue to fight to keep our community safe by getting guns off the street. Our department recovered nearly 200 illegal guns, illegal guns, I want to stress that, in 2021, down 34%, but they were at unacceptably high levels in 2020. So down 34%, We still have work to do."
Sheehan also reminded viewers of projects in the works, including the Albany Skyway and renovations to the Livingston Bridge that connects Albany and Rensselaer.
