Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan delivered her State of the City Address Tuesday evening.
Sheehan spoke at 520 Livingston Avenue; the former Albany Boys Club building is being renovated as the new West Hill Community Center.
The speech heavily focused on the American Rescue Plan Act. Sheehan invoked the acronym ARPA more than two dozen times.
"So we are here in Albany West," Sheehan said. "But that's not all. We are really excited about being able to use ARPA money to also focus on Albany South and you're going to hear a little bit about the community center that we have in the south end of Albany, and how we are going to also transform that space."
The Democrat added the South End Children's Cafe is going to be leveling up with their ARPA money because it has outgrown its present facility. New space will allow for the inclusion of 125 additional children. "We also were able to provide a grant in our own voices to create a drop in center for LGBTQ+ youth," said Sheehan.
ARPA money also went toward expansion of city programs for senior citizens. Sheehan said construction of the new swimming pool at Lincoln Park is underway.
"So we are past the point of no return. The round pool has been demolished and this incredible new facility will be in its place. The goal is to have it open by the Fourth of July of 2025. You know, we also were able to use ARPA money in small amounts that had transformational changes," Sheehan said.
Those changes pertain to smaller city parks. Sheehan says ARPA funding will be used to standardize city wayfinding signage. ARPA money also poured into the small business community and public safety.
"I'm very proud of the fact that we were able to use some of our ARPA funding to ensure that we could settle long, outstanding contracts, we settled a four-year contract with our firefighters," said Sheehan. "And we have a new contract in place for the Albany police department with salary raises."
Sheehan says last year Albany Police answered over 100,000 calls for service, while the fire department responded to more than 24,000 calls, including the massive Doane Stuart fire last spring.
She gave Governor Kathy Hochul a nod, acknowledging receipt of half a million dollars to build out the largest Crime Analysis Center in the state, $1.8 million dollars for gun violence, $480,000 for mental health programs, and another $2.4 million in other funding to address public safety.
"In 2023 we had declines in the number of shots fired shooting incidents, shooting victims, burglaries, vehicular homicides were down 80%," Sheehan said.
138 illegal handguns were confiscated. Sheehan acknowledged the city's homicide rate remains high, explaining that 84% of non-vehicular homicide victims were killed by someone they knew. She says focus remains on the underlying causes, helping people find other ways of resolving their conflicts and of de-escalating situations.
"That's why I went to Washington this past summer with a number of mayors from across the country to advocate for the federal government to fund 100,000 social workers across this country. We need help in every community," said Sheehan.
Sheehan says the city is hiring social workers who will be available around the clock at South and Center police stations. She adds Albany will use nearly a million dollars in opioid recovery money to fund an Albany County street treatment program.
The mayor said the "SeeClickFix" website where residents can enter complaints about potholes and quality of life issues has increased responsiveness and time to completion by 87%.
"We also spent $19 million dollars paving roads, we filled 6,700 potholes. We did sidewalk repairs, we continue to focus on traffic safety," Sheehan said.
Sheehan says the city surpassed its goal of planting 2,025 trees by the year 2025 by about 500, and noted the Beaver Creek Clean Rivers project, which will end untreated waste flowing into the Hudson River, is near completion.
Turning to housing, Sheehan announced the city just received a $1.9 million federal health homes grant to help 120 residents to stay in their homes and address blight. She noted that "bad landlords" are being held accountable, and taken to court, and the number of vacant properties is down 12%. She welcomed migrants and the role they may play as future residents and homeowners.
"We need migration in order to ensure that we have the people to fill the jobs that are coming in our community. And that's why home ownership is so important. And we provided a significant amount of our ARPA funding to help to spur home ownership," said Sheehan.
Sheehan pointed out that Albany has spent more than 75% of its ARPA funding in formerly redlined neighborhoods and was the first city in the state of New York to adopt good cause eviction. After the speech she told WAMC she can't imagine where Albany would be without ARPA.
"I think that when we look back at how challenging these times are, it's even more incredible that we were able to get this funding, get it out the door as fast as we did, and help as many people as we have," said the mayor.
Sheehan says Albany will deal with many future challenges including promotion of offshore wind and semiconductor facilities, the closure of the College of Saint Rose, taking down the notorious eyesore Central Warehouse, constructing a new Livingston Avenue Railroad Bridge and re-imagining of 787.
"I won't be standing here when any of that work is done, but I do look forward to it. Ensuring that we're putting the city in a good place to be able to take advantage of what that future might be," Sheehan said.
Sheehan has said she will not run for a fourth term in 2025.
