Good afternoon. It's a call to council meeting to to order and before asking Madam Clerk to call the roll, I wanted to share for those who may not be aware that former Mayor Leonard Paduano passed away at the age of 93. He served the city as its mayor from 1980 to 1991. Pursuant to our recently adopted flight policy, I ordered that the city of New Rochelle flag be formed at half-masked today through September 17th, 2024 in honor and recognition of his service for our fair city. On behalf of the City Council and the staff, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and I would ask us to all observe a moment of silence in his honor. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. We are Raymos Herber. Here. Council Member Lopez, here. Valentino. Here. Council Member Peters. Here. Council Member Oshaloia. Here. Council Member Kaye, here. Council Member Stern. Good afternoon and welcome to the Committee of the whole session scheduled for today. Tuesday, September 10th, after our August recess. Welcome back everyone. Today, our first item will be a gen that will have three presentations. The first presentation is the Auditor's Report by EF-ER Group, CPAs for Year 2023. I see Commissioner Ritter and his colleagues joining us at the table. Thank you, Beth. Here's that PowerPoint. Presenting this. Okay. Here's another part of the. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Doug Zaholman, partner with the PR group. And I was mentioned I'll be reviewing theolam, partner with the APR group and was mentioned I'll be reviewing the results of the part of the city's financial service for the year and in the December 31st of 2023. The management of the engagement team on myself and Top Smith were two engagement partners and then Brian Somal was the engagement director that oversaw the audit. Our timing of procedures, we began our field work on April 29th. We issued the draft of the financial statements to management on August 2nd. We met with the City Manager and the Finance Commissioner that reviewed the results of the engagement on August 20th. And obviously we're here today to present those results to the Council on September 10th. We have issued what's called an unmodified or a clean opinion or no exception zone to preparation, the accounting record of the duty from General Expertor County Principles. You wish you, we have three financial statements that we're issuing. There's the annual comprehensive financial report that includes our opinion, the base financial statements, management discussion analysis, note disclosures. We also conducted what's called a federal grant compliance audit or a single audit. Any organization that receives over $750,000 of federal dollars is required to undergo that audit and you receive it and it's just 25 million for 23. And the last item that we have is there was a New York State Department of Transportation audit that is required to be completed as well. And again, we've issued an unmodified opinion with regards to that report. All the records and information we request you were freely available for our inspection. The results of our test disclose no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be recorded either under government auditing standards which is set of rules and regulations that were required to follow or under uniform guidance which is the new terminology for a single audit. So again, there would clean bill a house with regards to not compliance matters. There was one item that we noted that was considered a material weakness in internal control regarding a finding we had 2023-01. There were a number of significant audit adjusting general entries that were required in order to complete the engagement. So we do make a mention of that in the reports. The most organizations focus on their general fund and the general fund balances. So we break it down here. And that's detailed on page 20 of the financial statement, so if anyone is looking at that at some point in time, there's the non-expendable portion, which is obviously relatively immaterial at $29,000. There's committed for $298,000 assigned, 9,000, 399,000. And that assigned portion is actually broken down below. You appropriated $4,970,000 for your 2024 budget year, and then there were incumbences at the end of the year for $4,429,000. So those two numbers make that $9.3 million number. And then the unassigned portion, $24.4 million. So a fairly healthy unass same portion for the city. So the accumulation of all those fund balances total's just over $34 million. There was a decrease in fund balance for $23. It was $3,980,000, the budget had decreased and then $3,600,000. So fairly close to the budget numbers. As far as the general fund for 2024, the current budget year, the budget expenditure is amounted to $179.4 million, which is an increase of just over $12 million or 7.3% from the 2023 budget expenditures. There's $715,000 of budget expenditures per working day in the 2024 fiscal year. That's $251 actual working days. The NSI Fund balance that I mentioned in the previous slide, that $24.4 million as of the end of 23. That actually allows the city to operate for a 300 and that's going to be 34 days without taking in any additional revenue. So it's merely your budget of expenditures over $24 million. There's another document that we issue call the report to the board is required communication between an audit firm and governing body. And it's required communication with you guys at very specific points that were allowed to say. Covered such funds as seeming, you know, counting policies and coming estimates and so as part of our audit we review all the estimates and management utilizes in the preparation of the underlying records and of the financial statements and we're, we're, uh, consider those reasonable and let alone known circumstances. The financial statement disclosures, meaning the doses statements are appropriate and concise. Again, we have no difficulty in performing the unit. We have no disclosures with management over any accounting reporting or auditing matters. We did obtain a reprimandment of reuploitation letters. One of the last things that we do at the conclusion of the engagement. There are no changes in our audit plan when we begin planning an audit even before the end of your fiscal year. We lay out our audit strategy in the course that we're going to take and we're happy to report back. There were no deviations from that. There was nothing that we noted that caused us to change the type of procedures that we had to perform. There were no matters that noted relevant to the audit including the but now limited violations of possible possible violations of laws or regulations and against that's where I indicate that we had a no compliance finding reports there were no risks and material statements including fraud or any other types of complaints regarding the city's financial reporting that were made aware to us as a result of the inquiry of those charged with governance. We're not aware of any consultations with other accountants. There were no discontent with management regarding any issue in the audit report and there were no other matters that we considered significant to the oversight of the city's financial report process. That's everything I wanted to cover again, it's at a very high level of uncertainty. Certainly, happy to answer any questions anyone may have. What are significant audit events being general entries? So management, when they go to close their books, they reconcile or accounts at the end of the year. They certainly maintain their accounting records throughout the year, but there's certainly a lot of stuff that they have to do at the end of the year to begin the audit process. And so when we come in as auditors, if we see things that require adjustments to those records, those become significant audit adjustments. auditors if we see things that require adjustments to those records those become significant auditors. Certainly there may be insignificant items when you work on a materially basis so you know if there's something that doesn't quite agree we're going to point it out to management we're not going to record it because it's in material but in this case there are a number of significant differences. A lot of having to do with the due to due from the funds and the transfers in and out that did not balance. And so again, we were required to record those adjustments to get to the audit and financials that were able to get that. So the financial results, the actual net decrease in fund balance for 2023 being 3.9 million. When we get this number, we just get the percent difference between the actual net increase in fund balance for the year receiving or maybe the five years proceeding. So we just have context. Sure. I can include that in the like, lectures presentation. For example, you can kind of history of worth things landing. Thank you. It will just me getting easier for you guys sure That's all Any questions or comments from my colleagues? You're not thinking Mr. Singhman. Thank you The next item on the agenda is another presentation by Commissioner Ed Wittler Regarding the budget report for the eight months of 2024. Hello again. This is through August 3rd, 1st, the city has collected approximately $125.1 million of our budget of $179.5. Revenue collection is on target through the first eight months. Budget revenue for sales tax and investment income was increased for 2024 based on prior years. Sales tax revenue and particular investment income, they fought higher so we budgeted higher throughout this year and they are continuing to well and they're above budget right now which is a good sign. Reason report from the New York State Control Office has sales tax for the state virtually flat at 0.2% for July 23 and July 24. During this time during that period New Rochelle saw a 4% increase year-over-year in quarter one and a 2.6% increase in quarter two. So a nurse shall still go in strong with sales tax. And that is definitely a good sign. All the positive areas of revenue included the Lakement Tax Collection, which is the average date, which council allowed me to continue through the end of the year. Regulations and sewer fees, which ties into, as you know, is come on we're collecting those fees. Plenty of wood fees, special duty revenue and building carpet fees are still going along right where we expect them to. Revenues are projected to be on target at this time, but we're monitoring them very carefully, clean mortgage tax, and rate camera violations, and shoot opening permits, because those areas that are not performing as well as we'd like. They're not underperforming, but they're not as strong as we would like. Overall, revenues are performing as expected for the year. So this is what I wanted to show you here. If you look at this is from the St. Control Office, and you'll see where we had the 4% increase in the first quarter and the 2.6%. And if you look right above us, one of our neighbors is not doing so while they had a decline of 14.1% and I'm glad we're here And this is a chart just showing everything I really just talked about these are the high points is not every Revenue item for these the high points and we look to be tracking about 4.9 ahead On our revenues for the year. And again through most 31st the expenditures and in conferences total approximately 127.2 million or 68.6% of the revised budget of 185.5 million. Over time is protected to be over budget, however, this will be offset by total hours and hourly rates projected to come in under budget. Health insurance is projected to be slightly over budget. All other expenditures are within or less than their budget amount and with the revenue tracking well and expenses generally remain within the budget, We are projecting a modest surplus at year-end surplus funds are allocated to our fund balance reserve. This is the trust that signifies that. It's a breakdown of all the different areas and we're looking to be about 4.3 under. Again, this has an August. We still have a whole quarter to go. So we'll be monitoring that as we go. And for the 2003 audit, the city ended the year with 24.5 million unassigned fund balance. Fund balance has been appropriated throughout 2024 for various city initiatives. Currently unassigned fund balance stands at 18.5%. And that includes tonight, and we are being asked to consider tonight. So when you see that item, don't think it's going to deduct further. And that is about 10.5% of our expenses less debt, which is within the city's fund balance policy, which we need to maintain 10% of the quality to the policy. Staff has been on the process of the 2025 budget, working within the New York State 2% tax cap. This year the tax levy has allowed me to increase 1.86% from which just tax levy. Less than the 2% due to the city's payment and lieu of tax or pilot revenue, which is a result of adult development downtown. As pilot revenue continues to grow, the amount of tax taxes is offset. Thus providing relief to our taxpayers, this is where as the pilots are coming on board, you're seeing less taxation to the rest of the city. Staff intends to deliver a proposed budget within the tax cap to the city council for review and input leading to adoption in December of 2021. Thank you so much Commissioner. I'm just going to give this presentation. For opening up the floor, just quick noting. The more I sort of become more involved with it, it's interesting. It's great to see the positive influence of the price. It's 0.14% it still is a savings start taxpayers. And it's thanks for us to know that. So we can communicate that as President asks us about pilots and its impact on the city. So thank you for including that in this slide. I'll open the floor to my colleagues. Any questions or comments for the team here? Councilmember Gentina. So on the front ballot, where's the minimum we should be at? We should be at 10% as the actual policy. We have 17.5. So we have about 1 million. So be aware right now. I'm still hoping to have a positive year this year. But I do urge that we really hold back and only emergency type situations we appropriate. Again, an item we would be considering tonight is what emergency services. Okay. Now just one of the know where we would be going into, because a bit of a budget, we just said one thing, it was one, seven, eight, nine, and then, seven, nine, and eight, seven, eight, seven, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, I'm going to point out that a year over a year, about three or four years ago, we were at 42% taxation and it's been settling down. This 2024 budget was only 39% taxation. So other revenues are kicking in, pilots included, fees are included. So we are going to the recognition. The positive is the sales tax is increasing. It's interesting because you may be notified about our neighbors tax sales tax going down and you know mean in retail. I'm seeing the effects of this. It's the communities that don't have a large retail base. Their residents seem to be buying online. They're paying work like in sales tax for that online purchasing. Whereas a place like like Playings has very large retail base comparison, but people from places like Nourishow and other communities are not shopping in those places. They're ordering and delivering home. So if that trend continues, even despite our reduction in retail units in our community, our sales ask continues to come. That's a good thing. Yes, and ideally, if the internet sales continue, and we start to build up retail, it's just all positive. Any other questions, Councilor? No. Thank you. Any other questions from my colleagues? Well, we always talk about different types of tax revenue, particularly the sales tax revenue, which is a great opportunity for us because we might be able to put our thumb on the scale to make improvements around the city, but from the discussions you had had before, all of the sales tax revenue goes to the state and then we basically handed back to us. So we've talked about ways to try to figure out, you know, try to pinpoint what's driving ourselves tax revenue sections of the city are really developing that, maybe so that we can amplify the possible sorry closer to being able to like map that out. Well, I've reached out to the state. Yes. And I told them what we're looking for and they said they would to being able to like map that out. Well, I've reached out to the state. Yes. And I told them what we're looking for and they said they would absolutely be able to release it to me as a confidential talking. Ah. Okay, so I would be able to take the information and just in areas of increased decrease. So we could certainly model on that. But what they're going to send me is actually every individual so and that is why it's confidential and I got to actually sign a waiver So That's incredible so you ask them we try I'm very happy about that We're trying Thank you very much. Thank you so much for putting this on. I'm very happy to have you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, thank you all so very much. Give us a second. Item number three on the agenda is a Department of Development update regarding the link and traffic. I see Commissioner Salgado joining us to move our fabulous members. All right. Thank you. There you go. Thank you. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Good evening, members of Council. Madam Salvator, again, no. And I'm joined here today with Laura Star from Star White House Architects, Landscape Architects, and a lot of Iran from BHP. These are the two principles. Star White House is designing the surface improvements the park experience on the link. And BHP is designing everything else right. 30 people of the link to, you know, everything, the storm, water, and all of the improvements that were going to be making to that area. I've also brought along today a physical copy of the presentation, which I'm going to hand out. Just a little bit. So just that I think I thought it would be good just in terms of the organization of the presentation today. We talked a little bit about the updates to the actual park design and talk about the greening and the economic developments. Adjust or advancements that we've made since the last time we spoke back in April. And back then if you recall, Calzilla asked for an update on the traffic. So a lot of Moran is here today to present the updated traffic study that we have done based on newer data that we have implemented, basically based on the build-out of the downtown. Originally, when we did the traffic counts and those studies, we used the theoretical developments study data. And now that we actually have buildings in the ground and we know the uses that are in those buildings, we have more accurate data and therefore more at the retrofit case. So with that, I would like to pass it to Laura to take us through the park design. I can advance the slides for you. OK, thank you, Adam. So I'm calling this part of the presentation greening and economic development. And why am I doing that? this part of the presentation, greening and economic development. And why am I doing that? Because the link is replacing those four acres of highway that severed and ruined the community with nine acres of green connective tissue that's going to reweave together, how people move through, actually the community and the city really, and is going to activate economic development. And that's what I want to talk about today. And we're very excited about the idea of people being able to walk from downtown, from the train stations with this community along a green corridor, and to have east-west connections to across from the community to the west of Memorial over to North Avenue and you know that's going to be really reactivated when that that overpass comes out and there can be more stores there. I'm going to show you more ideas for that in a second. We did a lot of community engagement a year ago and one thing people talked about was biking. Being able for kids to be able to ride to high school, to not let the kids to school in a car, to have bikes and scooters, so that orange line that's going all the way from the Transation of Downtown up, all the way to past Lincoln, upbroke, which we'll talk about, that's becoming a greener street also, with a bike lane all the way to Hubeon-Aut Park in the high school. So these orange lines are the some of the bike connections and we also do a very exciting new bike connection through from the west through a real line memorial down, down Rochelle Place, that's how you show place, that's sickles, sickles, down sickles, over to north and onto point skis. So what this does is it keeps the bike, the bicycles, which are faster moving out of the park where the people are. And this is, so what this is about is landscape architects. We really like to think about how do people experience the park? Like what's it like when you go to the park, you know, as a parent, as a family, as a single person, as a senior citizen, as somebody in a wheelchair, as somebody walking your dog, somebody lonely wanting a social life, with kids wanting to play. We try to go deep and think about all these things and we engage with the community about these activities a year ago and people gave us a lot of ideas and we located those in the park. And part of the park experience is, it's not just being in the park, but it's like getting to the park. You know, are you going from your house, maybe half a mile away and jogging down one of these green corridors into the park and then finding a fitness loop there or, you know, maybe getting a drink of water, finding the bathroom there. If you're there with your kids, you know, is there a place where you can buy your kid an ice cream or get water, maybe you come in from another part of New Richelle to spend the day in the neighborhood and you want to go to a good restaurant. So having this kind of hard to imagine, but when you take out the highway with the best who have in cars in the Lana and I almost got killed last week trying to cross the highway, like when you take that scary place out and you put in palm trees and green, it's total game changer. And Adam's point about the traffic study, so we did that and we realized, well, we could straighten out Memorial, like in addition to reducing the amount of lands and slowing down the traffic. If we straighten it out, what we can do is create these two recent iteration of the park. And what we're thinking is, this parcel here at the head of the park could be an exciting place when an active vibe that really will draw people from Lincoln Park and the Boys and Girls Club to come into the link. It's like a family hub. Maybe it has a pavilion or an event or market space. And it could be a man's like a family hub. Maybe it has a pavilion or an event or market space. It could be a magnet for a local restaurant. It's a great space for food vendors and events because it's got guion plays behind it for staging. And this is always one of the big issues with park design is if you want to have food or an event, like how do you get food and drinks in and how do you get garbage out without disrupting the whole park. So this is a perfect setup for that. And then to the south of that, we have this opportunity for a calmer, leafier space that can really draw people from this big hospital community and perhaps this senior center over here, you know, with this outdoor space with tables and chairs and maybe chess and checkers tables. Ideally if there's a way to create local jobs we could have a kiosk there with somebody manning the kiosk who gives out chess and checker games and things like that. So there's actually a lot of opportunity to create jobs in the park itself. And then, so those are the two new parcels here. And then this part of the park is larger. So this is where we would have the more pastoral extensive activities, like a large, the dog-round, the playground would be here. We'll show you pictures in a minute of this plaza entering the park here with its amphitheater, which is something the community very much very much wanted. And then we have these two entrances to the park at Lincoln Avenue and at North Avenue that are great opportunities for Activating the retail corridors on those two streets and also helping to serve the people in the park So let me go to the next slide so this slide Is really about the link is going to become a spine of opportunity. And what do we mean by that? What we mean is that you sail this perimeter, like look how linear this place is. And these parenthesis things are, they're representing the ground floor uses that these buildings could potentially have. So we've opened up a lot more ground floor opportunities that confront the park. And Adam and his team are going to be working, we're going to have one-on-one conversations with these, especially these private building owners to see how they can plan their buildings to have good community serving uses in the ground floor. Maybe daycare, maybe senior centers, I don't know, after school programs, things for kids, things that will both activate the park because this is adding safety because these buildings are fronting the park, the doors are opening to the park, and also that the audience of the park would help activate the retail in these buildings. So this is a form of planning that is not actually within the park design but is completely woven into the park planning and design. Okay and then so while we're doing all of that the park is doing other work too it's going to be absorbing about 50 to 60 thousand cubic seed of stormwater. So I calculated that it is like six professional sized basketball courts with one foot of water humbling in it. So that's help visualizes it. Okay so that's a lot of water. The blue square rectangles are places where the water would be underground and these kind of big plastic balls if you can imagine like the kind of egg crate things like at the grocery store but mega and then the green lines are potential rain gardens or storm water gardens that where the water flows through native vegetation and kind of rivulets and and it can be quite beautiful if they're properly maintained. Of course the maintenance will create local green jobs. Okay, so let's see what else. Okay now I'm going to just show you some before and after pictures or I should say existing and proposed. So this situation at North Avenue is going to become something like this. This is an amphibir built into the hillside up here. It can be a playground with slides coming down the hill and then further beyond potentially the kind of a fountain and then beyond is memorial and those two parcels that we talked about. There's opportunity here for market vendors or you know and performances. Over here we need to work with these buildings here. We're also you know going to be speaking to the the building over here to the right. Which one is that? 420 North Avenue. We've blessed that out before we need to talk to them and then we're also going to be talking to the senior Housing over here in this corner to get that building to really open up to the park and you know We want to take as this picture shows we want to take away fences We really want to have a barrier free landscape here that people Feel feel like they can they're really welcome into it Just be keen to, the entrance at Lincoln and Memorial. So this is current Memorial with Alana. What is that for three lanes of cars, plus a turning lane in each direction? Yeah. Okay, so four. Okay, well a lot of lanes of cars and not much place for people. So this is just one image. You know, we're working on the design, but the ideas are these have had a gateway potentially a bridge over the stormwater garden, the bikeway in both directions. You can see to the right and reducing the traffic to one lane in each direction plus various turning lanes. What is that, correct? That's just a great track. That's correct. OK. What is that correct? That's just a correct. That's correct. Okay. And then the long, spinal-on memorials, and this is existing memorial with its two-plus lanes of traffic. And what I'm going to show you is we're taking actually essentially a lane and a half of traffic as we're eliminated in the median to create this green connection all the way from beyond the train station to Lincoln and then to Brook Street. Brook Street has the potential to become what's called a living street, a complete street, a wonar fairs about three or four different names for what can happen on Brook Street but the main thing is rebalancing who feels comfortable on the street. So right now the cars rule the street and we're trying to make it so the cyclists and pedestrians can also feel safe there. And one thing that's important about that is that what we talk about economic development, people are not spending money when they're in their cars. They're spending money when they're on foot and dropping into an interesting shop or cafe. So we really want to have people walking and experiencing the neighborhood. But I bet you want to hear more details about the traffic. So I'm going to pass this over. What I used to hear a lot It's higher up more comfortable. Thank you. Thank you. So as Lauren and I've said I'm going to talk a little bit about the traffic study update here and it's not near as exciting as all of the planning for the park itself but I know it's an important feature of everything that we'll be going on here in the community. So the traffic evaluation was completed as part of the supplemental GIS for the DOA and the link that had been approved and Seekers been completed on that project. But the important part about this traffic study update is to bring numbers into what we really expect the future to look like at the time the link is constructed. So, 2027, 2028 tied the fight yet. So, we worked with the DPW to identify a scope of services that was reflective of what their questions had been regarding the larger study that had been completed. So, we completed updated traffic counts at 24 locations. Those were done while school was in session. So it's a nice time of year to grab those counts. And so it was just, gosh, my end of May early June that those counts were completed. So additionally, analyses were completed at 26 locations. And those are identified up on the map in front of you. But it's really the spine of North Avenue Memorial Highway and then the connections to I-95. So then traffic volumes, like I said, were estimated for that future condition will we anticipate the link to be complete and we were able to add in that new intersection. So one of the things Laura talked about was straightening out Memorial Highway and kind of putting that grid system back together. And with the construction of a new traffic signal and a new connection to Sickles Avenue West. So it would be a new T intersection heading into that northwestern portion of this study area right here. And of course this really all started as a safety study for pedestrians and bicyclists. So it was really important to continue to identify the benefits and the safety and the circulation for those users on our system. Thank you. So several findings. We've got kind of a draft report complete today that we've spoke to folks at DPW about. And these are the initial findings of that draft report. So, the SGEIS really did have an overestimation of traffic in the study area. So, we've right sized that future anticipated traffic volumes. When we did that, what it really showed is that all the study area intersections are operating much better than with what had been shown in the SGS. So it's more of a everything operating at the idea of level of service D-ish with a couple non-secreters. But everything, it comparatively between the two studies is operating better than what had been identified before. The new intersection at Memorial Highway with Sickles Ave to the West really helps to alleviate some of the left turning movements at Lincoln Ave and also at Lockwood just because it provides another opportunity for drivers to head to and from the West along Memorial Avenue. And so that intersection really helps with circulation for vehicles, but it's also providing benefit for pedestrians and bicyclists because it's going to be another controlled crossing. So we're going to stop traffic and let vehicles and let pedestrians cross the roadway. So it provides that benefit as well. So in addition to our vehicles, back to the kind of core of the projects, so to speak, but with the realignment of Memorial Highway and that new connection to Sickles Ab, there is better connectivity for the residents on Hion, on Prince, up in that area to just walk through Lincoln Park, go through the Boys and Girls Club, and then meander on over into the link itself. So that connection is better for cyclists and pedestrians. To get to the link, but also to get through it to other destinations within the city, whether it's the train station or directly over to North Avenue to utilize all of the businesses and restaurants that are there. So it's really a great way to get those connections happening. Also, because the overall project is taking our roadway with from like six lanes down to usually three at the intersections, but you know two in some instances. So it's narrowing that up so much that it makes it a lot safer for pedestrians to cross the roadways. And it's also... We're kind of... because we're moving the vehicles into a smaller amount of lanes, they're also going to have to slow down a little bit because you're not going to have as much space in between to kind of just go faster than you really should be on a city street like that. So there would be three new controlled crossings. So those are traffic signal crossings on Memorial Highway. which is really important is that that gateway to the park from Brook Street and from Lincoln Avenue, it will be a new crosswalk across the south side of that intersection. So right now you're not supposed to cross that location, but in the future that will be an opportunity. Also a pedestrian signal somewhere between cycles and more. So somewhere in there we'll get a pedestrian crossing and then also the new traffic signal and memorial and signals. So lots of good opportunities to get people into the park and back into the neighborhoods. So finally with the new signal is crossing at North Ave. So that's the plaza that Laura had shown with the amphitheater and everything, which looks beautiful. That gets pedestrians across North Avenue to and another good safe location. And then with all the complete streets elements on Brook Street and being able to complete the bike network, just getting it farther north up towards the high school is a great opportunity here. Just wanting to show what all this connection means. So with this the realignment and the connection to Sickles Ave last we can get to residences Lincoln Park the Boys and Girls Club Montfiori there's public parking over there so there's all sorts of places that people can get to now with that new intersection and crossing. It does create those two additional parcels that Laura was talking about for activation, which are, it's an awesome opportunity there. Also allowing for some stormwater management in those spaces, which is also really important we know that there's existing stormwater concerns. So anything that this part can do to help with that is awesome. It's great benefit. And then it's also going to improve circulation for the vehicles, pedestrians and for the bicyclists and actually better kind of intersection operations when we're looking at that volume comparison between the previous. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the engagement plan. So you know, these two new parcels and these sort of adjustments to the link design have really created an opportunity for us to re-engage with the community to establish a really collaborative dialogue. Our approach this time, if you recall initially in 2018, the link concept was really the product of an engagement exercise. We formed a committee, we worked with local stakeholders, and then we really came up with the scope of what would become the link. And then we re-engage with them again to really understand the story of that community and the attitudes around the urban renewal that was done by Robert Moses earlier in the 20th century and really the pain and the psychological scar that left him. So we got a lot of great ground work done and we really understood what the communities needs were and that has been the basis for informing the design of the link to date. Recently as Laura described we re-engaged in earnest through several different shurets which are workshops where we invited people to an open house and we created different stations around and we invited people to engage with the design team and with different consultants on really deciding and determining what they wanted the part to how they wanted to function what what features they wanted in there, what kind of amenities, what was important and we learned that economic development was really paramount. And so what we did in having the economic development conversation and sort of brainstorming on how we could create more opportunities for economic development's community, we came up with this realignment of Memorial Highway and the creation of those two new parcels and really trying to create a very active edge, which presents another opportunity for us to go back into the community to really articulate through their words what they want those parcels and those parts of the part that we are still sort of Influx with what those are going to look like so our approach this time is much more humanized. We're gonna come Very I've got some and we're gonna do it ourselves in house with folks that we have in the Department of Development We're gonna meet where people are we're going to do it ourselves in-house with folks that we have in the Department of Development. We're going to meet where people are. We're going to go to Sunday Service. We're going to go to the resident rooms in the senior buildings and all the multi-family buildings. And we're even going to go door to door to the single family residences and knock on their doors and understand what their needs are and invite them to some larger, additional sort of larger forum workshop type activations or shurets as I call them sometimes. Really understand what we can build in response to what their needs are. So we're really looking forward to having those conversations and really getting out there, a door, a door. Specifically, those constituencies consist of the Lincoln neighborhood residents. We're gonna have forms of the boys and girls come as I've mentioned and Cindy Paul, that's going to be very hands-on, grassroots, door to door canvassing. And again, when we make those presentations to the houses of worship and also to the resident associations, we'll be handing out a sort of a trifold, some sort of a pamphlet that really gives the detail on what the link is and we'll have a QR code to a survey so we can get quantifiable data and feedback from the public, which is making sure that we're going to the places that we missed last time, or the last several times that we've engaged. And that's been a real focus of the team. Robert Douglas has joined the development team, and we're really excited. He brings a real fresh perspective to this and really understands how to design conversations to elicit the kind of feedback that we find really valuable in designing these sort of public and to design-based interventions to solve some of the issues. Again, local business owners are North Avenue or are real concern of ours. I know that the impact of the construction of the link is going to be an issue for them. Local clergy, religious leaders, Montepierre Hospital, I'm already trying to get a meeting with those local and corporate leadership, community groups and youth organizations, and focusing very intently on the senior citizens that live in the field. So again, I mean the types of outreach I've already mentioned through my spiel, so I won't go through it again, but surveys, in-person events, online engagement through these cities and GEN, or we have a website that we're going to host a lot of these information about the link, and on the dates and times of all of the events that we're going to have in the next couple of months. So we're flat. A little bit about the project schedule. And schedule is aggressive. Schedule is aggressive. So it was door to door and one on one types of engagement activities are really pretty much starting now. So the next up from now through November, it is really when that type of effort is going to be in place. That doesn't mean community engagement and it continues all the way through this process, but we're going to get that targeted effort out right now. Get people engaged, get the answers that are needed as far as what should be designed. So, design. Yep, we're diving into that as well. We're certainly partway through that process when it comes to the boring meat and potato part of it. The roadways, the stormwater, all that kind of stuff that needs to go underground in order to make this a beautiful area of the city. So we're working on that now, looking to have 50% plans in quarter one of 2025, 100% plan, stirring quarter three, I am 2025, and then getting those contract documents 100% plan during quarter, beginning of quarter to quarter three. I am 2025 and then getting those contract documents out to bid, getting subcontractors solicited and breaking ground at the end of 2025. This is super aggressive. We're going to need all of your help. Yes, we're going to need your help. We're going to be the help. But we're excited to really get going and get started on this. Oh my goodness. Okay, oh my stuff. And then drop cute questions and answers. Oh, see. I'm gonna go ask because you know me. Um, so so great. Okay, opening up the table a lot. I just can't. There's just so much good. Very mayor. Be the mayor. Colleagues, questions or comments on this packet was presentation. Councilmember Sterns. Way up in the North and last night we had a meeting where a resident asked about emergency services, Zax has to do the hospital in this room. You can talk about that. We'll see. Yeah, and the traffic pattern will change a little bit because people are not going to be able to just go over the Memorial Highway over pass. But there are other routes. I think that's the important thing to note that is, is anybody coming from the east side you can still hit north avenue and if there's the opportunity to go up to Lincoln and go over or there's also the opportunity to go on Berlin there's the opportunity to go on Lockwood so it's just that one that connection won't be there anymore but there are all these other methods to get to the hospital. I'd also like to add that originally the link design called for a one-way unmemorial and there's one way on North Avenue and basically in response to the emergency services to the ambulance company to the hospital and to the fire and police departments we made both North Avenue and maintained a two-way traffic on both Memorial and on North Avenue which really helps access to the hospital. the two-way traffic on both memorial and on North Avenue, which really, you know, helps access to the hospital. And so all those parties you mentioned are on board with this design? This latest design, I mean, yes, we've discussed it. Yes, I mean, certainly with the two-way traffic, which was the major innovation. I mean, so yes, I mean, they haven't seen seen the real line memorial but that shouldn't impact, you know, the operations of those roadways per se. When we will certainly be going back to them as we approach that 50% design, that'll be a key focus is that coordination. Questions or comments from colleagues in the table? Council member, okay. Great presentation, thank you very much. With the community engagement plan, I just really appreciate the creativity of the ideas. And then just really focusing on meeting people where they are. I think that's a great step in the right direction. On the green elements of the project, the underground storage of the bioswales. There's a slide in there that shows the different the green and blue boxes. Is that just illustrious of what is potentially could be done? That's the focus I would think there's many opportunities for at least the bioswales to be. Yes, they're just illustrious. Okay, yeah. So, I just want to follow up on that because as I started to say earlier, the bioswales are gorgeous and it's like a symbolic of a city's commitment to grain. They take maintenance because when there's a big storm, when there's a cloud burst and the water gushes into them, you know, there's like cans and other crud in there. So I think, you know, we're going to be meeting with the Parks Department because if there's the commitment to maintain them, which is great for great jobs, it really, really, really is. And so it would be fabulous. And it could really be throughout a larger area, but right now we're being conservative because we know if you put it underground, it's just done. It's like, you know. Right, so I do, we've had this conversation, I can understand the reservations or at least that you know wanting to be queued up with what we're prepared to maintain. And we have spoken to the city manager about how we are going to maintain the green bioswales and those green nature-based solutions. And we have a lot of really great ideas about with the and vocational training programs that we have and sort of creating a new opportunity for folks to become trained and have careers in that type of maintenance. So we are very committed and we still have a bunch of punchless items to discuss these would be the design. But certainly we're going to be very bullish on the bioswales and the nature-based solutions along the path and up along the way. Just while we're on this point, not to, but like the New York Times recently had an article about the highlight and how they were learning how to maintain it and keep the same. So I don't think that's out of scope, but I think it's consistent with when you kind of create this kind of park and just being creative about the long term maintenance what that looks like, what sustainable what's best. So everything you're saying attracts again one of the country's arguably biggest versions of the park we're trying to create. So I'm just trying to get you guys, we're going to knock that out. But back to Sanctuary. Okay. I thought we were already on track to try to build up the workforce and expand the scope of our workforce development and create green jobs. And so I think this would, again, reinforce the need to do that. Other questions or comments from other colleagues? Call some other peters? No, I'm not. Okay. I'm just waiting a little. I'm on top low. First of all, I can see this vision. I appreciate the engagement aspect of it, particularly since that's something over a period of time that has always been missing and has been hurtful. It's been in this had major consequences for so many varieties of points of history. So not letting our history define us is really important, right? We could learn from it and move forward. So I certainly can see the vision and the conversations that we're having. It'll take me a little time, not much, but at least certainly not right here beginning to the week. It's a little bit more around me. But I like the direction that we're going. I like the adjustments that have been made based on comments up to this point. And I'm looking forward to this process to begin so that we can learn more around what this can really look like and should do. So I'm pleased to have all the work. Great presentation. Thank you. I look forward to working with you. Yeah, I look forward to working with you. You've never done that before. I have your questions or comments from my colleagues at the table. Thanks. Ashley? I just want to say thank you and abundance for this presentation. Not only the presentation itself, but your notes and response to our colleagues. It shows that you had a lot of forth with the IMO to hand, as far as emergency services. We've discussed it length and I'd love to see that we're taking a comprehensive approach to our city-wide workforce development programs and how we can re-incorporate them into the operations and the life of the city here. The only thing I do disagree with your team on is that this is boring me in particular's work because I think that work is amazing and Even what goes in under the ground and everything like that when we have an opportunity to give somebody a job an advanced job But not only that but give them an advanced job right here in Newer's shell I think that that's incredible Neweruroshell for decades has been spectacular at developing massive corporate executives and politicians and business owners who start great enterprises everywhere else in this world but Neuroshell. So to bring that home and to have an initiative that does that here. I know what it's like to be a 16 year old in New Rochelle, sitting in Lincoln Park trying to figure out what you're going to do to make money during the summer. I know what that is like for my life experience. So I'm glad that we are not continuing the bad practice of making great workers for everywhere else in the world. I love the economic development focus. It's a great, I still see Commissioner Ritter. So I'm just gonna reaffirm the great sales tax revenue opportunities that we have there. As we've discussed as well, we look at workforce development. We need to look at entrepreneurship development as well, helping people shore up their paperwork, their accounting. Usually people are really great at doing that thing that they do so if we can provide additional route and route services for them to really establish their businesses. We're also really great at helping people start businesses so you know we were talking about food truck opportunities, pop-up shops, farmers markets, things like that that we could do. If we could help build people up from that starting point and build them up into that middle ground, I think that there's a gap where a lot of entrepreneurs end up losing their business right around the area where there would otherwise experience growth. So if we could help them with that and use that space to drag them up across that gap that would be spectacular as well and we've discussed that so just to bring that into this concept of thinking. I'm just I'm very happy about the accelerated. Yeah, right. I'm very happy about the accelerated scope of the, you know, what we're going to do, the groundbreaking project right here. I'm glad I heard you're like right here. I think this added a couple of my hair and as well. But, you know, I'm glad to see this today. If we could do anything to support the accelerated clock, especially with community engagement, you know, a lot of the things you said, I know came directly out of, I remember when I was just the community member that was like we need more economic development in this space, can't just be a park, it needs to be active. So thank you for all of this, I have a thousand more things that I could save on this stuff there. Yeah. Any questions from colleagues at the table? May I just respond to this? Yeah, of course. Sure. So, you know, when we start designing, especially the new personal, new, new, new, new, compartment of boys, club where we want to have the food truck, I think it would be really great to meet with some of the restaurant tours, like the more, you know, sort of smaller, mom and pop, get people cooking out of their kitchen to see like what how can the park design support them kind of getting started in a more entrepreneurial way in the park and like we kind of need to pick their brains and design for them and then like sort of as they evolve the park will evolve so I think that's a really important constituency for us because it because it activates the park like the more people like that go in the park will evolve. So I think that's a really important constitio in safer us. Because it activates the park. The more people like that go in the park, the more eyes are on the park. The park will feel safer. We need people in the park. Maybe I can't show kitchen. Just right. Yeah, I mean, this is really important to the park design. I love that. So in other hats that I wear for one of them is in the nonprofit space and during the years of operating a nonprofit the two number the number one and two things that people have asked for the most were a space to create different types of media but very specifically a commercial kitchen where they can activate their businesses. And a lot of it is an opportunity to bring a lot of different cultures into Nourish Island. And I love to go to the different corridors of Nourish Island, get every bit of the world's food. So if we could bring that set to... And I think that will draw people from all parts of the city. Yes, so vibrant and the hospital workers. I was just going to say we are doing a commercial kitchen at the 11th Garden Space. There's a 9,000 square for community space that is designed a commercial kitchen. I'm not saying we don't need another one in this community. I'm just saying. It's going to get out there there that we have heard that. Yes. That is happening elsewhere and we could certainly look for another opportunity. Yep, go ahead, Dr. Farms. When people see that the number of leans is going from a large number to a small number, they always say, but isn't this going to cause traffic? And the first bullet point, saying that the STIS analysis had an overestimation of future traffic volumes. Can you explain like what changed and just kind of in a way for us to understand how is few relays not going to lead to more traffic? So a few things on that. One, the overestimation was because the data at that time, we were right at the beginning of COVID and we were using older information and then we were making estimates about what it looked like in the future that haven't held true the same way that they did pre. So can I just say I just want to put a little context there. So when we did the theoretical development scenario through the SDG EIS, the American Environmental, we did a proposed theoretical buildout. And we had a lot of uses like institutional. We had a lot of hospitals. We had hotel. And those have a high traffic generation number, like a factor associated with them in that theoretical. What has happened since this downtown redevelopment started in 2015 is that the majority of the development has been residential, which has a lower traffic generation factor. So that just to talk about, when you talk about the traffic generation, the actual buildouts producing less traffic volume. That's just a little context into the face data that they used. And that's a really good frame. So that's one piece of it. The other part that I think you're more talking about is we're taking the amount of traffic that's on the roadway right now and we are dropping it down. Like we're keeping that same amount of traffic and we're putting it into a smaller space. And how is that possibly going to work? One thing about that is that vehicles are going to go slower. Right? So there is going to be a slow down of traffic because North Avenue is staying relatively the same as first. But we're not doing much there. On the other side, we are removing some traffic from Memorial Highway. Some of it's going to go over to North Avenue. Some of it is going to go other places. But because we are reducing and allowing the slow down, that also allows kind of the same kind of throughput, if that makes any sense. If you're not going to get through here, well actually that's part of the good thing. So you're not going to have people cutting through here anymore. It's going to be the traffic that belongs in the neighborhood itself, in the area. And that's one of the traffic that belongs in the neighborhood itself in the area and that's one of the biggest benefits of what this is doing. And to also understand that that speed at which people have become accustomed comes at a great expense to the neighborhood. The residents and the people who live in that area, I mean we've walked that site, especially in the last month. It's really dangerous. In the summer, it's really hot. It's dusty. It's dirty. There are no sidewalks. I mean, so when people think about, oh, I have to get to point A to point B, I think if they can understand the context and the impact this is really having on this community, I think that by and large there will be some tolerance for what could be a slower travel, but it's not going to be congestion because sometimes by giving the road a diet, like they call it a road diet, by making less volume possible, you take away people's choices that they have, which creates delays in traffic and back up. So, we'll be streamlining, it will be adding better signals that will be synchronized so that the traffic will be coordinated down that corridor so it'll move better, maybe not faster, but it'll move more efficiently and more smoothly and more synchronized. So that's important too. There's major infrastructure So the traffic signals on Memorial will you're gonna help us do more of the less road. So this is the opposite of inducing demand, right? Like if you build a highway where you add lanes, people fill up those lanes because they think, oh I should now go on a highway and go faster. Exactly. This is the opposite. I think about when I would go to Katsuroma from the North end I would often drive down Memorial Highway because it felt faster to go down North Avenue. I think now we'll probably go down North Avenue. Which is great for the shop owner right there. Maybe a registered bike, yes. One more. Okay, once Quaker's done, he's on his bike. Anything else, Council Member Restorant? Council Member Peters, your father too? It's not, yeah, I know it's... I love it, you know, the stuff. Yeah, I think this is, I've read that you put this up in the sense that people who live in a particular community, the grapple wouldn't have grapple with people getting hit by cars, getting home, getting across the street. And so on a larger sense of new reshuffle being redeveloped throughout every aspect of new reshuffle, and the sense of a community that feels whole and healthy environment and the opportunity for doing that is different. We've had years of people for wherever they may be who have valued convenience. Right? I have valued convenience. And so what we're shaping here is a very different community as a whole, right? That each community in its parts become part of that whole. And yes, there will still be convenience, but that convenience will not override, right? The healthy manifestation of a transformative city, moving in a direction that is open to all. And I think that that, as you kept getting information, I saw you start to light up a little bit more and more and more. So for the constituents who have that, and that is not to blame, that is to say, who have that sense of anxiety that emerges. It's gonna be important, as you mentioned in this plan, that we collectively begin to go out and messengers not just leave this to development because we leave it to development alone, then what emerges will be a very different relationship between city and community because that relationship has fostered resentment, fear, suspicion, lack of confidence. What you're describing is moving in a direction of increasing that. So I'm saying that to say too that we have to be prepared for that. We have to be prepared for that. That hesitation with a aggressive plan. Because even though the plan is aggressive and we're moving very forward, there's going to be hesitation to embrace the realities of what this can mean. And that hesitation is something that we wanna begin to address. So that's enough. I did bring salad place. I'm just gonna have to dry out a bit my bag. I guess that's what you thought. I was trying to do really meaningful, kind of certain, certain community engaged conversations because we don't want to react in process. That is really bad for a project schedule. Like you're going you're going you're good and then all of a sudden like something comes from over here you know and you have to stop and regroup and so you know we want to be responsive as we go along. Yeah I not appreciated. So, just some service to that. The first 10 years of my life, I lived at 50 guy on plays. And we literally would be sitting on our balcony and watch traffic accidents happen at the corner of Lockwood in Memorial, not in Freakwood. There was much less to do in the 80s and 90s and there is today so we were definitely out there a lot and could expect on a usual basis an accident to happen. So again, thank you for the comprehensive and vision for this to our commissioner. Well, that you're thinking about these things comprehensively and it includes the redevelopment and revitalization around train station space as well. It feeds very well. I believe into the two-way conversion, which is very significant for increasing not only our retail sales tax revenue and permission to return again, but also the safety of being able to get from point A to point B with less miles in between long space and another. I mean, I'm thinking about that conversion serving into increasing access although we've decreasing lanes. Still being able to get from you, gonna add on to memorial to go up to the hospital that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. So these things are comprehensive. You know, I'm glad to see the plan in action and coming to life very much now. And again, I need support that you need to bring that further into our reality. Very happy now. We're very happy now. I haven't even started. So I'm going to do my best. To be brief and not to go against anything, my wonderful colleagues have said, but I want to make sure that you hear a gratitude because I know we've had some opportunities for development. I know I've maybe come across a way that felt dismissive and undermining of the expertise and the work. I've recognized that space. But when I see this kind of like the phrase that came to mind is, this is four years nine months, 10 days on the council. And this is one of the top two presentations where I felt seen. Like, I felt that the work as a community member, which is progressed to council and to be at this chair, I'm not supposed to cry as the mayor. So I'm not going to. But the mayor, so I'm not going to, but if I wasn't sitting here with a camera and a thing that could be recorded, I'd probably cry. So first of all, full circle moment, that's where council member Peters and Oshinolyan, I really met and worked on the link as part of the Lincoln Avenue Task Force Committee. So we were at some very early conversations about what improvements needed to happen in the community And so to see that come to this and to be at the table with these gentlemen who have such deep roots in the community is a privilege for me to be there So thank you both and I'm just honored to see this cross the finish line with you guys To those who are worried about the traffic, you know, I want to frame it another way with respect to like this low down Just want to remind everyone 64 Lincoln a bus Lincolnink and a moral highway that they tend floor a through and senior and disabled building of people who can't cross the street because they will get hit by a car right set another way if I leave a Bethesda service and the kids want to go to our awesome Lincoln Park they risk and have been hit by a car there are not many jurisdictions in your shell that deal with those kind of traffic concerns at the convenience of getting to the train station in a hit by a car. There are not many jurisdictions in your shell that deal with those kind of traffic concerns at the convenience of getting to the train station in a faster time. So when we talk about community, it's want to be like hyper mindful of linked experiences. Again, I lived on prints where my kids were younger, trying to teach your kid how to ride a bike on a memorial highway is not trying to cross the street to get to Rochelle Park because that was the quietest part, is a whole hail Mary, praise Jesus, walk your babies, my son hit two cars, luckily he bounces back. But it's a real experience. And you guys know I run in the morning. It's a real experience starting cars on the more highway. Again, in a way that I don't experience when I'm running on the north end or in other parts of the south end. And so just want to frame that when we talk about like it's going to take me five more minutes to get to the Trangin Yes, but and right and like let's just be mindful as my colleague councilmember Peter said when we sort of talk about the narrative Tarpa and Citroen's Couple of things that several things that you said I love that we're talking about this community as a destination for the city Because it's not something that we think about and I I'm so flattered to finally hear that I've always felt the love of that community. It's where, you know, but it's nice to think about it that way and to elevate it stature and as we think of the entire city that we're bringing that element there. So thank you for saying it because it's important that you say it because that's a part of the ethos in the design. So I really genuinely appreciate that. On the green jobs front, I appreciate sort of like amorphous, great job development. There's a specific task that people will be trained in and to pull on a thread that constantly and rationally often talks about what didn't explicitly here, getting government jobs too. These jobs are life changing. The benefits, the pension, all of the things that private sector don't provide, that this building provides in terms of job security and changing the game for families, you can't underestimate what that does for economic development, either, for residents in the city. So I'm glad that we're not just calling out green jobs with no real sense of what that looks like. We will actually have people in the community earning living and serving their city. And so that's another thing that I just want to make sure that we identify traffic and stormwater mitigation is never boring. Because real talk, it's among the top calls I get. When it rains, my phone is ringing the day before, the during, and the after. And the flooding on prints and brooks and seeing boats and fire trucks pulling people out, that's a real agita and almost traumatic. It's becoming every time the storms, people are panic for the six weeks at balance of hurricane season, right? And so cannot underestimate the importance of that. And again, the traffic, right? And what does that do to build a community? So when I, you know, I remember in the early days of Lincoln Avenue Task Force, Miss Oliver talking about trying to cross the street and, you know, just feeling waiting three or four rounds of the light before she would cross the street because she was scared of getting hit by a car. Those are very real things that are important. So never underestimate that. To my council member, Sarah Kees point, I love the meeting, I love the doors and I'm going to go further than Shane, like, like, use us. Not if we can be helpful affirmatively and declaratively, put us in coach, right? Because that we live there. We know the neighbors. We know the houses. We know the corners the language We know I know the houses that are here with the doors around the corner Even though the doorbells on the like one side of the street Intentionally deliberately use us to help make the message especially as councilmember Peters noted There might be some resistance or hesitation It's a community that government has come in and told it what to do right and not in the best way And we can kind of help bridge that gap and how they trust and see us So I'm going to not say can we know if we can help we can help and use us to help please um and then I love removing fences removing barriers because you're right they're not they're parts of new yourself whether or not as many fences are closed off in like little parcels you think of new yourself and some of the things you see in this corridor are not emblematic of the city. And so again, thank you for calling it out and making it a part of the ethos for design. So happy to see that it was an overestimation thrill that you did May or June for traffic because again, it's a district that doesn't have a school. So there are buses in a higher rate. I'd argue in some other parts because they're going to four or five different schools on the buses. And so that's the way the traffic study was done. Again, it just gives us a little bit more ability to speak honestly when people are concerned about the studies used. And so I really appreciate that you've gathered it to the school year. You guys are great. Really appreciate this. Honestly, super, super, super, just like a weight, just like deep breaths and excitement around the real effort that you guys put into this to be responsive and I like I you know things happen for reason I'm so blessed to be at the table with you guys and this council and this staff because it's gonna be it's gonna be amazing so thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, I think that's it for three. 26 more items to go. I don't number four. Okay, you're still up for pollution. I think you're up. You're up. Is the proposed resolution for the housing trace voucher? Yes. Number four. Oh, sorry. Do I get right? These are probably very expensive. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You see? I've never had to do that. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot the first time. I forgot the first time. It's like the only nine months of meetings that I still figure this out. So I'll leave it surely. We have several items of Republicaning. The first is a proposed resolution regarding housing choice voucher programs section 8, the 2025 annual five year Ph.A. plans. Again, only up for Republicaning. Any questions or comments from my colleagues at the table? Great. Number five, I've been informed is being pulled for further review, so that will come back to us. Item six is a public hearing. It's EDPL, but I believe that's just your hand for eminent domain. With respect to 625 North Avenue, 637 North Avenue, otherwise known as the CVS, the former CVS, I'm not mistaken. Questions or comments about this matter before it hits the public hearing calendar? Public hearing? Okay. Item number seven, also set for M&N domain, 662 main street, otherwise known as the Hagridorne, otherwise known as the Carnegie Library. Questions or comments before the public hearing? Number eight, public hearing tonight is the proposed establishment of the Civilian Complete Review Board. Questions or comments before the public hearing? Okay, moving on to number nine, and you know the average here. I write a proposed authorization of a settlement in the amount of $60,000 corporation council would you like to provide any additional information we discussed this in the next session? We discussed an exemption and we have come to an agreement on the cross-release statement. It was the same statement I showed you all previously with the deletion of two items that I was concerned about from a legal point of view, we've all come to agreement on it. I do have a copy of it. We can discuss together an executive session if you're going to see before the publication. Any questions or comments on item number nine? Okay, I'll have to turn it on for Peter. Yes. Welcome. Oh, thank you. Right, that we hear. Just weld up. Oh, thanks. Right there, we're here. Okay, hearing none, I have a motion and a second to place item number nine on the consent agenda for the Arlan. Auxionloye and Peters. Thank you. Item number... I'm going to have a second to vote. Okay, so let's see about emotion and this is so we've been much procedurally it's emotion and second to vote. We have emotion and second to vote on item number nine. Oshin-Loye and Peters. All in favor to vote to lack authorize the Corporation Council to settle this matter in the amount indicated and for the Mutually Greval press release. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Item number nine is actually voted on. Thank you, Court Council. Item number 10 is the proposed amendment to the 2024 budget regarding the third quarter budget adjustments. I've been instructed that we should rescind line 3B in the spreadsheet. Actually, if I would love you walk you through it. The narrative is actually correct. I don't want to thank Council members for helping me with this. She noticed that on the attachment, the Excel attachment, there is an item that was there that does not have backup and on the attachment is Item 3B. Okay. So it's going to be removing the narrative itself is going to remain as it is. Excellent. So with that amendment, any questions or comments on item number 10? Okay, here in none may I have a motion in the second place item number 10 on the consensus agenda for next week's meeting. Okay, and Ashin Lue. Okay, item number 11. It proposed amendment to the City of New York Chapter 42, investment policy section 42-second, motion editor. 42-7 is our destination of depositories, and if you look at our listing, a lot of these banks are going to close, merge, or just have a business. And what we're proposing is to delete everything that's there, and then add the following banks that we actually do use JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York, Melon, Wells Fargo, Flagstall, which is formerly signature Webster, M&T, and New York Class, which is an investment group. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments for Commissioner Ritter on item number 11? Hearing none may have a motion in a second to move item number 11 so that we can send to agenda for next week's RLM. Stern and Lopez, thank you very much. Item number 12. Easy, proposed amendments to this code of the city to your shop regarding parking regulations in front of eight Madeline Avenue. I see Deputy Commissioner Paladino at the table. Who's the strictest this? Is this two? One might go up. Okay, so Council Member Lopez, do you have any questions or comments? I just want to thank you very much because we have several people that leave there that really need the handicap parking spaces. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, Deputy Commissioner, any comments or anything to add? This is the addition of a second handicap audience by the commissioner. Any questions or comments from my other colleagues on the matter? Hearing none, may I have a motion and a second to move item number 12 to our Consented and the Vernicts' feet. Low pass and stern. Thank you so much. Moving on to item number 13, which is the proposed award of the regarding traffic signal repairs on various locations through details in item number 13 Deputy Commissioner Paladino, questions that anyone adds to this? No, this is the award and funding for this project. Any questions or comments from my colleagues? Hearing none, may I have a motion of the seconds of place, item number 13 of the Consent agenda for next week's Arlam, I see Stern in Lopez. Thank you so much. Item number 14 of the eight-plus acceptance of a grant award regarding the New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation to Ash, Tree Management and disadvantaged communities award, and in being to add be to commission of palliative. This is the award of $35,000 from the New York State DEC for their removal of ash trees within the community. Any questions or comments on member K have feeling? Just thank you I noticed that the department has just been more aggressive in seeking out these's a very successful and doing that. Thank you. Any other questions, Councilor Mooster? What's the scope of where these are allowed to be? It's park and right away, like, the... Yes. So the list of trees we provided to the D.C. includes mainstream as well as some months as well as some missing answers. Any other questions or comments on item number 14? During that, may I have a motion in a second to place item number 14 on the consent agenda for next week's R-E-L-E. I'm gonna go K and Osholy. Item number 15 is a proposed acceptance of a grants award from the Junior League of Westchester on the sound. I believe it's in the amount of $6,000. It's a port of New Michelle's, Mommy and Metrogram. Executive director, Kelly Johnson's coming to the table. Anything to add? Hi. This is a second year grant. I think 18 months ago they gave us money and they amounted 3,000. So we were fortunate to get another one for 6,000. So I thank them for that. Put it on for your acceptance. Thank you. Questions or comments? Around item number 15. Hearing none, may I have a motion and seconds and please place this on the consent agenda for next week's RLAM as the Aussie Lawy, as the Peter's. this place on the Consumption Agenda for next week's RLAM is the Ashmanooy SEPeters. Thank you so much. You're still up. Number 16 is a proposed acceptance of a grants award from the Westchester County Youth Bureau regarding summer youth employment program in the amounts of $17,224. This money normally comes in a little late each year and therefore it didn't get in time so we could put it in July and over for now we have expected and we just need you to accept the award so we can build. Perfect. Any questions or comments on item number 16? The only thing I'll add is just to come back on another successful summer use program. 600 students or teenagers or I mean the numbers were high. We were able to visit some of them and it's really great to see how excited they are and some of the soft skills but the professional skills and the range of opportunities. So kudos to your team for keeping our kids busy, safe, learning and helping with community work. Thank you all so you can back to the team. Thank you. Hearing no other questions or comments, we have a motion and a second to move item number 16 to the Consent Agenda for RLM, is the Ache Loye and ICK. Thank you. Number 17. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. We have a proposed amendment to the 2024 budget regarding increase in minimum daily staffing for the fire department. Hello, Chief. Take it away. So with the ongoing development as the buildings get completed and occupied in 2018, we had a staffing study completed through the work of the city and the department and labor. And we all came up with a prescribed staffing increases as the development occurred to meet the demands of the growing city. This will allow us to ultimately, at this point, put our rescue truck in service full time, which has been deployed pretty much over the summer on various events that have occurred. And to do this, you know, we settled some contracts this year. We weren't sure when that was going to occur. It happened in 2024 and that caused rates to increase as well. So we need to make a budget adjustment to stay with the staffing increases that are as the buildings get completed and occupied going forward. And that will be a good thing for the city. It will add another whole company to respond. Our coal volume is ever increasing. And so it will be definitely a good thing for the city. It will make us pretty solid going forward. Awesome. Thank you. Questions or comments for the Chief? Item number 17. Accounts of understanding. Is this new firefighters joining the department or is it an increase just at this time? This will be done through overtime. As the staffing as the increases have occurred, like the last four or five years, they're gonna continue probably through next year, and that should, that might level off at that point. It's been done through hiring and overtime. At this, at this point, we're doing it through overtime. It's kind of, it's two things that you really have the way out. It's a lot of stuff that we work with the fine-ass department on. That kind of thing. So, Council Member K. Is this the agenda item that Commissioner Redder had referenced that's already accounted for in his presentation and the fund house vendors, your chair. Councilor Commissioner, I'd like to thank you. Yes, it's included in that, no, but I presented to you earlier. This is the item I said you'd be considering tonight. So it still holds at the 18.5. Thank you for your chair. Thank you, safety. It's a very important door for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Commissioner. We have a motion in the second place. Number 17 to be consented from RLM. It's the Oshane Law and Stern. Thank you. Moving on to item number 18, which is, I think it's Commissioner Salgado. A proposed acceptance of a grant award regarding mere state departments of environmental conservation to climate smart communities, implementation award. Commissioner Salgado. the Grand Award regarding the year's state department of Environmental Conservation to Climate Smart Communities Implementation Award. Mr. Schlaugat. This was a grant that we were awarded in 2023, but due to the process required, it's for the Ashland Avenue store mortar improvements. And so we need council authorization to accept the grant. So that's what the sign of this award. I do think Council Member Kay has a comment or question. Go ahead, Kay. Just my appreciation for going after the screen. I remember that this was the last minute edition when we were applying grants and just a reminder or just took my new colleagues know. And this was a community that was hit so hard by it. It was when the water was like a river coming down street and it was so forceful it lifted a car and pushed it into someone's home and condemned the home. And I'm people found like turtles and fish in their homes and so like really glad that this project is moving forward and that we were so successful in this great work. Questions or other questions or comments on item number 18? Just curious why it's with you and that would be W. Because the grant's all, the grant writer that the infrastructure is in development because we plan, we also plan the capital expenditure so it it's not just physical and proven, but also work to do the financial planning of people for the capital. Other questions or comments on item number 18? During none, we have a motion and a second. Place item number 18 on the consent agenda for the RLM. Councilmember Kayne Stern, thank you. Number 19 is a proposed acceptance of grant award regarding the U.S. Department of Housing, Urban Development, Economic Development, and Initiative Award. Commissioner. Similarly, this grant is really for the Parks Department of Parks and Grant creation for the Community Center at New Rock for the fit out there. So this is another council action required to accept the grant that will be used to be the fit out at the New Rock Center. Questions or comments on item number 19? I have two questions. I feel like we, I feel like this is an old question that for probably maybe you can come back to the answer. It wasn't clear to me that turned the duration of the ownership. And I felt like I was still floating as if we didn't have, like it was a 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, it was a question that was raised maybe a year ago, maybe earlier this year or so. I wonder if you could just look into that. I'm curious. And then I feel like we've been talking about this space a lot. So I'm just curious to be have a sense of the timeline for opening the community center at New Rock. There's not to be a answer now, but if we could get an update on the community space, that would be great. If I had the ability to go a couple of times to go to soccer room with my kid and I'm just curious what are we thinking about for utilization and timing and opening and everything like that. Could you just unpack that just a little bit? Would you mention around something that you remember? And that's when you ask the other term. Like how long do we have access to it? Are they leasing it to us? Or are we, or do we own it? And if they're leasing it, is it 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? We're going to talk about the Audi's agreement with, for this space. It's going to be 10 years. We had tried to get to 20. There was a lot of pushback because the least, I believe, with Audi itself is a 10 year, so we're going to want the 10 year. But they've already been in business. With an option to be in it. Okay, so if it's tethered to the Audi needs, and they've already been in business. So then my question is, we're subject to the balance of that agreement, right? Because Audi's been up and running for a couple years now. It'll be, and I will confirm with you, but I'm pretty sure it's 10 years from execution of the agreement, which was just signed. Okay, okay, just if you can confirm. I will confirm. Yeah, alright. But we did land on 10. I think yeah, because then I think 10 years will be here before we know it I probably will not be sitting here, but then what is the like what's the handoff of the programming and space there? The proximity to the hollow and kind of programming there for seniors and as we conceptualized it a few years ago So I'm just already thinking 10 years out, but just stream consciousness Council member K when Audi wants to be there. We just have an opportunity Yeah, we have an option to renew, you want to? No, on their lease. Their lease on a company before the community spaces. So is that an opportunity to revisit that? Because there's businesses on the market. Yeah, because it was just signs, literally like it was bouncing around for like six or seven people. Whose decision was it to renew that? Councilor. There's an option to renew in there. So once the city manager signs off that option's there, we wouldn't have to come back too far for the renewal. But let me check on how it's running with the master least Because there's been a lot of back and forth and I it's been going on for like a little less than a year Your recollection is correct, but we finally landed on 10 years. We finally found someone to execute So let me just see how they Run and I Be great just That would be great. Just a few more. Yep. With that said, the question before us today is emotion to, emotion in a second to move item number 19 to the consent agenda for next week's RLM to accept this gift. Do I have emotion in a second? Council Member Kaye and Ashleigh. Thank you both. Item number 20 is a proposed acceptance of three grant awards regarding the New York State Cones and community renewal, resilient investments through support, and capital program looks like drainage improvements in city park, Palmer Ave, slash Spencer, and Newisha High School, customer care of these principal in your district. Okay. Commissioner, is there anything to add? No, I think so. I think it's a surprise that beautifully. Okay, except that I would like four councils to consider a vote for this evening so that we can receive this notification. Before we consider that, any questions or comments on the acceptance of this award or anything on my phone? May I have a motion and a second to vote to accept item number 20, K and Aston Loye, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So I remember 20 is voted into and resolved for the seed name. Thank you. Moving on to item number 21, which is a proposed amendment to a 2024 city budget for adding funding of hourly community program aids for the youth justice equity team program. Otherwise, no one as YJET. Cuts on repeaters. Just for everybody's edification. That's a little ridiculous. That works. Yeah. You know, it was one of my attention that Youth Justice Equity Team is about to receive, or perhaps may receive some additional funding to this, we should all be aware of that I'm one of the, prior to being elected here, I'm one of the people who entered into the board of agreement around pulling together various sectors to go and watch and de-cease and participate in the development of this particular program that is now emerging also relative to the members, whether it's Judge Rice, whether it's the school system, whether it's the boys and girls club, whether it's the police department, this is a very strong collaborative effort. So, I just wanted to make everyone aware of that. There's no financial incentive and to gain on my part of the wave sheet before. So I'd rather open that up for understanding, rather than move towards any sense of need into somehow the cues myself from going, I just want you to be aware that this is what this is about. Thank you. For your work on this project, thank you for your disclosure to the council. Any questions or comments on either anything Council Member Peters is disclosed or on item number 20 line? Well, I just want to thank the YJ team and council member Peters and everybody else who has thought of that. for something to do. I also know it is like to have some of my friends that caught up in the justice system and be looking for opportunities that have gotten in very different ways. So they have any type of recovery and the funding and the financial support and the infrastructure around that. That's incredible. So I'm just like, thank you. The questions are comments on item number 21. During that, we have a motion and a second to move item number 21 so that we can send agenda for next week's RLM to Kay and Oshinoye. Thank you. Item number 22 is the proposed authorization regarding installation of electric vehicle charging stations at the new remain of parking back. Commissioner Slogan. Sure. So this proposal is necessary as we are constructing the parking deck structure itself. It was thought that we should identify the location and the type of equipment and the requirements during that construction phase so that the channels, the conduits could be installed at the same time, could identify where all of the electrical transformer infrastructure needed to be located in relation to the site during construction. So this proposal does also, it's for 19 spaces to have access to charging infrastructure. And it also, the vendor has access to several rebates and incentives at the county and several levels of government so that this will end up being like a zero cost to the city. All of the statements and credits that look at it. Questions or comments providing? I don't know which one to choose. Council member Kay. I know we have a conversation more about this agenda item and so it's my understanding that this doesn't preclude upgrading to potentially having battery storage and solar at the site. No, absolutely not. In fact, we have a similar proposal which is currently being investigated or discussing with the solar provider that has a similar, comes to us with a similar set of incentives that would offset the cost almost entirely for a solar infrastructure to be installed in connection with the Maria Deck. Great. And I imagine it's also a great opportunity for the management sector. Correct. Especially the solar. And as we said, we did evaluate direct pay implication, but actually the state and county reverts that are available are actually make it even cheaper, it makes it free-centred. So for the direct pay, I think we'll have a better higher impact to the solar equipment that we're getting to know. Great. So another candidate here today comes up. Oh, no, I just have a hybrid now, but I will have a fully electric vehicle. I'm truly in it. So my future self, thanks you. Oh, but, and we love Pazis. So, we do. So, we're future self-love. Yes, we do. We love this. Thank you. Pazis, I'm sorry from discussing dinner and any other questions or comments. My palates of item number 22. Hearing that may have a motion and seconds to move item 22 to the consensus agenda for next week's Arlem K. and Aux-Loye, Pat C. is going to win. Item number 23. Propose. Okay, so you're with us. Mission accomplished. You're out. Okay, and at the big end, so my three just to frame it for my own brain, 23 to 28 are all deleted, but two require public hearing. I'm going to ask everyone's grace as we kind of work through this, and I will ask our clerks to remind me when I forget to ask about the public hearing, although those dates are in the agenda. So, let me tell you that we're going to do this. Item number 23 is a proposed public realm improvement, tenant improvement program, and retail strategy communications and marketing regarding the downtown retail strategy. Please. Correct. So we are excited at last, at the last meeting in July, we discussed and we presented to Council a series of initiatives that we in the development department are recommending that we implement the outtown. One of which is establishing a fund which would be $2.25 million from the community benefit bonus program that would be used to partner with businesses that want want to occupy the vacant retail downtown. The additional funding is being requested for the marketing consultant to help us really promote and really create the buzz with those retailers and with just in general to tell the story about that the city is really on the cutting edge of this type of retail incentive structure that is going to drive new retailers to come and activate those vacant spaces in about that the city is really on the cutting edge of this type of retail incentive structure that is going to drive new retailers to come and activate those vacant spaces in the downtown. So we need a masking for a budget allocation of $280,000 for $234,000 for the marketing. And the other piece is for the soap and water initiatives in the downtown, so we'll be talking about a power washing program where we're going to be cleaning the sidewalks in a very regular way to just create more a cleaner, better experience for the new shoppers and for the existing businesses that are downtown. Another part of this, which is a little bit longer of a rollout, is the public realm improvement. So we are going to be designing in the downtown improvements to certain street corridors, initially, we're looking at certain improvements to Anderson Plaza, North Avenue, with Count, but also having funds available for other parts to make improvements such as creating parklets, creating green buffer between the sidewalk and the roadway so that people feel safer and to highlight where appropriate certain businesses, where a green buffer space in front or around their business would help to promote it for an old corridor. If you think about the count, there's a vacant space in the Forty-mo Count phase 2 Stella building, which has not been leased up yet. The feedback that I've gotten from the owner of that, the developer of that building is like, you know, it's sort of a big street, it's a hard corridor, it doesn't really feel very welcoming. So by adding lighting and adding green elements, we're going to produce a higher quality kind of sidewalk experience which is going to invite folks to come to the downtown. So we think this, think this, as you indicated from 23 to 28, we're all related to the retail and it's 23 specifically is for the funding, which is requesting those monies for you to authorize the use of those funds for those purposes. When it comes to the tenant improvement program, specifically, we're going to be working with a selection committee in the downtown on the award of those grants. We also have retained. We already have a contract with Dr. O'Marraga through the IDA, who's our financial consultant for the IDA, but they have a whole piece, a whole other part of their organization is about community lending. And they have access to a lot of funds through the small business association and they have a lot of technical expertise and have administered programs in other markets, namely Hartford, Connecticut, where they revitalize a whole section of their downtown on, they have a crack street too. And they've really seen a tremendous revitalization of this one particular part of the city. So we're working with a team member in Grow America to sort of help us evaluate the applications that we get from the small businesses that want to come in to, you know, for this grant assistance to help them do their fit-outs in the downtown space. The idea is we want to see those vacant spaces occupied with new exciting businesses. We want to create the vacant spaces occupied with new exciting businesses. We want to create the kind of buzz to attract CEOs of those companies that are out there looking to find a new place to grow their businesses. We want to make sure that they understand that the rushell is open and that we are willing to chip in and do our part to really activate our downtown. And that goes along with the amendments to both the zoning code, which are items 26, 27, 28, and the amendments to the sign code, which are items 24 and 25. So we think taken as a suite. These initiatives are really going to help us revitalize the downtown retail. I want to pause, because I do want to ask questions about the zoning, but just to chunk it up, since there are three different topics. Any questions about the zoning, but just to just to trump it up since there are like kind of three different topics. Any questions or comments on the commissioner just noted for number 23? This is also an effort to, well, as an effort to fill the vacant spaces that we have, you know, have had some of the pretty thickings. This is also benefits to, in a way, a benefits for property in here, so in a downtime as well. That's smaller buildings, not necessarily like the 28 story ones, but some of the ones that might even live locally or work locally, things like that. So this is excellent. That filling those spaces, are we looking for more mature businesses, are we looking for, mature businesses, or are we looking for, is this gonna be a part of the pop-up shop activation and things like that? I, so it's a combination of both. Specifically, the tenant improvement fund that grant program is really envisioned to not necessarily establish businesses, but businesses that have principles that have demonstrated experience doing the work that they're proposing to get the grant for. So we want restaurant tours. For instance, we want to see that they had experience over the restaurants. Not necessarily an existing business, but that the folks involved have expertise in that field. But it is also designed to help to work with a fledgling business that is starting with the activations. We have some folks that have been really great participants in our holiday markets and the other activations that we have that are interested in doing a brick and mortar. And so we are definitely going to be working with those types of businesses to make sure, to see that they have resources to occupy the brick and mortar spaces in the downtown. It's not expensive, it's really scalable, depending on the business that's coming in and what their needs are. And that's why we brought in the expertise of that financial consultant to really help us tailor an assistance, a level of assistance that would be appropriate to create that opportunity. Right, good. No, that's excellent here. It goes towards the conversation of, we've talked a lot about finding a home for a lot of the local entrepreneurs that have not yet found a brick and mortar location to operate out of. Again, it kind of reaffirms the need for us to help people with their organizational aspects, again, a lot of people just like I said, they might be in their industry, but they're not like a fully mature business, so again, read from the mean that some people need help with their paperwork, being able to be prepared for, interacting with government in this way, things like that, so just hope them to see more of that as we build that out. Yes, as am I. I mean, I'm definitely very excited for this program. I think this funding is one piece. And I don't want to go too far ahead, but in the memo, we do reference the Vanguard District. And I didn't say it specifically with regard to this item because these funding programs are really, they're not contained by the Vanguard District, but to be for any space in the downtown or looking to have to be the Vanguard Foundation. But to be for any space in the downtown, we're looking to have to make the whole downtown. The Vanguard just should go, we're really excited to brand it and make it a thing. It's a framework to help us contain some of the impacts of the zoning changes that we're proposing. We're testing out. We think we have the infrastructure in place around the Vanguard District to, you know, not create other issues for yourself. Any other questions or comments on item number 23? 24 and 25 are together with 25 designating the public hearing for October 8th. Is that correct with Mary Lou? Yes. Okay. And it is the... No, 24 and 25. No. These no public hearing. Those that require public hearing the amendment to the sign code doesn't require. Got it. Okay. It says... Look at the last line of 25. It says public hearing. It's 10-8-24. Oh, same. Okay. So... Okay, that's the same person. Okay. So, see that fact? No public hearing. But there are 2425 room to see exceptions, the same titles, the images they... So what 25% of the... The agency status regarding the amendments to 250 and 270, do you want to see it away, Commissioner? Sure. So, the order is reversed, really. The main thrust of the item 25, it contains the code amendments that we're proposing to change and 24 is the Declaration of Lead Agency of the Council in connection with that item So but so specifically what we're talking about is is changing the sign code to allow different types of signs to allow more active signs to allow signs that create more attractive streetscape. What we have now is a very kind of monotone kind of sign code and we're trying to create you know texture and activation. So when people are walking on the side of the street, we're encouraging blade signs to come off the side of the building, but safely so that folks can see the business that they're approaching from the same side of the street and also looking at other elements that are using lighting differently than we currently allow. It's very, very regulated and it creates a very, you know, monotone. I want to call it type of environment and so we think these tweaks are really going to enhance the activation. Make new shop for attractive. But we are procedurally referring to this all-seminous full arts commission and the work with the handoff. Because the Missile Arts Commission does approve of all signs that are not compliant to the existing sign code. So as part of this process, the municipal art solution has to sign on, ultimately, on the implementation of these particular alterations to the code. Okay, so tonight we would vote to move this, the consent agenda, assuming that we all vote in next week to approve it. If it then go to the municipal arts commission to refer the review and comments, and then come back to y'all for a minute. I think it depends on the determination of the municipal Archimension. Okay, okay. Okay, understood. And then 24 we have discussed this with them. No, no, no. And 24 is its partner item, but it's designated as lead agency status after it comes back to the municipal archimension. Is that what we're saying? No, as part of this action now, it's just part of the secret laws because you're changing the views and things that are going to impact the environment. I understand. Always learning at this table. So let's take 24 and 25 together. May have a motion in seconds to move them to the Consent's agenda for next week's RLM. I saw Shalaya and Lopez. Thank you very much. Now, 26, 27, and 28 appear to be related. 27 says there's a public hearing, is that accurate? Correct, yes. Awesome. Okay, and these are all related, again, to zoning codes, but this time it looks like to use commissioner, do you wanna just tease us up for us? Sure, so the zoning code amendments that we are proposing are number one, the creation of the Vanguard District, which is going to be in the downtown with Anderson Plaza Edit Center, but it's flanked by LaCount, North, Maine, and Ugonaut. And within that zone, we are, you know, we leave we're making the parking requirements more lax. We're creating a new special permit for bars and cabarets. We're allowing uses that are currently not allowed elsewhere in the city. We're allowing them in the vanguard district as through a special permit process that would be administered by the planning board. So the special permit application would come to us as long as it's within the vanguard district and then there would be a process. There are in the code sections, there are alterations, there are changes to the hours, there are regulations on the hours of operation. There are regulations on occupancy. But we were not making parking a consideration. So if a business came in and they wanted to open that type of a business, they would also, they would be able to do so within that Vanguard district. Another type of use is experiential retail, where we're allowed, we're open to the doors. Like currently, you know, you could never soul cycle, for example, come to the downtown because we have regulations that pro-kibbit those types of uses on the ground floor. So we're allowing them on the ground floor. We're also waving the parking requirements with only within the Vanguard districts because our concept is that it's close enough to the Iraq garage that there's a sufficient supply of parking to park that. So we also have identified catalytic properties that are sort of historically or architecturally significant, think the standard star building on North Avenue, think the old Masonic Temple on the corner of La Conna and North Avenue that we're providing extra incentives to work with a business there that meets this sort of experiential kind of concept, so like the restaurants or something like where we have an active public facing use. We want to see the streetscape more in live. And so we're really excited to create these zoning changes, which are going to be the test tube, if you will, for us to test these concepts and understand the impacts that those are going to have. And then as we address some of the issues of parking, the shortage of the issues of parking, the shortage of the issues with parking in other parts of the downtown, we will hopefully, this would be such a success, that we can roll those out in other areas, that we can evaluate on a case-by-case basis. So that's just in a nutshell. Awesome. Questions or comments on this subject, which encompasses 2060? I think I have a comment. No, it was the last day of this summer we tested out something there and had some plasms around the jazz area and the community. We really appreciate it and enjoy the experience. The businesses that were adjacent to it, really appreciate it and enjoy the experience. The businesses that were adjacent to it really appreciated and enjoyed the experience. The way in which it continued to move forward is that it was something that any people saw as new and different and felt in conversations with people. It felt as if it was that this belonged to them, that they had a sense of belonging around it. Now certainly there were some conflictual things that come up around some of the disrevelating into the hours and the things that we're talking about within the Vanguard District. So with, and your last conversation when you talk about it, being a testing environment, I think that's really important for us to understand, right? Because we, again, looking back to history and a lot of the things happen with bars and restaurants and the light. There's a lot of trepidation that exists within the community around the who, what, why, where, and how. But to have it as a testing pad, not necessarily launching pad, right? First, I think it is something that we have, there's a good move to do it this time, because it creates, again, this sense of community within communities, right? Whether we're talking about downtown and some of the other districts and what that means and the vibrancy associated with that, or the vibrancy associated in the Van Grah district, or the vibrancy associated in the West End, or the calmness and the sense of purpose that exists in the North End, and the same relative to all the different areas within the city. Right? I think it's this sense of of both ownership and enrichment and collaborative and collective sense of New Rochelle is really important. So I appreciate the ideas that we talk about as a tester. Thank you. Any other questions or comments on such a matter? Just doubling down on the ability to activate more period to set the growth, whatever it may be. I'm thankful for this because I see this as opportunity for more people to do business in ways that you know, was restricted in the past and it couldn't be, wasn't feasible in the past, it's a cultural opportunity again. More reason for people to move to Michelle, I know a lot of the people that live in those buildings are like, well, I don't want to like live here and then have to go to another city for the type of entertainment that I'm looking for. We're going to have a full service experience. So I'm glad to, again, see that impact happening right in the town of Tarot City. So it's great. What's up? Yeah. Seeing the other hands, I've been advised by council tonight. We're just voting on number 28, which is the designated needs of the hearing date, which I believe is October 8th. It's very loose. Yes, but number 26 is also the end of it. OK. Yes, but number 26 is also the end of it. Okay. No, that's for most of the day. Oh, okay. All right. So we'll take 26 and 28 together. May I have a motion and a second to move 26 and 28 to the consent agenda. I see Ojulloy at any second. I think I see Lopez. Thank you very much. Okay, good job, team. Our next item is a discussion item which is the community proposal for the renaming of Luffy Park. While Commissioner Perisi comes to the table, comes from a repeaters do you have anything to add to the leadership? I got that. I mean I'm on floor and excited about the renaming hopefully that will agree to a rookie park around the James Me Stoke Park. Becoming that park, as you only been aware of and some of the information we received, he happened to be a council person in District 3. His death is a timely death while serving as a council member was something that kind of really burberry throughout the city of Newer Shell. His history in Newer Shell and his emergence as a, as in many ways an iconic figure of determination for not only those who were perhaps least engaged within the system, within the city in many ways, but also in his relationship to his concern for the city as a whole in my mind, education, on the sets of completeness with the experience of being a resident in New York. And so to have an opportunity for our department for posture recreation, to have both the foresight and determination and creativity to honor him in this way. I think it's a tremendous opportunity for us to bring our city together. Many of you in that regard, you'd be one of them served with them at all, like they're right. And so, you know, I never really heard a bad thing to say about him. I mean, there was a stuff around the legos, the science, and all of that. And part of the story too, is around his putting his hands, and shaping that particular part there. So I'm just enthusiastic about the community engagement around this and the sense of understanding and the sense of feeling, just feeling good. I just think it's a good thing to feel good, right? It's a good thing. So that's the comment down. Thank you, Councilmember Peters. Anyone else to add anything with our tonight's Board of Commissioner? Just to what Councilman Guter said. I think that this is great and a great start and great evidence that you commission, or other commissioners, are counsel that we're all very aware of the people that have made a massive impact in their show, whether the individuals, communities, for entire sections of our city. So then to see this being bought to life, it's another opportunity to share the historic value of people's work and community impact. So this is a great start. And we're all excited to support more, just especially in the areas that have received such recognition before. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Colson, over to Antino. As Councilman Cuders had mentioned, I had the honor of privilege to serve on the Council with James Stowell. He was an outstanding Councilman. He was an outstanding friend. He was someone who everyone looked up to. He knew a lot about your shelf. He was a tremendous asset to the council at that time. It was a shot when he heard of his passing and it was to be held in our council at that time. So this is exciting to see the city honoring someone who was so important to the city, and I thank you for that. So the mission of Precy, what's next? I'll be. Now I concur, I thank you for the support. You know, Lumpke Park's been a cool little small neighborhood nook park in our historic district. He was donated to the city back in the 80s. And, you know, I did the due diligence with our city historian checking to make sure that we weren't disrespecting any city history. Other than being on the corner of Lumpke Street, it was wide open. And I know that the family, the local historic district is thrilled about it. We saw that's just a snapshot of the letters of support that's followed with this. So I just wanted to put it out there and go through the process to make this official next week at the RLM. My staff and I will need a few weeks to put together a nice little ribbon cutting ceremony for October but the family is going gonna be thrilled. So thank you. Awesome, thank you, Commissioner. Oh, Council Member Stern. I didn't have the privilege of knowing Mr. Stove, but I really do it reading on the letters and kind of feeling like I was gonna to him. Thank you. Obviously you'll probably have to do some, like, sign changes. Yes. I mean, just wonder if there are any opportunities to include like any sort of bio or misinformation about him. It's finally always gonna make sense. Yeah, we're actually looking at that citywide, so more to come with that, but I don't want to, that's more for my end of the year presentation, but I'm with you on that, especially as we move towards a lot of this and other locations. Yeah, make sense. Any other questions or comments that you'll come back to us next week? Yes. A formal vote. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Those are the last formal item. I've asked. We do have a few items for executive session two, are relating to current litigation and proposed settlements. And another is a comprehensive personnel matter related to just a position of freedom throughout different departments. They have a motion and a second to enter into the back of the session. K and Lopez, all of them say aye. Any opposed? Oh, sorry. Time out. No, Osholay has a request for next week, but go ahead. Yes, so in the month of October, October is National Breast Cancer with Awareness Month. I'm not unique to having members of my family with passed away from various forms of cancer. It's a common experience. And let's bring October to life, please, by wearing some form of pink to the meetings that we have in that month. Next slide. I believe there is a unanimous deal into executive session. Any opposed to executive session? Okay, so this meeting is adjourned and I ask anyone who does not have any matters before in executive session to please refuse themselves and we will be back on camera at 7 p.m. for citizens to be heard in the public hearings. Thank you, everyone. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Like the call of the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Good evening and thank you for joining us for this portion of our meeting, which encompasses public hearing and citizens to be heard. Before jumping into the procedural kind of instructions, I just wanted to, for those who didn't tune in earlier or busy day at work to just let the audience know that Mayor Leonard Paduano passed away at the age of 93 years old. He served as mayor of our amazing city from 1980 to 1991 serving a term on the council before his term as mayor. If you notice outside, the city of New Michelle flag is being flown at half staff in honor of his service for seven days Pursuant to our most recently adopted flag policy and I would just ask us for a brief moment of silence in honor of his service to our city Thank you very much for that as noted tonight We have public hearings plural about four of them. And at the public hearing, your topics must remain to the topic of the public hearing. I'd ask that when you come to the mic after being called, introduce yourself and provide your address. After the public hearing, we will have the opportunity for citizens to be heard. Speakers can speak on any topic. Again, please introduce yourself by name and address. For both your time limit is three minutes as noted by the clock underneath our WD clerks' name and title. The first item up for public hearing is notice is here by given that the council of the City of New Rochelle will hold a public hearing on September 10th. At 7 p.m. in the council chamber, 515 North Avenue on the draft year 2025, five year and annual PHA Plan, along with the 2025 administrative plan for the Section 8 Housing Choice Foucher Program. Notice was given via publication on September 1, 2024. I do not sure if you're aware of this. Notice was given the publication on September 1, 2024. I do not see any registered speakers for this hearing. I'm giving a second in case someone meant to register for it. No, Mr. Chazzy. Hearing and seeing none, I call this hearing to a close. Our second public hearing is related to the proposed amendment to the official map of proposed renaming of the Sheridan-Radison Plaza to Hannah's way. This matter was canceled on the Council agenda today for further research. I see that on the citizens to be heard that someone did sign up to speak, but I'll just call you during citizens to be heard since this is not technically the public hearing. So we'll move on to the third public hearing, which is related to a public purpose in which citizens would be benefit from the public access and public use as a community space youth and senior programming center and or intergenerational housing For property included at 625 North Avenue the Trenos Street parking lot adjacent to 625 North Avenue and 637 North Avenue This notice was published on Friday, August 30th, 2024. I think locally we'd call this the former CVS on North Avenue. Bear with me because registration for this kind of goes through the blue and the white papers here. Our first register speaker is Philip Sanchez. Uh, yeah, nope. Nope, sorry, nope, nope, actually you're from In Street. One second, one second. Mayor. Yep. We have Council here for a presentation on both of the eminent domain matters, number six and seven. You may want him to speak first and then we'll have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Okay. Go ahead. Madam Mayor, I was just gonna suggest if you also call the next hearing, I can take them in series, I can introduce both and then you can take whatever public comment there is on both. Understood, thank you for the guidance. So we will take number three and four for public hearing purposes which include as noted, the 625 North Avenue, the Trenton Street parking lot, adjacent to 625 North Avenue, 637 North Avenue, and 662 Main Street, otherwise known as the Hagar Dorn Building and Library. Take it away, Council. Very well. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council and Professional Staff. My name is Jonathan Kraut. I'm a partner with the law firm of Harfniss Crout in Pearlsteen and Weir Special Counsel to the city with regard to these two proceedings. The first of the two proceedings and you'll see the tax map to my left and to your right is concerning section 2 block 460, lot 46 on the tax map of the city of Newer Shell, commonly known as 662 Main Street. Tonight is a continuation of the open public hearing, which was held and conducted May 9th of 2023 and remained open. As there are members of this legislative body that were not previously on it on that date, I'm going to go through a little bit of the history. Before each council member on the day is a small packet that has some of the materials I'm going to reference for the 662 Main Street parcel. Tab one, and these are all already part of the city clerk's records with regard to these matters, and they've been available to the public, but I've reproduced them so you have them in front of you. Tab one of the previous exhibits from that May 9th hearing, the first exhibit was the City Council resolution declaring itself lead agency for these proceedings. The second exhibit within tab one was the City Council resolution scheduling the public hearing. Exhibit within tab one was the City Council resolution scheduling the public hearing the third was the short E a F environmental assessment form the fourth was the tax map identifying the parcel The fifth was a copy of the file deed with the legal description of the property The sixth was the public Notice hearing and affidavit a publication from the journal news. And the seventh was the notice of public hearing to the owner of the property and the certified mail receipt. Tab two you'll see was a courtesy public notice even though it had been left open out of an abundance of an interest in the public having an opportunity to speak. There was an additional public notice for tonight's hearing. The last tab, tab three, and that's an important one for anyone who's not on this legislative body at that time is a copy of the transcript of the May 9th hearing. And that is so that you can familiarize yourself with the prior proceedings from whoever the outgoing member of your board was before you decide to take action on this. So let me speak a little bit about this particular property. The property has obviously been in the community for a very long time and has had a culture oriented view that has maintained the historic integrity of the structure of the building. There's no intention of the council and this proposal to harm the building rather to repurpose it. Formerly, it was of great cultural significance and architectural significance. In fact, interestingly enough, it was one of the few remaining public library structures that was funded by Andrew Carnegie. I found that point of interest when we were looking into this property. It was also designed by a noted architect, Albert Randolph Ross, who was an important designer in the United States of libraries. The building is also prominent in that it was worked by a master builder, Michael Barnett, here from the city of New Rochelle. The public purpose to be proposed, and I should note that tonight's hearing both on this parcel as well as the ones we're going to speak about next, the sole purpose of this hearing is for the council to consider public purpose. Is there a worthy public purpose that you wish to complete the eminent domain proceeding to take the parcel as public property and to utilize it in that fashion? And so this evening I'm going to introduce the so-stating public purpose and certainly you can hear both from the existing record and any comments from the public going forward regarding that public purpose. The public purpose here of the historic Hagridonward Building would be to reimagine it as an urban planning and arts cultural center, and the revitalized space would be intended to honor Newer Shales Pione pioneer role in urban planning in arts and to offer curated exhibits and events that highlight the city's contributions to urban revitalization. The Cultural Center will also serve as a hub for thought leadership, hosting of symposiums and conferences that explore the intersection of urban design and artistic expression while fostering partnerships with philanthropies, universities, developers and community members. With a clear strategy in place, the project certainly adds to position New Rochelle as a leader in creativity and inclusion and forward thinking design for future generations. All of the documents that I referenced are already, as I stated, part of the public record, at the conclusion of the oral portion of the last hearing concerning this property. The public had an opportunity to speak at this podium and address the board. Any members who did, it's referenced or referred and transcribed in the transcript that's before you. At that time, the public was advised that the opportunity to speak orally at future hearings was going to be curtailed and rather that the legislative body, this council at that time, would continue to take written testimony from any members of the community until the close of the hearing. Given the passage of time since that hearing and since it's been represented this evening, certainly if the council wish to take any oral testimony, you'd be free to go ahead and do so this evening. And then once that's either done or concluded, our recommendation would be that you close the hearing prospectively, completely this evening with regard to oral testimony under any set of circumstances, and prospectively seven days hence for any written testimony. That way if anyone were at home listening to your meeting and decided they wanted to submit something that have a week to do so. I would suggest that this time Madam Mayor that you take any comment that you wish and then when ready we can close the and move on to the other one. Okay, next. Thank you. Incorporation Council, this procedure that has detailed is consistent with practices, the practices, okay. Okay. Just a few minutes. Okay. I'm just going to work. Understood. I just want to see if this one is related to this hearing or... Since it was a presentation. It's this one. Since it was a presentation. Okay. Okay. Okay. Our first speaker, just trying to make sure I have it in the right address here. Our first speaker is David Locker for 637 North Ave. You're not on that one. 637 is the first one on our public hearing sheet. We flip. We want to do Hagridor in first. Okay. So then Philips Anches for 662 mean. Thank you, Honorable Mayor, Honorable Mayor of the City Council. My name is Philips Anches from the Law of the City of Philips Anches, PLLC. I represent Christopher Hagridorne, Hagridorne Publications, Hagridorn Publications, Hagridorn Communications, as well as Tech-Exec Inc. One of the other tenants in the building at 662 Main Street. And I'm just here to request that the City Council, close the hearing, issue its determination findings in 90 days and move forward with the project, because Mr. Hagridorn and the tenants in the building have been under this cloud for a significant period of time. So we're asking that the city council actually move forward and just move forward this project as opposed to leaving the clients and the tenants in the building under a cloud. So we encourage you to move forward the project and thank you for your time and thank you for listening. Thank you Mr. Sanchez. Seeing no other registered speakers on the EDPL proceeding for 6.62 main street. I will call you on Mr. Mar, you're trying to, and you can fill out the slip after. If you'd like. just from the public, Damon North, and Luke Count Place. And just the inquiry on this, it sounds like a nonprofit venture, which sounds very good. The question is, what was paying for this transition and what is the plan for the future? In view of the fact that, apparently, the Masons were indicating whether they were alleging, I'd be careful with the language, that they were being pressured to purchase this property and do the renovations that be required for the new owner. There's some more background on it. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You felt the blue card and just indicate it was for the 6.62 main street. I think Ms. Burton was ahead of you, Mr. Malfotano, but if you can fill out the blue slip, we can do that in the sequence. Ms. Burton first, you can fill out the card after. And then Mr. Malfotano, after Ms. Burton? Yes, at least the uh, Burton II, 57th Center Avenue. I did speak at the prior public hearing about the city, taking charge of this Carnegie Library. The city has a 26 year history of really bad management, a public space. You can go and look at the now, you know, fall and down and remove church division parking lot, ward acres barn, wildcliffe, the green house. We don't do public spaces well as a city. So if you have a plan and you wanna get something going there, you know, that's fine, but find a partner or or or or put a suggestion out there, but eminent domain and the city taking charge of of anything, we don't have a good history, we don't, and that library deserves better than a really nice plan that seems a little rush, quite frankly, you know that you're going to give people seven days who are watching this. We don't all watch this. So it just, anyway, that's my comment. We don't do it well, so we shouldn't do it at all. Thank you, Ms. Burin. If you could put 662 Main Street as the topic, just so that it's a file under the right topic. Mr. Malfotano? Yes, just the thank you, Ms. Malfotano. The issue about the Masons and stuff, that's a whole other conundrum. But I'm just wondering if this is going to be an off-the-tax role as property. Does anybody know the answer to that? Does anybody tell me whether this plan will result in the property not be a tax-producing property? Can you tell me? I, it's a simple question, no? I'll speak with my son. Okay, I must have gone to law school. But anyway, the thing is, as a taxpayer in town, I'd be very interested in the council generating development that produces taxes for me, the long-suffering property taxpayer. Thank you if you could fill out the loan suffering property taxpayer. Thank you if you could fill out the blue card Mr. Malfotano and put 662 Main Street as the topic I'd appreciate it. Anyone else intending to speak on the 662 Main Street proceeding? Council. Madam Mayor, unless I leave, although tonight is certainly for the public comment, not necessarily to ask questions or to require them to be answered, but can I ask? I can proceed. Questions. But Council is counsel to the City and to the Board. With regard to the taxation of properties that are taken by eminent domain, it would really depend ultimately on the tax assessor. So that's the decision that a tax assessor makes and that's the oath that they take. But I think it's a given that if you take a parcel and you turn it into a pure public use, it's a park or it serves a pure municipal purpose, it's off the tax roll of the city owns it. There are rare instances when a municipality might, for instance, not to complicate things, might take a parcel to build a firehouse, it's the tax exempt, this is actually a case, then they turned around and leased it to a cell company to put a cell antenna on the firehouse, and the tax assessor in that municipality taxed it for the amount of the value of the cell tower. So that's why I don't want to just give you one quick answer but generally yes if it's for a public purpose purely it'll be taxing exempt. Thank you. Okay. I would recommend that you do close the hearing and then hold it open for some period I suggested seven days but it could be whatever you want for any written comment and then I can take up the next speaker. Interesting. Seeing no other registered speakers for 662. Mained, Mr. C. Oh, we have one more speakers, sir. Council. Good evening. I felt compelled to say that hearing that you would take over a property sounds great because you've gifted so many of our public properties, who developers in recent years and it saddens me. But I agree that we need to have a great plan to fully utilize it and not some rush job and then it ends up either in the hands of others that really do not benefit the city or we don't do anything with it. So that's what I wanted to say that is great that we're taking it over because we've given too much of our property and we don't have anything really left. You know the garage, church, street, you've given away the boys club property, left them high and dry and no longer on your books. I don't know why they're still not on your books. We need to revisit that because they don't have a good five to 10 year financial plan to make sure that they are stable and effectively maintained so that they don't become a run down place like 95 Lincoln. You gave up 95 Lincoln, but look how it is. We have to fund these properties. We need them now in order for you us to use the Boys Club. We're constantly having to shell out money, whereas before we could go in there and use it. So yes, take over properties, but make sure it's in good use for the people because we really need it. Thank you. Mr. Seamy, if you could fill up a blue card and for your topic 662 Main Street, please. Are there any other anyone else intending to speak on the 662 Main Street proceeding? Hearing none, I close call that portion of the public hearing so close. We'll now entertain comments for the 625 North Ave, the Trenton Street parking lot adjacent to 625 North Ave and 637 North Ave Council, you're going to do another presentation. I am and Madam Mayor just for clarity, will the board be accepting written comment for any period of time? We will accept written comment for seven more days, yes. Terrific. Okay, so I will speed things along, let me just change our board. So this is commonly known that these properties, 625 North Avenue through 637 North Avenue. And this is a continuation also of a public hearing, May 9, 2023. We'll try and streamline the comments to not overlap with some of the procedural stuff that I spoke about on the earlier hearing, which obviously applies equally here. The tax map before you to my left and your right is color coded. Green is 625 North Avenue. Blue is 637 North Avenue and the Trino Street Lot is in pink so you can see them. Before you as well and I apologize because our office, Vella binder, stop working so the second set you have in binders. But that is, tab one has the relevant city council resolutions, EAF, recorded deed and the tax maps for each of these parcels and the deeds for each of them as well as the public notice as well and the notice to the owners of the parcels as well. And again, those are all in the cards records from the first hearing. TAP 2 is likewise a courtesy public notice for today's public hearing, which was left open since the original hearing date. And TAP 3 is the public hearing transcript as well. The public purpose this evening again is what is being contemplated for it and of course it boils down to the essence of the public use public benefit. In this instance the purpose of the condemnation or eminent domain proceeding on these properties by the city is to create a community space in which citizens would benefit from public access and uses for youth and senior programming center for intergenerational housing. While not every specific milk and cranny of a plan for a property like this would be developed at this stage because that would be something that requires quite a bit of design, the building itself, but the goal also is to provide programming to build a stronger community centered on relationships for and between younger and older populations within the city of New Rochelle to provide things like music education opportunities at the space within it and other programs that are targeted towards exactly those attributes. At this time, I would make the same suggestion to the Mayor and the Council that if you wish to take any public comment that you proceed to do so at this time. Thank you. We currently have two registered speakers for this proceeding. So if you would like to speak on this matter, please fill out the blue card and you can put 637 North Avenue as the topic. Our first registered speaker is David Locker. Thank you Madam Mayor. Members of council, my name is David Locker. My office is at 270 North Avenue in downtown New Rochelle. I think I'm known to almost everybody here. I was a 25 year member of the Board of Education, about a 13 year member of the Industrial Development Agency Board. I am the current president of the New Rochelle Bar Association, but the New Rochelle Bar Association has no position on this matter. It's just by way of identification. I am counsel. My firm, Locker Law, is counsel for Huguenot Station's Inc., which is the owner of record of 637 North Avenue only. That is the vacant undeveloped parking lot. That's section 3, block 998, lot 23. I submit and I will have a written statement, I have a written statement that I will be handing up as soon as I finish. I have one for everyone there. I have an extra for council. And so you will have that with some more fulsome with what I have already lost a minute of my time. My client opposes this initiative, and the history of this really should be related and the time it'll be in the written statement. But this was initially proposed at March 21 of 2023 by the prior city administration. The initial public hearing, it's 18 months to today. And we consider that, whether how urgent really is that, when the previous administration and your administration has taken 18 months. In the public purpose, we understand public purposes most of the time. We need to build a school, we need to build a government building, we need to have a highway. In this case, in the initial initiative, when it was proposed, the public purposes were a little bit different from what we heard today. We heard community or local business support center. We heard public parking, and this is in your legislation from last year, which actually hasn't been amended. There's only a new memorandum today after 18 months. Local business support, public parking, open space, and or a dog park for that property on North Avenue. It is only in today the memo for today's meeting where now the dog parks gone, the open space has gone, the public parking has gone, community space, youth, senior, programming, intergenerational housing. Honestly, I don't, been a real estate lawyer for a long time, I don't know what intergenerational housing even is. In short, in 18 seconds, we have facilities here already for all of those purposes and it's laid out in detail. We have the Boys and Girls Club brand new state of the art. We have the Renaissance housing. We have the two properties that Bob Young built. We have the high tower and the building across the street from that. We have lots of housing. We have community resources. And we really should not be taking this property off the tax roles, which is what would happen. Thank you, Mr. Locker. I know you're going to give something up to our team, okay. I'll just give you a second. Mr. Marciano, you're the next speaker for this hearing. Good evening. Anthony Marciano, 546, North Avenue, New Rochelle, New York. Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows a government to take private property from public for public use under the condition that the property owner is compensated fairly. The ass public use refer to an economic opportunity to the residents of the city and smart use of it helped create income for the city to assist with offsetting property tax increases. The definition of benefit has conveniently been put in quotes thanks to the new interpretation of the law. I'm here to inform my fellow nurse, allians, that the city is ready to vote tonight after much procrastination, approximately 18 months, to take 625 and 637 North Avenue. They are voting tonight to potentially spend between $4 and $5 million of our taxpayer money to purchase and restore the former CVS. I didn't know up to this point because like my previous speaker, he told me, we were told that it was a dog park park and a lot whatever so whatever this may not coincide with your display. It was never disclosed what the public use will be served or will be used. Excuse me, never disclosing what public use it will serve once they complete the eminent domain purchase and renovation. Furthermore, they are voting to take $100,000 in property taxes off of our tax role. As a resident of the New Rochelle of New Rochelle for 53 years, I am not in favor of taking any property off the tax roles, never have been, unless it is replaced with sales tax to make up the difference. I have had inquiries over the years for this space to be turned into a beer garden, a chick filet, a large chain laundromat, a bar restaurant, a children's daycare, a fruit meat, fish market, and a dispensary. The owner has received the offers that would not sign a contract because of the eminent domain looming during this time. I currently have a fully executed contract by the owner and investor, a fellow citizen of Nureshel. We have been waiting for the city of Nureshel to make a decision. A decision, by the way, that has cost the owner of this property hundreds of thousands of dollars while waiting. Who's going to pay that bill? My buyer would like to make the necessary improvements for this North Air Vignain property to continue with the progress already made by private investors from the Racial Train Station to Iona University. There are plenty of buildings along North Air, and that can use our resources. They include two Hamilton Avenue, a vacant lot and type of destructive fire. The former mineykey, a vacant lot. The former mine of the Vaken Lab. The former courthouse building, Vaken Lab. Plus buildings adjacent to city parking lots near Gord and street that can be purchased without using eminent domain. This property is an eye store for sure. And as I stated, I've been working on it to get it sold for the past four years. I finally have an experienced investor with a contracting background, someone who will bring this building back from its current condition and give us a beautiful building to shop in while continuing to pay city property taxes and potential sales taxes. I'm asking Mr. McHouse and the mayor to vote. Complete, thank you. Mr. Mothatana, do you want to speak on the 637 North? Is there anyone else who would like to speak on the 637 North? Please come to the front and fill out the blue card. Well, look, I must plead ignorance, and that's too bad for me being in town 40 some ideas. Not having really noticed this one floating along. But hearing that last gentleman speak, it kind of eloquently summarizes a lot of what I think many folks like me in town feel. Taking a property off the tax rules that he said, I think $100,000 a year in property tax and for a rather nebulous purpose. It makes me wonder what is unseen here. Okay? What's behind the curtain? And that worries me in this town because the more I'm seeing in my town that I've invested my life, saving Zen, and been in round for many, many years, the less comfortable I am with my government. I have witnessed too many things, especially recently, that get me worried like this. Things change on the fly. Well, it's not one thing, let's something else. Well, let's make it something that sounds nice but where's the planning? It doesn't sit well, at least with me. Of course, I don't count for much, I get it. But, you know, if a lot of folks around town started asking more questions about these things, of who's really behind this? Who's pushing to have my government force somebody out of his own property? When I'm hearing somebody say they have a private guy who wants to come in and do some work, I thought you guys would be more than happy to work with somebody like that. Now is this just a lot of talk? I would suggest you hold off on any vote tonight, hold off, and put the gentleman to the test. Come forward with a contract, bring the principles here, and make a presentation. And then we'll know what's what and what isn't. But I think you would do me a great harm as my representatives by saying, forget about it. We're going to take the property. we're going to spend the four mill. We don't really care what you hear, but this guy's got to say. I hope that's not who you are. Would it really upset some great eternal plan to hold off on this for a month. After 18 months, put the gentleman to the test unless there's something behind the curtain tugging at you. Mr. Malfatana to keep the record clear, could you please fill out the blue card and for topic put six37 North Avenue, please. Mr. Yes, and please fill out the blue card same topic. We're done. Ms. Burton, are you also intending to speak on this one? Yes. I mean, it will be short and sweet. I'm not challenging the time. I just want to understand a line up. At least a Burton 257 center. Vote no. Vote no. There's no reason to do this. There's plenty of vacant lots available to build on. We do need housing. We definitely need housing for young people who cannot afford to live in our city. I get that. But this is not right. And to hold them up like this for all these months. People have said this before, Eminem Domingue is a very serious thing. Taking private property should be the very last thing that the government wants to do. Capriciously and without a plan. And to go from a dog park to something more tangible the day that Benson I are on the same page. You could tell you something. Should tell you something. Vote no vote no. Thank you Miss Burton. Mr. Cameron do you want to speak? Hi my name is Michael Cameron I live at 9 Vaughn at Nourishow. Government should not be in the business of a minimum domain for vague purposes. When there are really compelling reasons for a minimum domain, go for it. But this is extremely vague. This sounds to me like a simple theft of private land. Thank you. Thank you. You can just pass them to Miss Sullivan. Thank you. Thank you. You can just pass them to Miss Sullivan. Thank you. All right, I do not have any other registered speakers for this topic. Just scanning the room to see if someone is intending to jump in. Council, did you want to close up? Yeah, I think we wrapped this up. First off, it would be counter-indicated just for the record, for the council to vote on this other than, as you did with the earlier hearings, to close the hearing and leave it open for any written comment. Obviously, any action you took would be after that point. Just as a point of order, because I think one of the last couple of speakers said you know something that in fact have taken the property and leaving out the important constitutional clause without just compensation. finds that there is a public purpose after this hearing and determines to proceed to take the property, the owner is entitled to just compensation. And there's a procedure that goes along to that, so I just didn't want your record for leave open as if it was some taking. It's not a taking without compensation, and I think everyone knows that. If there's not any questions from the council, I suggest you close it for written comment. We will not do questions from the council. If there's anyone else from the public who'd like to speak, now is the opportunity on 637 only. If not, I will close this here. I can see see you. Come here, Ms. Maul. She was more mindful of art. I would encourage the Council to vote no as well. Eminent domain sounds very, very important. Sounds very legalistic. However, as we've learned in the past, everything that sounds good and there is not always good in practice. If we look at our history, anytime Eminent domain has been taken, no one is ever justly compensated, which is a term that's subject to interpretation. And if we have someone like Anthony Marciano who is an accomplished real estate broker in our city, who has vetted his buyer, who has someone who he can go into contract with, someone who's willing to take the property and compensate the seller justly for market value. Then why don't we consider that? Why are we rushing to judgment? And I have to tell you, Council will all do respect. I'm a little insulted that you come up here and you dictate to the council how they should organize or how they should actually conduct their hearing and that they should not allow questions from the public. I don't know where you live but I live here and I pay a lot of taxes. And I would not like to see one, two, three, or any other properties taken off of the tax roles for someone else's greed or whatever else we want to call it. But I don't think this is just, I don't think it's fair. And as a member of the Black community, I can tell you that eminental Maine has not served us in the past. And if you look at the history books, it will show you there are people living right here, right now, in those public housing whose properties, families' properties were taken by Eminet Del Main. And for generations, they are still stuck in public housing, not able to advance. I encourage you to vote no. Miss Small, for the record, just felt the blue card, just so we can have your name and address for the record. Thank you. No. Miss Small, for the record just felt the blue card, just so we can have your name and address for the record. Thank you. Anyone else would like to speak on this matter? The record will be open for seven more days for written comments so you know where they register to speakers. I'll call this hearing to a close. Moving on to our last public hearing. It is noticed here by given that the City Council of the City of New York will hold a public hearing in accordance with the provisions of the New York State Law and Code of the City of New York in the Council chambers on Tuesday, September 10th on a proposed ordinance entitled establishing a civilian complaint review board CCRB and amending the Code of the City of New Reshell to add chapter 9 boards, commissions, committees, agencies and councils. This was published and noticed on Thursday, August 22, 2024. I will call the speakers up by two so that the next person knows that they're up for speaking. Our first registered speaker is Lisa Burton, followed by Michael Cameron. Hi, Lisa Burton to 57th Center. So we need this ability and complaint review board. The Yomans task that was given to the group that came up with their proposal, no disrespect to them and certainly no disrespect to anybody that was involved in what I understand. It was a very thoughtful and grueling process for everybody involved. But the fact of the matter is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We have the Albany City, has a civilian complaint review board that we need to adopt. It has transparency, it has a history, it has a budget. It tells us everything that we need to do to go forward. And as Deputy Commissioner Reynolds said, you're not stuck with it forever. You can tweak it if it doesn't work. But let's start with a proven process because we always act in Newer Shell like there's nothing to see. Nothing to see. We can have coffee with a cop. We can have the ice cream truck. We go to school with people who become officers in our community. Everything is just lovely. But we also know that too many of our young people, our poor people are hunted on a regular basis in order to get status as sleutennants and have the year, the twice a year or every 24 months round up, you know, it's, it's, it is never, nothing is as it really seems here. And if we do not put some disinfectant and shine some light and restore the trust that we need to have with our police department. We are just playing games and if we want to do performative politics, which is what this civilian review board that has no authority can only talk after or only make a recommendation after the commissioner has already decided and cannot speak to the public about what the decision was or how it was made, it's performative. We want to check boxes and then do nothing. Do nothing. That is at least not as offensive as doing the least that could possibly be done. And still, we have blood in our streets. Thank you. Next speaker is Michael Cameron. And the speaker after him is Marianne Macman. Hi, I'm Michael Cameron. I still live at 9-1. So we've made huge progress in addressing police reform in Neuroshel by having a citizens complaint review board under discussion. However, I'm unimpressed by the weak form of the board and afraid that it cannot be independent or effective if it is overloaded with law enforcement members. Police will never properly review themselves. They need external oversight. Now, let's be fair, let's not single out the police for closing ranks. It's highly unlikely that any group would properly review itself. And this is why we have outside consultants. Consultants need real authority to investigate in this case. In this case, we're discussing the police and the consultants are a CCRB. Mursel needs a CCRB as an independent group with the authority to investigate any issue. This could be from minor ones, such as officers having obscured tags on their personal vehicles or getting professional courtesy for moving violations, to major ones like shootings or planting drugs on innocent people. Looking back at the events leading to the original reform plan sent up states, I guess that was in 2021, and looking at incidents since then, a week review board is unacceptable. One of the serious deficits is the member requirements. So why do police get to define the training required for membership? I fully support consulting police on the best training meeting, but if they get to define the required training, they'll use this to exclude people they don't want. Members appointed by the PBA torpedo any notion of independence. The PBA is a firm record of defending its membership regardless whether they deserve to be defended. The CCRB needs an outside consultant, needs to be an outside consultant. So the PBA may weigh in after the CCRB releases a report, just like anyone else may. Excluding anyone convicted of a violent crime would be a clear statement that there is no possibility for rehabilitation applying what they have learned inside the criminal justice system. Is this an idea that the city council endorses? A week CCRB betrays the police reform plan. We worked very hard to formulate a plan accountable to all parties. Let's make a strong CCRB work. I expect that a majority of the neuroshow police will never encounter this CCRB. However, there's a clear pattern in perhaps culture by some within the department that makes a CCRB essential. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mary and Macman and following Mary and Macman is Leia Nelson. Good evening Mary and Macman 46 Rogers drive. I'm actually reading a note written by Daphne Douglas, who could not be here this evening. I will share part of a poem, We Are Not Responsible by Harriet Mullin. We Are Not Responsible for Your Laws of Solar Relatives. We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations. In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on before taking off, please extinguish all small during resentments. If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way. In the event of a loss, you better look out for yourself. Your insurance was canceled because we know that can no longer handle your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your baggage and we are unable to find the key to your legal case. You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile. You are not presumed to be innocent if the police have reasons to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet. Step aside please while our officer inspect your bad attitude. You have no rights we are bound to respect. Please remain calm or we can't be held responsible for what happens to you. So two of the principles for undoing racism are we analyze power and we identify and analyze the manifestations of racism. Mullen captures the type of racist policing that is not acceptable in your shell. Our history shows that black and brown people have been and continue to be misjudged, mistreated, devalued, rendered powerless, and their rights ignored by those in power structures. This passage messages, we are in control. We will do things the way we do it. Shut up and accept it quietly to avoid further consequences. Those who have studied this acknowledge that the current proposal for the CCRB will perpetuate this way of thinking. However, the CCRB will perpetuate this way of thinking. However, the CCRB that we require demands a true review board comprised of community non-law enforcement members that has investigative power. This CCRB best supports police in policing community with humanity and will ensure that incidents such as the planting of evidence are fully addressed in real time. City Council members, you have the power to make a very important transformative decision today that can be historic, that learns from the lessons of existing CCRBs that work and that don't. We have done our homework and pushed for you to approve a proposal for a CCRB that makes a structural change that holds any ill-willed police accountable while no longer allowing the police to govern themselves at the continued cost of the lives of people that remain oppressed. If we want stronger community, we must seek community and involve community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Leigh Nelson is next and then Maxine Gollab for Bruce Salaway. Please. Thank you. My name is Leigh Nelson. I'm here as a representative from the Westchester Coalition for Police Reform. This coalition has been tracking and advocating for police reform since 2011 coalition has been tracking and advocating for police reforms since 2011 after the police shooting of Kenneth Chamberlain senior. For years ago, Cuomo mandated that all New York municipalities create and implement police reform plans with community input to foster trust, legitimacy, and to address any racial bias and disproportionate policing of communities of color. Thousands of New York citizens, elected and lawyers have dedicated thousands of hours in creating these reform plans. The plans universally call for transparency, accountability, and end-to-races policing and a reinvestment of policing funds into the communities they serve. That's forward to 2024, and police have currently killed more people last year than any previous year on record. And black and brown people and people with disabilities are still being killed by police at a disproportionate rate. Unchecked, unaccountable policing puts all of us in harm's way. Yet police continue to experience broad immunity and job security even with a pattern of misconduct. WCPR has been noticing a trend since these police reform plans were voted on by city leaders in 2021, which is a walking back or reneging on police reform plans and promises. Why? Firstly, we see police unions, which are the strongest and most corrupt union in the country, consistently litigate to prevent change. Secondly, we have been told by elected officials that they want to maintain good relationships with the police. Why did they want to do that? We know that the police generate revenue for local municipalities through fines and fees associated with arrests and infractions, which may be why our electeds want to maintain these good good relationships. However, we as citizens also are taxpayers and provide revenue for our municipalities. And we demand to have a say in how we are police. Police should not be above the law. There must be consequences for actions. We want transparency in policing. We want to know that bad apples are being weeded out instead of being protected or transferred. We know that a strong CCRB can achieve these goals. The citizens deserve better. Please do not accept this weakest version. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maxine Dullab for Bruce Alley, followed by Eugene Tavi. Good evening. The proposal for a civilian complaint review board presented in July to the City Council creates the form of a CCRB without the substance. the city council, it was drafted by an attorney for the police department or perhaps the police union with every single stipulation designed to maximally protect the police from meaningful public scrutiny. I shared my specific objections to this proposal with the council in my statement on July 9th and again in my letter of August 30th, I will not rehearse them again here. But I wish to ask you, what is your goal here? Is it simply to create an illusion? Do you think you can trick the community into thinking that something meaningful is being done to address police violence? What has become of the intention to create an effective system of accountability that reduces police misconduct and increases trust in the community. Have you forgotten the killings of Camel Flowers and Gerald to Ralph Garris by the New Rochelle Police Department? I assure you the community has not. We remember the killing of Camel Flowers on a dark street by officer Alec McKenna under highly suspicious circumstances, a killing that has never been adequately explained, although Officer McKenna has been officially exonerated. Nor have we forgotten the video of the murder of Jarell Garris by Detective Stephen Conn, that clearly shows an officer out of control needlessly escalating a minor incident into a lethal confrontation. Yet we have heard nothing about the official investigations and Detective Con remains on the force over a year later. Have you forgotten what we all learned about systemic racism and violent policing of black communities in the summer of 2020, when the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other innocent black people led to an international upheaval. And now we hear that an NRPD leader has been suspended for allegedly planting evidence on an innocent black man and having him arrested. Whatever you may think about the virtues of the NRPD, this department is viewed by a large section of the community as deeply dysfunctional, corrupt, and out of control. You have the opportunity to create a review board that can truly build confidence in the NRPD. I hope you will use it. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Eugene Tasi followed by David Mar. Mr. Mar is the last registered speaker on this topic. So if you'd like to speak, please fill out the blue card and indicate CCRB as the topic. Mr. Tasi, please. Thank you, Council members. Eugene Tasi, eight sick and more avenue. We want to support the police. But the video killing of the killing of Derell Garras, as Maxine mentioned last summer, showed a marked contrast between two styles of policing, one of which was deadly. Both the existing Community Police Partnership Board and the Proposive and Complaint Review Board should have the goal of supporting officers who engage with respect and de-escalate difficult situations and weeding out those who seem to look at all young black men as a threat. We also need to weed out officers who see young black men as prey. The need for robust review board is made evident by the actions of suspended police lieutenant Cain. Cain's alleged to have planted drugs next to the car of Ivan Harper and then used that as a false pretext for charging Harper with a crime he did not commit. Harper had a lawyer. We don't know how many citizens have been put in this situation who didn't have a lawyer to bring a complaint. The CCRB must be their advocate and their protector. It defies belief that Lieutenant Kane had made a such practice of this sort of behavior before. Is this an easier route to promotion than the footwork needed to actually investigate real crimes? I hate to say it. It also defies belief that this behavior is limited to this one officer. This crime tarnishes the whole force. For the sake of many good officers, we need a city manager and a police commissioner that will be fully committed and competent in weeding out officers who are corrupt, racially prejudiced and or carry a chip on their shoulder. The recommendation is that the review board would only review a case after the commissioner has taken final action. This is saying the review board is set up to be ignored. Don't do that. They should review the case before there is action taken. In fact, they should receive the case with the proposed disciplinary action and be able to give their opinion to the commissioner and the council should make it clear to the commissioner that he or she is expected to give due consideration to the review board. They also need a budget and a peanut power to conduct investigations when they find problems that citizens bring to them. These review board members will be appointed by the council members. They're doing a job you would not have the time to do because as we see you have a very busy agenda, but they're doing it as your representatives and through you as representatives of the people of New Rochelle. We need to reject this weakened review board presented and put in place a robust review board that supports our police and legitimately fighting crime but protects our citizens from abusive police practices. Thank you Mr. Tazzi. Our next speaker is Damon Marr, followed by Mr. Malfotano. That's the last registered speaker I currently have for this matter. If you intend on speaking please fill out the blue card and put CCRB as your topic. Thank you Mr. Malfotano, that's the last registered speaker I currently have for this matter. If you intend on speaking, please fill out the blue card and put CCRB as your topic. Thank you, Mr. Mare. Good evening again, Damon Mare, ten will account in place. Unfortunately, county government has failed to move forward with legislation for an independent police accountability board. That was proposed three years ago by our county police reform and reimagining task force. That board would have been available as a strong professional resource for this city and only municipalities in the county. Likewise, there's little political will for moving forward on civilian oversight of law enforcement either on the federal or state level, especially in an election year. Because every effort at police reform is quickly branded as anti-police. While we happen to think that de-escalation from unnecessarily aggressive policing is a matter of safety for both civilians and the police themselves. Accordingly, it's up to us at the local level to create a strong and effective civilian complaint review board for ourselves and as a model for other communities. And it's especially, and again, unfortunately, fitting that we do this in Nourishell, given our recent history as well recounted by Mr. Tasi and others, so it's happened in the past four years. And that's including the long slog to justice in the event of the civilian who was handcuffed and then pummeled by an off-duty cop and pummeled again when he was on the ground all times when he was in compliance with orders. So I urge passage of legislation that incorporates the Albany City model. I've written extensively about that in the specific terms in the Albany Code for Selene Point Review Board, most recently in an article in the New Rochelle, well, the new Roar News, I will hand up a copy of that for the record to the clerk. Again, at the major points that we have to look at, we have to have an immediate and initial investigating, investigative authority, not just an after the fact review of something done by the commissioner or review in House and RPD. And to do that, investigative job needs a guaranteed sufficient annual budget and subpoena power. the other points again which are numerous are in my writing and let's do the right thing on this. Thank you Mr. Mar. While you're handing it up our last registered speaker on the CCRP is Mr. Finn Smolfittano. If you would like to speak on the CCRP please come and fill out a blue card. Thank you again. Just a couple of thoughts. In the case where a citizen or someone is killed at the hands of a police officer, the law requires that the attorney general get involved. Now I'm going to suggest that maybe the folks have looked into this, although I came to a lot of the meetings about the CCRB and read the report that was put out. I would just suggest that those of you who are demanding action regarding the killing of Mr. Garros, demonstrate in front of the Attorney General's office, because this is in Herbaliwick. And I would just suggest that if there was a very powerful, powerful citizens complain review board, that they would have nothing to do now, that they would be told to stand down while the attorney general is conducting her investigation. You can't have people testifying at one place under your subpoena and then the attorney general conducting hers. So, I'm just suggesting that maybe some of your concern is misplaced at least in those instances. But Tisha Jamf has been very busy lately with a lot of political things and making good on promises to prosecute people. So, maybe she doesn't have time for Mr. Garrus, all right, or your concerns right now. But maybe some of you might want to demonstrate in front of Littysha James's office rather than a pastor or some other folks. However, under other issues of complaints that are not a homicide, yes, a civilian complaint board is useful. But some of the concerns that you raise, well, it's populated by police because they're biased, some might say, well, some of the extreme activists in our community are also poorly suited to be on that board. For the same reason, that maybe they bring an intentionality of there is racism, there is racism, okay, all right. Maybe there is a bias on both sides, folks, and maybe we ought to look in a mirror a little bit and say, am I really a neutral operator? Well, I really sit on such a board and act in good faith. Or do I bring my own agenda that would not serve our community well? Don't know. But I've watched this develop in permeate. And I think we have two sides at loggerheads here. We have the died in the world activists who are, I don't think he can move more if the dying on their opinions. And then you have the police who is a PBA wants to protect their members. I hope we can find some others in our community who are not so wedded to their ideology. Thank you, Mr. Malfotano. Our last registered speaker for the CCRB is Rodney Bynam. Good evening. Justice for Jarel Garis. And the CCRB should not include any police at all. It is civilian complaint review board civilian. The police have proved throughout history that they are unable to police themselves in the manner in which the public see fit are pleased with. They continuously as we see abuse their powers. On a daily basis, we see cops go with through lights with their lights on and they're not going anywhere. Their car's is running 24 hours. What protocol does a cop car have to be running all the time. Just so they can just jump in and go get somebody. That's wasting taxpayer dollars, right? There's no way that the CCRB should contain any police at all. And we have a couple of minorities up here and you represent minority districts and we wonder what are you doing for your people, the people that voted for you? Mr. Peters, we don't see much from you. Mr. Tarantino, Mr. Lopez, Mr. Olsenaloy is the only person I see anywhere speaking about anything anytime. The mayor is of some type of ethnic background and she should have interest in the well-being of the people of ethnicity in this city. She shouldn't just be up there collecting the check and not caring about the people that voted for. I appreciate the days that you stood out there with my family when we was protesting against the police, but we still have nothing happened. the acting deputy mayor, you have a chance to hire a commissioner, a police commissioner that's going to make a change. And right now, Neri Schell has a chance to be the groundbreaking CCRB in this country to finally reprimand some police for their actions. And we're asking you to do that with your vote. And not give us this watered-down CCRP that you have come up with. And like Mr. Malfartano said, maybe some people have biased on both sides. But shit, the police's bias has been blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. We don't hear that shit. Weeping kill. We running red out here. We die in out here over the fucking blue wall You understand the What is the cool day? Yeah, yeah union the pba is fucking full of shit. It's the worst union in the world They got they cover in the upper house like no other If the rest if you all had all back back the seats like the PBA had their back. Thank you Mr. Bennett. You're sitting being a better place. Thank you Mr. Bennett. The next register speaker we have is Dr. Carla Wolbright, 9th Inwood Place, Newark, New York. I would like to add my voice to those people who are speaking and letting you know for sure that we do not need a citizen's complaint reviewed board in name only. The proposed review model has no power. Does not give any investigative ability. And we have no confidence that justice will be served by a recommended review model. We do not need smoke screens. We need real change. We need support for those good officers and consequences for those officers who are known to be bad apples. And they have a history of not being there for our community. Let's not rush to develop a useless CCRB. Alternatives must be considered. I know that I sit expensive one, but every life is precious and we can put a value on the lives that we have lost here in Newer Shell and the number of incidents I have occurred here. We need real oversight and we need real suggestions of people that are sitting on the CCRP. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Woolbite. Our last register speaker with respect to the Civil and Complaint Review Board is Miriam DeSeem. Good evening. So yeah, we need a complaint review board with teeth because we need to bring the investigation, real investigation in-house. As Vince mentioned, I have no faith that when we say we're gonna get an outside agency like Alicia James to review it that's going to do anything different and we already have the proof because it's just an act of stalling. Time goes by. No one can talk about it. Of course we all watch the cough shows. The more time you take 48 hours, the less you're going to have evidence to be able to solve the crime and all of that. So we need someone who can get us involved in investigating, get answers, get us talking, get us dialoguing and understanding what happened so that we can prevent it from happening again. We now have in four years two deaths, two deaths of people that are from Neuroshal, that the police know well. These are minor infractions that know where, know how should these individuals be dead. They literally could have, this young man, flowers could have waited for him at his home front door step when he came home. They know the man. Why did they have to shoot him in the dark? That makes no sense. And you can't then say it was justifiable. It's not. You have fruits that are being taken, okay, it's not the right thing, but you have someone who has a history of mental health issues and yet you can't handle the simplest of tasks. Give the merchant the $2, the merchant that's in our black neighborhood that overcharges us that doesn't care about the people, never go in that store. That store shouldn't even be there because that's one of our old black business spots that we need to bring back. We need a real supermarket. But pay that man and then figure out how to handle it with his family and get him the help that he needs. No, you shoot him dead on the steps of some church. And we have no answers why this happened this way. There's all of these, you know, all the video definitely shows that he was wrong. He was going for the gun. Narrative. He went for the gun. Well, if you go for the gun, you're going to get shot. That's not how it happened. Why don't you show all of us the video? Let's talk about it. We have to begin to a point where we can dialogue and understand and be OK with what happened. Well, not OK with these unnecessary killings, but understand it so that we can fix it. Thank you, Ms. Danyoon. Seeing no other registered speakers for this item for public hearing, I call this matter to a close. We will now shift to citizens to be heard as previously instructed. You'll have three minutes to speak. Please provide your name and address. Topics of discussion can be of any topic. I will call up the person speaking and then the next person so you can be prepared. Our first speaker for the evening is Jackie Mills followed by Lisa Burton. Good evening. I'm Jackie Mills resident of Tulemky Place, been a resident in Rochelle for 31 years. I've also been the secretary of the Rochelle House Association, past secretary for about 15 years. Tonight I'm here to support the renaming of Lemke Park for James C. Stowe. If you don't know who James C. Stowe was, or Big Jim, as we like to call him, he was a counsel person and an advocate for this community in residence, whether rich poor, old, short, fat, white, black. He was a big man, not only in statue, but also in character, integrity, diversity, inclusion, fairness, were the tenants of his life. He took time to speak to you, look you in the eyes. Even if he didn't agree with his points, Jim supported, would listen to your point of view. Before I end the speech, I'd like to add that he's also a man of humor. My favorite joke about Big Jim was that my husband was a huge advocate and campaign for selection walking around the district to provide pamphlets. A couple of years later, after his election, I invited Mr. Stowe to my house for a party for Dave. He was happy to attend. And it was fluid when I told him that my husband had just become an American citizen because he was born and raised in England. Jim's response was, he couldn't vote. And I'm like, oh yeah, you should have been nicer to me because I was the one voting for you all that time. So just to give you a little bit about Jim, he really was a man for this city. He loved Newer Shell. He worked hard for all. And I really hope that he will support us in renaming Lemke Park, the James C. Stowe Park. And before I leave, I have just a couple of letters of endorsement for this endeavor. And I hope that you will take it seriously and find it in your hearts to rename Lemki Park, James C. Stowe Park. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lisa Burton followed by Judith Kaufman. I'm actually reading a letter on behalf of Dr. Daniel Miller. Good and would like he was not able to join us tonight. So he writes, the recent events of Lieutenant Sean Kane video recording himself apparently planning evidence so that he could arrest Ivan Harper on drug charges are unacceptable, most likely criminal and reflect and reflect the failure of leadership in our police department in our former city government. Actions like this rarely carry an isolation. It is highly unlikely that this is the first time in Lieutenant Cain's career that he has done this or that this is an unusual event in our city's police force. Our neighbors have been telling us for years, but we have not either not listened or we have not believed them. It's time that we do so. It's time for our police leaders and you, our city government leaders, to express outrage than an act like this could be committed by those empowered and entrusted to serve and protect us. Outrage is the, is this instance does not need to wait for criminal investigation and a trial. And you can and should be outraged by the possibility that this could occur and make clear that this is unacceptable in our city and that you will make all and any necessary changes required to make sure that our city residents are safe from corrupt and criminal activity of this kind. This particular officer has been repeatedly promoted and celebrated by our police department. Clearly, whatever criteria are being used in our city to assess competence or excellence in policing are grossly inadequate. If our police leadership could not previously identify corruption or incompetence in this officer, we have to assume that they have not been able to identify corruption or incompetence in others. That leadership has failed in its most important duty and needs to be replaced. Likewise, our Newer Shell Police Department has consistently failed to respond to other events like this, nor to respond to the information that they have received for years from our community that events like this are not uncommon. They the information that they have received for years from our community that events like this are not uncommon. They cannot be trusted to do so in the future. Our city now needs oversight in our police force, including a Cicabillion complaint review board with full investigative Tory powers. Ours is a great city. It is unacceptable in our city to have a police force that tolerates incompetence and criminal activity that harms our neighbors and our city. We are at this moment in New Versailles when we have a new mayor and new members of city council. It is time for you to immediately change this course and assume that our police force truly serves and protects our members of our community. Sincerely, Daniel Milliel. Thank you. Our next speaker is Judith Kaufman, followed by Jan Mcdonald. I'm Judy Kaufman and I live at 21 Grand Street in New Rochelle. I'm here to address Hannah's way, but that was. It was removed from the formal public hearing, but during citizens to to be heard you can speak on whatever topic. I would, if the city council hasn't seen it, I would like to read into the record piece from New York News on the history. You haven't so the time acquired if not you can email us on the review. The descendants of the slave and a puxly became one of New Rochelle's most prominent black families in their honor, the largely black neighborhood that was destroyed by the construction of I-95 has long been known informally as Pugsley Hollow. Why has New Rochelle decided to omit the name Pugsley so important to the history of black New Rochelle from the New Street name? Before the abolition of slavery in New York, state in 1827, the only listed records of most African-Americans in the property roles were by first name and age. By only listing Hannah Pugley's first name, New Rochelle is seeking to regurgitate this gehumanizing practice. Women and particularly black women are effortlessly removed from the collective memory of communities. Their contributions are minimized and their names forgotten. If the full and complex history of the United States is to be honestly addressed, the deliberate erasure of New Rochelle's black ancestors must stop. Before the City Council votes to erase Hannah Poesley once again, here is the herstory. When she was born in 1766 Hannah Poesley was given the same name as the ten-year-old daughter of her quaker and slaver. In 1799, Quaker Hannah Pogseli granted freedom to her namesake and enslaved Hannah Pogseli. This was unusual in many respects. It was recorded outside of a deathbed will. It was unconditional, and it occurred when both women were relatively young. Hanapagslis lived a remarkable independent and long life, leaving legacies of property ownership and descendants for the black pugslies of New Rochelle. In the 1840s census, Hanapagslis was the first and only black woman listed as head of household. Hanapagslis' family started the the first color church and school in Westchester served in the Civil War, World War I and World War II and owned homes in the area between the Boston Post Road, now known as Huguenot Street and the Railroad Tracks. Their influence in the African American community was such that the area where the Radisson Hotel now, Hotel Noma, is located, was known as Pugsley Hollow. Before research by Anne Zonner was presented as part of a new-roar learning module in 2021, few people knew why the Bracey apartment complex is nicknamed the Hollow. For more detailed understanding of how Xaner uncovered the story of the Pugsley's watch or presentation on YouTube. Many saw the proposal to rename the land that had been the heart of over 100 years of black home ownership before it was bulldozed as part of the racially motivated urban removal as a way to bring in, bring to light the remarkable history of black Hannah Pugsley. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jan McDonnell. And following Jan McDonnell is Benjamin Nook. Hi, my name is Jan McDonald. I live in 21 Cranstraight. And I'm going to continue where my wife lived off. Many so the proposal to rename the land had been the heart of over 100 years of black ownership before it was bulldozed as part of the racially motivated urban removal as a way to bring to light the remarkable history of black Hannah Pugsley and her descendants. To many residents, it is shocking and to me that the proposal put forth by the Commissioner of Development to rename the Sheraton Plaza is just Hannah's way. By July night, the New Rochelle Commissioner of Development, told the City Council that the proposal to rename the area Hannah's way was intended to honor both Hannah's based on his limited understanding of the history of the two Hannah Pugsley's. The story of how Quaker Hannah Pugsley, who when the New York State Law's permitted gradual emancipation in 1799, freed her enslaved namesake is worth knowing. This act highlights the hypocrisy of her contemporaries who were revered for having fought for their freedom but continued to use slave labor as the basis of their wealth. The story of how the younger Hannah Pugsley and her family survived the brutal and the humanizing institution of slavery and became Newer Shell civic leaders, homeowners, patriots who served the United States at times of war and continued to live in Newschel until the mid-1900s, deserves to be known and honored. It is the 100-plus year history of the Black Pugsley family only worthy of note as it relates to their white and slavour. The city of Hirschel has several streets giving the full name of men. Albert Leonard Road. Albert Leonard Place, Clover Johnson Place, John Alden Road, Norman Rockwell Boulevard. However, outside of the streets created inside Heritage homes, there are no official street names to give the full name of any women in New Shell. What bias is reflected in this fact, and why is it being perpetuated? The full complex history of the United States must not be whitewashed. Instead, those who were constantly deemed to be unworthy of note must be elevated. If not now, when? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Benjamin Oock followed by Carolyn Dudeck. Hello my name is Benjamin Noak and I take the B-line bus to get to school every day. The bus stop that is closest to my house is the Pinebrook Ramona bus stop. Pinebrook Boulevard is very busy in the morning when kids are taking the bus to school. At the Pinebrook Ramona intersection, there is no crossing guard, no crosswalk, and no traffic light. I'm afraid to cross Pinebrook since the traffic is very fast, and there is a blind curve. Children like me should be able to get to school safely every day. Beyond the needs of kids, there are 20 or so condominiums on the other side of Pinebrook that have no way for pedestrians to safely cross Pinebrook. People walking their dogs find it very difficult to get to the other side of the neighborhood, to get to Pinebrook Park avoiding walking along busy Pinebrook, busy Pinebrook. My friend Simon and I went around the neighborhood with a petition and got 30 signatures this summer, which I submitted to you in July. The physical petition, we started an online petition on change.org, which got 125 signatures. And many people who signed the petition have said that they have been asking for this for years and nothing has happened. So I hope this changes. Thank you. Our next speaker is Carolyn Dudeck, followed by Helen Pappersi. Hi, I'm Carolyn Dudeck, 46-Hillary Circle. I am the mom of the Panymanoac, a sixth grader at Albert Leonard. And where we live, the closest bus stop is on the Ramona and Pinebrook. It is very busy in the morning, walking across that street to get him to the bus stop. I physically can't do it. It's very frightening. We walk through the entire neighborhood to go all the way around because there's no way I can even cross Pinebrook and yet leaving a 10-year-old to cross on his own on that very busy street. We did have a petition that went around and I'll give that to you an electronic petition. Speaking to neighbors that live in the area, there are a grouping of, as my son mentioned, there's a group of townhouses on the other side. There is an elderly dog that has to be walked four times today. And I have seen the women walking that it's a large dog. You can't pick them up. Crossing the street and almost getting hit by a car. It's very frightening watching people trying to cross to get to either side of Pinebrook and to get to the bus stop. And it is a covered bus stop. I mean, it is a formal, very significant bus stop with no ability to cross. The other thing I would like to point out is that in New Rochelle, because of the way that the school district works, the kids take the B-line bus, which is fine, but a B-line bus is not a school bus. School bus has flashing lights, a stop sign, the traffic stops. With a regular city bus, they're not going to stop, and the kids are not safe getting that bus at that stop. The other issue that I want to raise unrelated is that of gas powered leaf blowers. There is a law in New Rochelle that they're not supposed to be used during the summer, and all summer long, all I smell and here are the gas powered blowers. There is no enforcement mechanism at all for this law. The gas powered leaf blowers are a source of noise pollution. They are a source of air pollution and if we care about the environment and our community, we need to enforce a law that exists. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Helen Propersi, followed by Gail van Groffsky. Hi, good evening. I'm Helen Propersi from 55th Hillary Circle. I'm here to also talk about, they need for a light and primer boulevard. It is totally, totally dangerous. I think it's different now than it was maybe 15 or 20 years ago. People are driving faster. They're more distracted. People come around from Stratton Road. They go under the hodge. By the time they do that, they're going 40, 45 miles an hour. That's right where these kids are crossing. So dangerous. Even to try to make a left out of Ramona onto Pinebrook, could take you four minutes in the morning. Please, please, if you could find it in your hearts to make this safe for these kids. And nicer for all of us who have to drive their walk there. And I do see this woman walking her dog. The dog is an older dog and it is dangerous for everyone. So how is it that you get a light in the budget or how does that all happen? We'll follow up. It's a traffic engineer study. So we do have a traffic engineer on staff and there's an assessment. It's a process but we will follow up. Maybe it's been in the world because we've seen some things there that may indicate they've been counting cars or something like that We'll follow up. We have your let me just triple check right here. I see I think we have your email You know did your email in your phone number. We'll follow. Thank you Yes, ma'am Our next speaker is Gail van Grafsky followed by Michael Camer Scoot a second Gail van Grafsky Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Okay. Thank you. Grafsky. Okay. Michael Cameron, followed by Maxine Gallup for Bruce Alloway. Hello again. So, earlier this evening, we discussed the need for CCRB. It would be difficult to find more of an argument in favor of the need for accountability, oversight, and changes in metrics for what it means to be a successful law enforcement officer, and police officers who are promoted up the ranks for fabricating arrests, which severely damages the lives of people in the community. Body cameras have given us graphic insight into two particularly egregious incidents. One is the killing of Mr. Garris. Her body cam footage shows officers who appear to be doing their jobs very well, followed by an officer who intruded and appeared to commit murder. A more recent incident is an offer who appeared to frame somebody by planting illegal drugs. But on the positive side, I'm sure the body cameras and other camera footage have been instrumental in arrest and securing convictions of real criminals or not police officers. Perhaps officers even have been protected by video footage. Camera footage is an area of law enforcement where we always want good shots. Cameras must always be on. There can be no tolerance of cameras blocked, views diverted, any type of tampering. This must be considered a serious offense. I propose that City Council set policies or legislation whereby police who are suspected of interfering with automated camera recording or who otherwise do not follow policies for recording and preserving data are subject to discipline with real consequences. I'm going to add to what I wrote that the PBA can't be allowed to fight back on this. This extends to sound recordings and other data types acquired during routine business. I hate to make this sound like I distrust our law enforcement. I know that Norah Shell police have a difficult job and that most officers work diligently to serve us well. I'm asking for metrics to reward these officers. Number of arrests is an incredibly weak metric, especially in times when crime is down. But we also have a salient culture of police being intolerant and violent. We need to end this culture. Police need to follow the law, too. I wasn't planning to dilute what I just said by discussing something else, but somebody just mentioned leafflowers. I don't understand why there's no enforcement mechanism for leafflowers. First of all, in the morning, obviously, when they started 7 a.m., we can't really call the police because the police are extremely busy dealing with traffic issues for getting kids to school. And's that that safety is But we need enforcement in the morning. We need this noise not to start before 8 a.m And we also need enforcement during the times of the year when it's supposed to be forbidden. Thank you Thank you. Our next speaker is Maxine Gallup for Bruce Alley followed by Eugene Tothi. Lieutenant-Sat Sean Kane was suspended on July 29 after evidence emerged that he planted drugs under the car of Ivan Harper, a black man on May 29th, and then had Harper arrested. Apparently, King's body camera recorded him handling a baggy with white powder in his patrol car before discovering a similar baggy and a Harper's car. The case has been referred to the District Attorney for Criminal Investigation. criminal investigation. Lieutenant Kane joined the NRPD in 2007, was named Officer of the Year in 2011, was promoted three times in 11 years, and served as head of the Department's Special Investigation Unit. The suspension of this senior officer raises a number of urgent questions for the NRPD, the Acting City Manager, the Council and the Mayor. Is this incident an isolated case? If the investigation supports the charges against Cain, will residents be asked to believe this is the first time in Cain's 17 year career with the NRPD that he planted evidence to frame an innocent person. Or is this the tip of an iceberg? How can the community have confidence that the other people have not been arrested convicted and imprisoned based on false evidence implanted by Lieutenant Cain? How many investigations will be reopened? How many convictions will be overturned? How many innocent people will be freed from prison? If convictions are reversed, who will compensate these people for the damage done to their lives? What is Kane's disciplinary record? If he has had prior infractions, why has he been repeatedly promoted and honored by the NRPD? As an NRPD leader with supervisory responsibilities, has Cain modeled bad behavior and courage other officers to follow his example? How many other officers may have falsified evidence? How many arrests by officers other than Lieutenant Kane may be tainted? Are there other senior officers who also model misconduct for junior officers? Is there a culture of systemic abuse in the NRPD that has been protected by a wall of silence has this abuse been directed selectively or disproportionately against the black community. Finally is NRPD's current leadership capable of credibly addressing these questions. Should the NRPD be led by a career NRPD officer who was nurtured within the NRPD's culture and has no other police experience or does the NRPD neither knew later. Recruited from outside the department who can cleanse the department of corruption. Thank you, Ms. Golems. Our next speaker is Eugene Tazzi, followed by Raymond Masry. Eugene Tazzi, eight, sick, more avenue. Not with my own words, but with the full text of the statement by Mr. Even Harper before Judge Eileen McCarthy and the Richell City Court, before the charges brought corruptly against Sim by Lieutenant Kane were dismissed August 23rd. Sorry. Much the video I gave you the link because he does it a lot better than I will. I had a letter written out, but I don't even really want to say because it's going to make me cry. I feel defeated. Before the officer came and planted some drugs on me, I was very upbeat, happy person. I'm just a mere shell of myself. I can't sleep at night. This has destroyed me. This happened to be last year in the same courtroom. I got arrested for protein powder. Mysteriously, it turned into cocaine. I spoke up about myself. I got the case dismissed. Now one year later while I'm waiting to try and get my life on track, they do this to me again. This is the second time in two years I've been charged with two B felonies that destroyed my life. I was a celebrity fitness trainer and an actor. I got shows on Amazon Prime, and now I can't go back. I was supposed to be on part two, part three, part four, they canned me. I'm done because I'm a drug dealer in their eyes. So this just destroyed me. And you know what? If I never had this video, who would it believe me? This big white cop and destroying our little black community for so many years. We've been coming down here begging you guys, so many complaints. Every time we came with a complaint, they promoted him. He was cop of the year in 2011. They gave him a municipal housing project award. That's a slap in the face. They gave him an award for arresting the people in the project. This has destroyed us. Nobody listened to us. We've been down here complaining about this guy for years and look we're at now. I just want to say I hope this guy is not the best you all have to offer our community. Thank you Mr. Tauzi. Raymond Masry followed by Miriam D'Aceme. Good evening, Raymond Masry. I've been here a couple of times before. Why does it take so long for something to try and get done? It took like ten months for a light by Ursula in school to be able to make a right turn. Quakeridge Road has a barrier there. And you cannot see cars coming down, coming down 50, 60 miles an hour. I've seen accidents there, I've seen near accidents there. Why is it not being taken under consideration of being able to lower the events that's along there by fan meter fans? Also how much longer these is like Webster Avenue going to be like a third world country. You've got to be taken off the road, go through all different roads to get back on. Do you know how much longer it's going to be? It's an infrastructure project by one of the utility companies. It's not actually sitting managed the Webster project. What about also the major roads like North Avenue, Quaker Ridge, Pinebrook? What are these roads that are ever going to be resurfaced? I understand the concern, sir. It's a process. It's not a satisfying answer. I'm not going to pretend. But there is a process with limited financial constraints of the budget. But I understand. I understand the frustration. It's not going to be a satisfactory answer. The infrastructure is ridiculous in this town, really is. I mean, you've got trees along the Wilmont road that you can't even see the traffic light by the kind of mediums there by, I forget the name of these street. But you can't even see the light until you're right on top of it. How long does it take to get some infrastructure done? That is a large question. We'll be on the scope of the time and we have right now but I understand the concerns. I mean because I mentioned this back at March. Understood. And nothing's really been done at all. Okay. Thank you Mr. Masry. Next speaker is Miriam DeSime and our last speaker for the evening is Mr. Edward Stowe. Good evening. I'd like to introduce. I'd like to address the housing and ad equities and the need for support here. So we have this narrative that we need to build a lot of buildings because we don't have enough housing, we haven't built buildings in a long time, so there's a shortage and all the incentive is to get developers in here, build buildings and we give them all kind of grant money based on revitalizing usually black areas, low income areas. So we're justifying it on the backs of black people to get these developers to come into the luxury apartment that over price and become exuberant and force the people out of their neighborhoods. They can't afford the The apartments you have this deal of maybe we get 10% of the units but trying to get into these buildings is is like You know, it's impossible. And these young moms, young adults who have lived here who want to stay in the Rochelle are finding it impossible to move into these buildings and to get apartments. And they're, someone's couched if facing eviction notices. And I'm talking to them and we're trying to figure out, we bring them to the city hall. We speak to the development department. We speak to whoever's in charge of these housing lotteries. And you have outside agencies that are not adequate. They're not reachable. They're opaque. They don't make any sense when they turn you down after you've been in the process for a year, handling all kinds of documents. So you have the folks who might meet the requirements are still told, no, you have other people who are actually have decent jobs and said, okay, I'm gonna, you know, rent this place even though it's expensive, but the fees that are put on top of the rent is making it unaffordable. They are not able to stay there. Tell them, I got to move out into a show. I can't afford to stay in this apartment. I signed up for 3,000, but with fees, I'm paying 4,000. I can't afford it. I thought I was making a decent salary. And I do not qualify for all of the lower income things, because I don't make $75,000 for one bedroom, two people, household. You have to be like, dirt poor. So we're left out on the curb. I'm going to have to leave my home in New Rochelle. This has got to change. You are telling me that you have, you know, 3,000 applicants for 200 units. That tells you the process is flawed. So I'm calling to say we have to change the system. Thank you. Thank you. If our last speaker for the evening is Mr. Edward Stowe. Thank you, Mr. Edward Stowe. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Oh, I'll make it to that. Small, do you want to bring him the mic? As a pacific removal, thank you, Councilman Reuters. Small, great. Thank you. Very good, I'd say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Edward Stowe. And, uh, My name is Edward Stowe and I'm at 90 Calton Road. I've been there since 1975 and I'm all here from Queens and what I did, my brother Jim Stowe, was one of the ones that helped me to move in along with other friends. The interesting thing is that we grew up in poverty in Melbourne, New York, on the south side. My father had a fifth grade education, and the only thing that helped me was when he got hit by a car and He won a lawsuit Longies one thousand dollars of a wife and I have a board the first house up Queens But they would have heard about Neuroshel I was excited because it was a different style living. And Jim, like I said, he helped me and he was living in Queens and a far walk away at that time and he was excited about New York once he saw me there and I tell you Jim Stowe was a community activist. activists. He was active not only for the most people around him, but he also had a personal interest when he found his place on Hamilton Avenue. He was excited. with that he did all he could to help the overall community but it took the park in New York, London Park, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Park. All right, I got it. You got it. Lemki. Forgive me. What the idea was, he was interested in changing the look of it. He was excited. He always did. He took care of his house, but that palk was part of his heart. And I know that he would be honored today to know that somebody else sort about it. And I tell you, the time he put in there was amazing. And because of that, he then became interested in the rest of the area. And that is what prompted him to go into politics. Now, I'm not a politician. But one thing, I am politically astute and I knew that this was his heart. This was his soul. This was his spirit. He did it not only for him but for all the people in the community and I think he would be honored today. Thank you, Mr. Stowe. We appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Stowe is our last registered speaker. So citizens to be heard has come to a close. Have a good evening everyone. I'm going to do it. Thank you.