you you you you Good afternoon. I would like to call this meeting. Order Madam Clerk please call the roll. Mayor Braylon was heard first. Here. Council Member Lopez. She will be missing the meeting this evening. She had an outpatient procedure. She reports she's doing well, but just can't appear tonight. Council Member Tarantino. Here. Council Member Peters. Here. Council Member Olchinoia. Here. Council Member Kaye. Council Member Stern. Here. of the whole session held one week earlier in advance of the holidays. Tonight we're getting kicked off with a special present, I'm not saying it's not special, but the word special is not there. Presentation by the city manager regarding the quality of life initiative, and it looks like we have a deck on hands. Yes, quality and life initiative. So something that's been talked about recently in the last couple of months and we've got open ears and we're not silent to it. So I thought it would be a good initiative that the City Managers Office will take off for 2025. Mostly, we do address a lot of quality life issues normally on our everyday operations, but I think for 2025, at least for our office, we've got a good focus on it for the next year and develop some programs, hopefully that will address some of the issues that we've been hearing about, either through our complaint system, or social media, even our businesses downtown have addressed this concern about quality of life. So I think it was something that we, I decided in the team to really put a little extra focus on for 2025. So I just started off with, you know, kind of basic definition. What is quality life refers to the general well-being of a person, the population, a society? It's a standard of health, comfort, income, safety is a big part of it, and overall happiness in what people experience day-to-day in our city. The overall enjoyment of life in general will be one's quality of life. We thought to kick off the initiative, we've tooled around with coming up with a mission statement. So something that we could really adhere to, and this is, again, this is organic, and this is all, you know, we could change it as we go as we learn new things. So we came up with a statement to enhance the quality of life from the Rishal community members, by providing safe, clean, accessible amenities, promoting economic vitality and innovation, by Italian innovation and embracing collaborative civic engagement all while providing high quality services and a courteous, responsive and physically sound. So that's our initial statement. So when we look about when we went ahead we'd come up with initiative, we kind of workshop us and the team and kind of created two main buckets. Again, this is presentations very high level and hopefully we'll take this throughout the year and refine this. But basically two buckets of the human issues and this physical. And we just provided a list of some of the obvious ones that we've seen now. This public safety on the human side, this vagrancy that we observe out there, this homelessness, this mental health issues, there's addiction, this smoking and vaping and rules that affect, so those human factors. And then there's the physical, there's the general cleanliness, lighting, even pet waste is complaints that we get. Massage piles, we've got to talk about a little further smoke shops Rodents and again the list could go on and again. This is a living Initiative and things will be added as we go along So how we looked at this for going into 2025 without really this is kind of late in the game last year We thought about doing this initiative and was actually right before budget season. We said, you know, let's come up with an initiative if there's an intent to actually have some budget associated with this. So the roadmap is this is kind of how we're looking at it now. We're going to introduce it, which is what we're doing here today. We have some immediate actions, which we'll talk about in a few minutes of what we could be doing now, some low-hanging fruits, some immediate things that we see. And then the biggest part of it is number three that I see is we're collecting some data and analysis so that it then informs us of a better program so that we get implement some really good strategies next year, sometime next year, after we get that data. And then we'll talk about how we're going to get that data to inform us. So Jordan, we is Todd in Commission of Baca, and I just wanted to just jump right into some of the immediate actions that have been happening in the last several months and as last after several weeks. Some really good things that have been happening as far as quality life. So with regards to the smoke shops, back over the summer I could be with August or September. We had OCM come in and close six of 12 smoke shops that were illegally selling cannabis. We also implemented the tobacco smoke shop moratorium back in July. That was a six month moratorium and will expire at the end of January. We also have some zoning regulation changes which are actually in your packet for tonight, which we'll look at both licensed cannabis shops and also the smoke shops and putting some distancing requirements and some additional rules to help manage the amount of them and where they can go. So we've also engaged in new contacts that we've also engaged in. We're in talks with them to try to see if we can get them to reappear here in town and finish the mission that we started in June. We do have one legal dispensary here on Ugonuts Street. I have applications in my office for the expansion of that dispensary and one other dispensary and the third one, the application will be forthcoming shortly, both around North Avenue and different sectors in North Avenue. This will also help us with the distancing requirements to the smoke shops. I don't see that later on in our package. With respects to the massage parlors or spies or whatever you care to call them, quality of life task force and multiple agencies went out and we looked at some of these locations and we took some enforcement activity and most of these investigations are still ongoing. So also some of the additional immediate action coming down coming very shortly creation of a smoking chapter in our city code. In essence, this is a code cleanup. Right now, you have many sections of our code that refer to smoking. We want to consolidate everything into one code for ease of use and just make it easier to understand and also add some additional layers in there. You know, smoking in city parking garages, and also a couple of plazas. These are complaints that have come into the city manager's office and we're trying to alleviate those. Another piece would be the creation of a pedestrian plaza chapter in the city code. This would allow us to designate Anderson plaza as a pedestrian plaza and also add rules to the plaza. So hopefully it would help with enforcement. We get a lot of complaints about the families that are bringing, want to bring their children to the slash pad, but then there's marijuana, smoke or whatever. So we want to try to limit that as much as possible and maintain a healthy environment and a family level environment around there. So both of these items, the smoking chapter and the pedestrian plaza chapter, we're looking to hopefully get them in front of you for January to be on the California January. So I think we'll have time to draft the legislation and go changes, but that is the goal. It's some more immediate actions. So we commissioned as a introduced for the budget for next year, three additional CSOs to help us with some enforcement downtown. That will hopefully get the message out there and alleviate some of the double barking issues and also is in anticipation of our two-way conversion that's gonna happen hopefully at the end of next year or the beginning of 2026. So that should add a little bit of extra enforcement. Just our street paving, our, you know, cut down on our potholes, our complaints. We put that in the budget to have a dedicated crew for next year. We've got to do it downtown. We really focus on really problematic areas within the city that have contributed to a lot of hot hole complaints. We'll continue our activation, our community engagement, our events to create that vibe and hopefully increase that whole aura of a good quality of life even here and even looking at areas throughout even outside of the downtown area for next year. And then looking at a homelessness mental health I know a lot of work is being done now. Police Department does a lot of good work now. But we're even looking to enhance that any way we can by working with our community services, hope services, and we've actually budgeted some money to contribute to that effort or enhance that effort for next year, 2025. And that's still to be determined how we're going to use that funding. So we just, you know, really define the program for 2025 as we learn more, right? There's some things that we're thinking about. So see something, say something. So really talking to our staff, to our supervisors who are out there on the front lines every day, driving the streets, looking at locations, and really getting their feedback. Sometimes we miss doing the course of the work, we're so busy, and we've been kind of engaged with our guys and say, hey guys, not only address what you're giving on a day-to-day basis to go, while you're driving around, if you notice something, let's bring it back in and we'll put it and we'll cue it up to be addressed. So it's engaging our staff to report issues. An example that we talk about is even looking, you know, sending people at night and, you know, canvassing strategic things to look at where our dark areas where our lights are not just wait for the call to come in just go out there and see okay we got exonata lights out you know like little little things like that we could think of to just be a little bit proactive in that respect. We had a rollout today of Rochelle this week our chat box on our website so it's live Actually one on it a couple hours ago and it's working pretty good So it's another tool that we could use to get data So we'll see what kind of information is coming in what people are out there What are they thinking and you know kind of cue that data up and see where is it trending. So that's another tool that we could use to develop a program going forward. We talked about potentially doing an online survey, the very strategic online survey and specific areas that's still to be worked out, but to get direct feedback from our residents, to see what's really on their mind regarding quality of life issues. And then something that we're really looking to do and implement next year is having, and what's going around a lot is some of the cities are using it as a mobile app, which really simplifies the way that a resident could report something to the city. It streamlines the issues of reporting, enables residents and business owners to report their concerns like graffiti, particles, street light outages directly from their smart phones. whole street light outages directly from this smartphone. So we get the information quickly. It captures the app automatically towards the location. So it provides us that location immediately cuts down on the reporting time. It could provide photos. There's an efficient process and an assignment. So once we get those items, we get efficiently give those out to the correct departments to address. So it's a real time, real time of tool. And that's something that we're really looking forward to developing and implementing for next year. Once we get that, then we can really aggregate all that data and see where, you know, see what the trends are, see where the particular parts of the city, things are coming from, so that's a little bit tool to kind of form and, you know, further enhance this initiative for 2025. So the implementation is part of that. It's taking that data, creating action items based on that. The focus, again, is gonna be on the human, human and the physical side. We've gotta continue to partner with our organizations, such as the whole community services, our APOACES, our West Assistant County Services, our court systems. One thing we're talking about and we'll develop and again, we'll provide a further update is probably either through a community organization or direct employment of having ambassadors out there. Some cities have ambassadors where they actually have people on the street that could be the eyes and ears for the city and also interact with our residents and provide information so it's something that we're going to look at to see if something like that is feasible here in our show and again we've allotted for a small amount of budgeting for 2025 if we were to enact some of these initiatives but we have something in there to at least get us started. So on a parallel track and this is going to complement the Vanguard and again this initiative you know a lot of it is focused obviously downtown areas it's citywide so this of course, the app is not only going to be for downtown, it's going to be for the entire city. So whatever comes out of it, quality life issues that are notist and reported, not only in downtown, but in all parts of the city are part of this whole initiative. So on a parallel track, we have the Vanguard. It was hope we could complement what we learned from here. What's already established with the Vanguard Initiative. We're going to do the enhanced cleaning and the maintenance. We would have coordinated those efforts. Our street escape improvements, regular cleaning, installation street furniture to elevate the urban environment, tactical urbanism, activations, the safe for pedestrian crossings and connections, and upgraded lighting throughout the downtown. So this initiative, some of the same people and part of the team here, we'll be working with our Vanguard initiatives and we don't want to duplicate any efforts, but we want to just enhance our broaders together to hopefully improve the overall quality of life. So, next steps, continue working on those immediate actions. Set that data collection system up as early as possible so that we can start getting this data in and start looking at the Where the trends are and then kind of regroup and then we'll formulate the program a little bit more finer and come back to council and probably maybe here and we've port Hopefully we'll have initial data and then we'll have some subsequent data that we could show some progress on this initiative. But it'll be happening throughout the entire year and then it's a living program. Something again that we're doing now but we're just going to have a little bit more focus on it for 2025. Thank you very much. Be your little time. I did a bad idea. It's my 15th. Questions, comments, colleagues, questions, comments, observations from my colleagues. All right, Michael, Michael's not a Matt. Matt, Matt, you're aaster. Council member's turn, please. Michael, I don't know where that came from. Go ahead. It wasn't made explicit, but just to be clear, with the massage problems. Is it? Like, what are the actual problems that we are aware of? Well, we're on camera. Yes, I just want to urge some discretion. This is not an intimate conversation. And I just want to remind us who we are and what we are who is watching this. So please, kids might be going from school. Go ahead. So I think we have complaints from the air complaints from people who work in the area about these types of places. It typically advertised online, so you have to kind of know how to navigate their advertising. However, some have put flyers out, which is alarming to be looking in the neighborhood. Yeah, so it just kind of brings out a neighborhood. And are we talking about sex trafficking? So we're talking about unlicensed massage fathers, who part of their business is sex trade. Yeah, there is sex acts at a car in the United States. When we did our investigations, 12, we shut down. We did, believe it or not, district attorneys are very, they don't want to prosecute the women involved because there is a concern that they're trafficking. You know, they're trafficking. You know, like human trafficking. We're actually part of a task force with all of this quality police agencies and the district attorney, you know, this district attorney, they're investigating this. And so when we do investigations like this, that task force will go out as well. And so when we engage the women who are working in these places, they'll get a good question about how they got into their business and they'll look to deal with them on a different level. So they're not looking necessarily to arrest and prosecute the women who were working there. If we happen to see something that's overt, then the person involved in the arrest of the John and the arrested, that happened in one case this current investigation. But we get better success in closing these down in the building of poverty, because the building violations that it does, building is open. Yes, building. And some of these facilities had no paper on them, which means they had no applications for permits, no permits, no certificates of compliance. So they were being occupied illegally. Yeah, I just bring that up because that, I think, is most glaring example, but how quality of life issues can sometimes fall on victims, you know, in terms of cost-question. In a sense that you are aware of that and are being sure to address the root cause of the problem. And I like using the buildings to make sure that we're not creating more victims. I've spent a lot of time on this over the last couple of weeks, days, and there are folks that will try to reopen, but they'll have to follow a process. And we're going to ensure that they follow that process. You can't stop it. It's going to be done lately. Councilmember, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor M. String. Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, Councillor, can you be coming back to Council with additional legislation in order to provide more oversight? I will. So yes, we've been looking at this legislation for quite some time. I'll bring it forward in the first quarter of next year for new establishments. Our proposal will be to require a special permit through the planning board and for existing establishments. I'm going to propose to you folks that we do this on a licensed basis and if you so choose when we issue that license there'll be caveats in there that if you break the law, your license is subject to suspension, revocation, or forfeiture. We're trying to use every tool in the toolbox here to quell elicit activity. So sorry, just to pull in that thread a bit. When you apply for license, if you break the law, is that driven by the name of the operator or is it the LLC? Oh no, no, no. If, when we do the licensing, there'll be a process. If you obtain the license, then you'll be subject to spot safety inspections. If there's any illicit activity going on, your license will be subject to suspension, revocation, or for sure. And the license runs with the name or the name of the vehicle license. The license will run with the applicant who's on the license. Because from these two major supply and delivery. Like a cabaret license or a liquor license. Yeah, it won't be transferred. Council member, any ideas? No, no, no. Council member, rush away. Yeah, just a few things all around to them quickly. Regarding the data, I'm loving it. Thank you for taking us into that space. So I'm assuming that when you say you're going to be listening for different types of recurring themes, you're going to be looking for semi-structured daily, you're going to be looking for the other types and different searches that people have in with regards to Rochelle. Yeah, for Rochelle. Yes. Yes. Looking at what comes through and if there's frequently asked questions, and then how we can kind of pull on that through to expand again. Excellent. So, something that, you know, besides the full question, I would say, and I'm sure if we dug into it, you might already be doing this because I just want to be short. So look for meta tags with specific terminology that people use, not the terminology you use in house, but the way people naturally speak or will address and issue themselves, look for that type of vocabulary, and look for recurring themes by the actual words as opposed to just full sentences, phrases, things like that. For the conversation about smoking, the smoke shops is one thing. Just overall, I just also want to be very cognizant. I also want us to be very aware of the environment we're coming out of regarding enforcement of these things. And we're going from a space where we were very heavily enforcing restrictions on people smoking and things like that. So now I think the pendulum has swung in the other direction and we're trying to find a happy medium. So as you find a happy medium, I would, as much as we're considering what we're going through today, I would also like us to consider what we have been through in the past with over enforcement, especially for new businesses that are navigating themselves through a new, you know, several new markets that just recently became, decriminalized, you know, we're all walking through this. So, you know, robust communications process, a robust process for redemption, you know, they sell a lot more than just the smoke and some of those shops just, you know, consider those things along the way. Oh, so, I'm just good. We have issued notices of violation to almost all the illegal smokers. We have given them ample time to come and comply. We even have some of the record, where sometimes they show up for court. Sometimes they don't show up for court. So, when that, we have been working on this for quite some time. We have asked OCRM for assistance on many occasions. They did show up and I'm grateful and thankful that they did. And I'm going to try to pursue the new context that we have there to see if I can get them come back and finish what they started because When we make when we didn't opt out of the program, right? We opted basically opted in so we have to follow OCR's requirements for distancing to other legal facilities And there are the ones ahead handle the licensing on that. We don't do any part of that. The only things that we're going to do is look at the location, get a building permit application, review it for building code compliance, and then ultimately issue a certificate compliance after they hand us the license. So that they can operate legally and the city can achieve the tax benefits that we expected prior or are you saying buy us not opting out? That was the intent, right? They came and they gave us this great pitch on how it would be great for the environment and we'll make it That's revenue and all that business. You know, that's how the pendulum gets all the way in the other direction. Yes. Yes. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Similarly, you know, there have been a lot of businesses that I think would I think, somebody will express that they feel like the process of getting through different renovations has been cumbersome for them. And at the same time, we have a lot of buildings. I mean, Paul, we're at war at Skyline right now with the rats. Keep on bringing that up because it's important. You know, I would like for us to look at, you know, how we're structuring our approach to different types of property owners, because there are a lot of businesses that feel like the city's processes are cumbersome, and you know, every rule that we put in the book, every code that we put in the book was put in the book for a reason. Something went seriously wrong at some point, but we're looking for. So, you know, as we navigate between correlation and causation, let's try to have those conversations in the future as well. And then even with building proper view owners, again, there's some people that have massive buildings with massive infestation problems. And I love to see rodents being on the list of concerns. I would love to see it higher on the list of content if that was by priorities. OK, OK, OK. Just let us be cognizant of if we need to really drop a hammer somewhere with like getting these infestations solved versus figuring out how we could be even more, you know, amicable to the businesses that we want to see in our downtown. Just sharing the thought. We also talked about street paving, so, you know, we had the conversation separately about having additional, like some of the streets that you would never see paved. And it actually came up in one of our Democratic committee meetings. Like, you know, some of the side streets, just if we could find whatever resources we need to pull for or buy for, let us know too. So that some of the streets have never been paid or it hasn't been a long while. If we can navigate that. And then the last thing is, you know, you talk about getting county partnerships, state partnerships. If we're going to address the homeless state time population, if we're going to address the mental health daytime population, a lot of that has to do with programming and navigating around different people being in operation at different times. So if we could look at literally the point at times of day, they have to let everybody out of the building at 11. So they're all going to RubyD. We need to create daytime programming around solving that issue, and it's a very chronological issue every day. OK, that was a lot. I'm done. I just wanted to put all of that out there, but it was necessary. I feel like the building's a paving, because you manage your separate beds that you need. Yeah-sticking, and the customer is just fine. Any other questions, comments, observations from other colleagues, the people on the presentation? I'll just quickly say thank you, yes, for identifying data as a part of the process, and offering to use that different methodologies to collect the data. So it's really exciting to see that a little bit. Not a little bit. Explicitly, a lot of it. And really appreciate, correctively, saying you'll get back to us in July. Just love the energy. Just getting updates around some of these topics. I just also want to highlight, I just appreciate early in the presentation, identify human and physical, right? There's a lot of human and complicated elements to this process, to these issues. And I really appreciate that approach and definitely happy with partnering community, or just again, I want to give a shout out or kudos to our police department. You know, one of the biggest takeaways for me when I did the citizens police academy was the right along. And really, I was floored with just the empathy that I think the men and women on your team exhibited. And there was far more social services of the 12-13 calls I went on, but was just impressed with how, so I just want to give you guys that kudos and I appreciate partnering with the community. That's also important hope in others, but I just really wanted to make sure I elevated PD in that way. The only other thought I had was with respect to the double parking. I went to this conference, and it was a city of Ohio. It was like double in Ohio. And they looked there, like, and I don't know if the word is zoning, but they're code around no parking or identifying zones that allowed for delivery and thinking of delivery more than just Amazon, but like the Uber Eid store dash kind of energy. So really being specific and targeted around like what does permissibility look like. So and trying to create more like a, and again, it was a smaller town, but it was similar and that I had like a core downtown that we do and then like residential adjacent to it. Popular, she was smaller, but I'm just curious if that could be something to be examined as well as like... Yeah, that's really good to come into play when we do the two-way comparison. Oh, okay. And we're going to lay that out that whole striping, parking, outside edge. That's going to be a big factor. Okay, excellent. Thank you so much. I guess if's nothing else. Thank you. My understanding item number two is being held. My correct department of the commissioners allowed to be holding item two. OK. So the presentations are going to be in our direct pay. We'll come back to us in 2025, 2025, moving on to items three and four, which are item three is that neck deck regarding the proposed downtown overly zone code of book correction, and it goes with item number four, which is being proposed downtown or really zone code of book correction. This is the subject of a public hearing. Right now we'd be voting to move three and four to the consens agenda. May I have a motion and a second to move three and four to the consent agenda? Council Member Ashamli in stern. May I ever say aye? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Item number five and six similarly go together. Five is the negative deck regarding the proposed amendment to chapter three three one zoning code regarding Lincoln Avenue. Brooks Street six is the proposed amendment to chapter three three one zoning code regarding Lincoln Avenue, Brooks Street. Six is the proposed amendments to Chapter 331 zoning code regarding Lincoln Avenue, Brooks Street. These are also the subject of a public hearing, this evening. Five and six just lose them to the consent agenda. It may have a motion in a second for five and six. Councilmember Peters, second, councilmember Kaye. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seven and eight similarly subject to a public hearing this evening. This just moves them to the consensus. 7 is the negative deck for proposed special permit regarding Iona University. 8 is the proposed resolution authorizing a special permit regarding Iona University. Any but. Could we keep it separate? So it's not all of that. I don't know if you can send it.'s not on that There's one question We keep it separate so it's not moved to the center gender and we can just vote on it Well, you're gonna vote on it for the RL lab so that's why it's being moved Right you you want it on the RL? Yes If it's on the RL, we don't have to think he's right still We can still hold yes. Yes. Yes. I'm pulling. We could still hold. Yes, yes, yes. I'm sorry, I didn't understand. It just like sets it. But I think if you wanted it held, next week. We wanted to have just a check with the bars that we... So we are not voting to approve this special permit. There will still be a public hearing this evening. This just moves it procedure. We have done it for the 10 other meetings this month. I'm very similar to themed items and the way we did it for three, four, five, and six. Consistent, not voting, just moving it to the Consent agenda, still have the ability to hold or remove or vote down. Next Tuesday. Any other questions, comments or observations on 7 and 8? May I have a motion on the second? It's 7 and 8 to the Consent agenda. Council member Kaye and Alshaloie, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? OK. Got out of that one. Moving on to number 8, which is a proposed, no, that's not redo. Moving on to number 9, which is a proposed amendment to chapter 331, the zoning code regarding experiential uses and the commercial districts. This is also the subject of a public hearing this evening, moving this to the consent agenda. I see Councilmember Tarantino. Yeah, I have a question about this. Should we have my concern is about parking obviously and the changes that- What's that in commissioners all gathered, do you wanna come up? Because this is your- Do you just wanna start on the beginning of the meeting? No, it's just one question. How these changes here, how would they impact the parking, do they impact parking in any way, or is there's no meaning? So will it increase the need for more parking? No. No, because all of the districts that are in question here, the uses that are currently authorized to happen in those spaces are more parking intensive than what we're talking about with these. We're talking about art galleries, you know, types of uses, which are, you know, not actually reduced the need for the parking that you have if it was other uses that well have. I mean, I'm looking here, it says large scale retail district. Right now, you know, we really don't have a large scale retail district. Well, over by Narjone, specifically. Oh, that's what that would be. Right. Okay. But there was something going forward that would be. Right. Okay. But there was so they wouldn't going forward. They would be, you know, my concern obviously because I have such a problem right now. We're parking is that if you don't want to put anything in place that's kind of making it worse. Correct. Then it is now because with the vanguard moving forward and the possibility of that becoming successful, you want to be able to have the ability of people to come into the downtown and be able to park, not get frustrated and then say I'm not coming back again. So I just want to make sure that whatever we're doing, we're not going to increase the pressure on the parking that we have right now. I believe it's actually an alternative use of the spaces that are actually the uses that are proposed in this zoning are less parking intensive than what is currently authorized, especially, you know, the historic push for restaurants, for instance, you know, they don't have a parking minimum if they're under the 3000 square feet. And so these are the types of spaces where these types of galleries and sort of experiential things could happen. And, you know, historically have a much less of a parking impact than, you know, restaurants and other things. That was my question. Play that. Okay. Questions or comments on 9? Hearing none, motion in a second to move item 9 to the consent agenda. Peter's and Stern, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. And, and item number 10 is the year 2025 budget adoption. You're adding anything? No. What? There you go. Questions or comments on item number 10? Okay. Motion in a second to move it to the consensus agenda. Stern and K, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, moving on to item number 11, which is the proposed authorization for this admission of grant application regarding New York State Research and Development Authority, NYSERDA. Clean Energy Community Program. Welcome back, Commissioner Salgado. Thank you. May I take a wait? Sure. Now, this is a grant that we actually qualified for through NYSERDA, through all the various climate-related actions that we've taken. And we've accumulated additional funding that we're eligible to apply for. The staff was proposing a use that we are going to discuss with the NRAC for. It's for the solar component of the train station, the ITC facility. We thought that was a great project, but I think talking to other stakeholders in the community, we're going to ask council to hold this item. Not put it on the consent agenda. We'll meet with Enraq and have some additional engagement with local stakeholders and just sort of get additional buy in that community is in support of the council. Any questions or comments on item number 11 for my colleagues? Okay, during the item is 11 is held. Item 12 is the proposed acceptance of a grant on board regarding the New York State Research and Excessive May. No, and Development Authority Clean Mobility Program $400,000. Yes, so this is a program that actually we were approached by Sam Schwartz company that they applied for a grant-enominated new reshale. It's a program to analyze improvements to the first and last mile access and connections of public transportation and develop kind of innovative and share transportation options. It also focuses on resolving some of those related access issues in low income and disadvantaged communities. So we're really excited to partner with them to develop a plan and a recommended action plan and really kind of isolate, you know, the types of initiatives that we that we wish I would be competitive for down the road. So it's sort of like free money and free expertise who work with an organization like Sam Schwartz company to really study and come up with solutions for that. Great. Questions or comments from colleagues at the table on 12? Everybody likes free money and free expertise. So thank you. Hearing none, yes, but ahead. Motion. Okay. Motion and a second to move. I have to talk to the consensus. End of K and Oshanley. I'll say aye. Aye. Any pose? Brilliant. Item number 13 is a proposed acceptance of grant award regarding the US DOT Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement Program. Commissioner. Yes. This is money that we were awarded earlier on in the year from Senator Schumer and Gillibrand. It's a million and $70,000 for to continue the design of the train stations. So this would be an authorization to improve except the money. Questions or comments for my colleagues on item number 13. I think this is another one that we have to leave vote for. A motion in a second for item 13 of the consent to the stern and a motion lawyer, Colin Bevers, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Now item number 14, the staff has asked us for a vote on, and that is proposed acceptance of grant awards regarding the US DOT for the rebuilding of American infrastructure with sustainability and equity, the raise grant, and the neighborhood access and equity programs, I think this is close to 12 million and another one for about 16 million commissioning. Correct, these are the two grants from the US DOT for the link project. We finally reached agreements with the US DOT and so the first part of the process is for us to execute those agreements with the federal government. And then following that we will work with the state to secure the state and local aid agreement to just secure the funding and fully advocate those funds that we are anticipating, you know, breaking ground in 2025, the late project, which includes the stormwater and all of those improvements that we've discussed. This is time-sense today, right? Correct. Okay, we have a motion and a second to vote authorize this perfect acceptance. Peter's an Oshinoe, Ellen Favre, say aye. Right. This is voted in. Item number 15, we've also been asked to vote. This is a proposed lead agency status regarding proposed amendments to chapter 331 of the zoning code regarding tobacco smoke shops and adult use cannabis. I see commission of act and if you see me at the table, take it away. Okay, so we put this more to, I mean, in fact, about almost six months ago. We were tasked with attempting to develop new code requirements. We mimicked definitions from the ABC laws, and we mimicked the distancing requirements from OCR, which is the office of Canada's management. We try to reinvent the wheel. We try to use their distance and requirements. The only thing we interchange was smoke shop and dispensary. So if you have a legal dispensary, you have to have a certain distance between that and if anybody wants to open up a new smoke shop. We try to keep their distancing requirements so we don't have a over proliferation of these type of uses throughout the downtime. And I think it's key to know that this works. So if a smoke shop is, there's distancing for smoke shops, which are going to stay the exact same, so 1000 feet from another smoke shop, or 1,000 feet from a legal cannabis shop. We can regulate that way, meaning smoke shop to cannabis. We cannot regulate the other way. That's correct. So we can't say, oh, cannabis shop can't open here because there is a smoke shop there. OCR doesn't allow that. The only difference between the way OCR views this distancing and the way we leave you is they measure door to door. So if I have a property with a commercial parcel and the front door is set back on a side street 150 feet, they go door to door. Our measuring requirement is parcel to parcel. So your tip of your parcel is a thousand feet from the tip of that parcel, you're good. If not, you require his only variance, which is an area variance, not a use variance. This is a distance. So what we've proposed is for smoke shops, if someone would like to open one and a distance thing to them, match up, they would come in for a special permit. A special permit would go in front of the planning board to be approved or not approved. From a cannabis point of view or OECM point of view, we've opted in. So as long as they stay in the districts we allow, which are all retail zones in the city, and the distancing requirements are met. Then they are, and they get their license to RoCN and they can in essence open up, they have to get building permits through Pauls and all the normal regulations that the city has. The other piece of this, and I don't lose it on my brain, is that they can go ahead. No, no, you know that. I know it was my dream. that they can go ahead. No, you know that. Now I'm trying to go on top. So to summarize, we were tasked with developing new regulations for the smoke shops. Our answer to your quest is to develop a special permit process like we do for other uses. Our office will no longer be able to issue these permits as a ministerial act they'll have to go in front of a board. The dispensaries they'll be vetted through OCR we will we will review their applications for code compliance and we will still issue their permits as a ministerial act. Resulting permits. Yes. Yes. We also have that helps, but I tried to clarify a little. We've also reduced, we've also identified hours that they can operate. So for a smoke shop or a retail dispensary, cannabis dispensary, they will mimic the hours of a liquor store, the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. The system is the system. and stay open later. So we're trying to keep them, and that would be an act of the planning board as well to comment and say, hey, they have a real good case here. Maybe they're not near a residential neighborhood, and it makes more sense to stay open later, but they would still have to come to a board to get an approval. To which board? Plan. Plan board. Just a question on special permits. You mentioned that that happens to other things what's sort of the the volume of special permit requests that we see. I can get you that information I have to go back and look at some planning planning board agendas but I could provide you with Callie on that. We go through the fact. We have many different special permit requirements. We're through the second alphabet. So we went through what alphabet, and now we're on, I think we're on, I don't know, TT maybe, or RR. We're pretty close to almost completing the second alphabet. 26 letters. I think that's about 8. So there's multiple agencies that issue special permits. It's you folks, City Council, the zoning board, the planning board, and the building commission. We can all issue special permits based on different things One year two years Come to Mr. So how does the planning board make their decision? so Typically each special permit section has its own criteria. So there will be hours of operation, some ask for traffic studies. Depending on the specific use, there's different criteria in the ordinance. So the special permit section starts at 3.31 to 87 and that will give you the list of governing bodies which is City Council planning zoning and building official and then after that you'll have special permit requirements for each and every one of those special permit uses which talk about distancing hours, traffic, there's different criteria depending on what special permit is worth. And that's not what is in front of us today, right? No. What's in front of us today is, well, we're going to talk about the zoning code and assigning this governing body as being a planning board. Yeah. And the criteria developed for the special permit. designing the governing body as being a planning board. And the criteria developed for the special permit. Yes, which is the distancing requirement and the hours of operation. And having it all mimic, most mimic the liquor board. The hours of operation will mimic the liquor board, the state liquor authority, and the distancing requirement will mimic OCA. A thousand feet from each other, 500 feet from a school and 200 feet from a house portion. We tried to use commonly used definitions that were already in the mall and Louis making them up. So, we reinvented the wheel. We can also make things up. That's a good question. We did do some research and look at other cities. One of the big cities was Rochester that we followed. So we've kind of pulled a lot of what you see in your packet from Rochester. We've had conversations with them and their implementation has worked pretty well. So I thought you would provide us the cannabis. I just wanted to say thank you. This is exactly the type of consideration that we should be looking for for everything. We're creating a path to victory for good actors and shutting bad actors all the way out. I'm a little bit confused. Thank you. Thank you. So 15, 16 and 17 are related. 15, we've been asked to vote for resolutions declaring the city's lead agency status. May I have a motion and a second to vote for item number 15? Okay, and Aishin Leigh, on favor say aye. Any opposed? 16 is the introduction of the amendment to the powder governing this. So there's no vote just review, but I did want to flag for our team. It seems like the word management like fell off on most of the pages because the Office of Cannabis, MENA, M-A-N-A. So just it looks like there's just like, it's through, it just throughout. So just like copy, paste, misnage looks like. And then item 17 is a vote for the public hearing, which would be on January 14, 2025. It always feels weird when you see the year. We have a motion and a second to vote for item 17, that's meeting the public hearing. Ashton Lue and Stern, all in favor? Say aye. Aye. Great. Does anybody have questions about 16? I think we covered it through 15. All right, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, thank you, the vote. So much appreciate you. Thank you, thank you. All right. Moving on to item number 18, which is a proposed amendment to the code of the city of New Yorkshire regarding section 133-1, enumeration of fees of chapter 133-1 fees. Welcome to our deputy commissioner. Good evening. Good evening. And support of the budget. You know each year we review the fees and the first one is the sanitary super fee and we'll be increasing that. Every year we budget for exactly the amount of units we have as we've seen more units come on more money comes into the city so this all sets any taxation and wishes what we're really trying to get to fees specific to areas. So there's that one. They only have the sanitation fee which is the residential refuse fee. This has not been increased since 2019. So we're going to go from $2.36 to $3.32. Again, you know, modest increase but that's what it is for. And next one is for building permits. There's a whole list of building permits that they're increasing, they're increasing the while. If you have any specific questions, I would ask the Monsieur of all corrects about here. I do have one. The carbon dioxide. Paul. So we appear to be adding a new fee for carbon dioxide ever in systems. I imagine that- That's, I believe it's kind of like the fire. It's fire department. You want to be three? And... She's going for the whole team after here. This is $50. I'll do what's up up for us. I know. You got my chance. It's out of the chairs. Welcome, Chief. Hello. Hello. Hello. So I know anytime we're having a new permit, it's probably something that's gone wrong in the past. This is for carbon dioxide beverage systems. of the new permit is brought to something that got wrong in the past. Yes. This is for carbon dioxide beverage systems. We're going to carry this round. Oh, here. So, carbon dioxide systems are typically the dispensing systems for drinks, restaurants, fast food restaurants. There really should be a permit required for those, special permit and inspections made on either a semi or annual basis. There have been cases throughout the state of New York where people have perished due to improperly ventilated systems, or people went in to change out the canisters, and they succumbed to poisoning, and they found them hours later. It's not the carbon dioxide that's poisonous. What it does, it displaces the oxygen in a room. So if this room became charged with carbon dioxide, there would be no oxygen, and that's how the people perish. I knew there would be a reason I could be back. I could be back. Thank you. How much will that be? Four people. You can't answer your question. That's impressive. Just for a learning point for me, what is the anticipated revenue generated with the increases and where would I find that in our budget? You'd find another revenue from the beginning. That's a good idea, right? Yeah, yeah. I'll never. We're in the case. Okay, and like it shows the projection of like these like, is it pulled out? Yes. This way, okay. You know, we're calculating exactly to these numbers. Okay. So the projections you gave us was anticipating this increase. Yes, okay. Yes, awesome. Any other questions or comments from my colleagues? Hearing none is item number eight. May I have a motion in a second to move item 18 to our consent agenda? Please, K and Stern, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? Brilliant. Thank you so all four of you so much. Moving on to 19, oh, you're back up for the omnivis authority resolution giving Cindy Manager omnivis authority relative to certain contracts into a Clikers certain federal state and county grants. It's pretty self explanatory, but yeah. Basically what you're going to say. There you go. It's kind of granting authority to the city manager to act on your behalf throughout the year. Not have to come back to you also for these specific items. But any questions or comments from my colleagues of item 118? comments from my colleagues on item number 19. Motion in a second to move item number 19 to the consent agenda. Sturning K, all favor say aye. Aye, any opposed? K, item number 20. If you propose the amendment to the code of the city of New Yorkshire, regarding parking regulation change on X, please believe this is Councilmember K's district. You good? Yes, okay. Any questions or comments from other colleagues on item number 20? Hello. Which is the big commissioner of Paladino? Just thank you. You want to add anything to this one? Yes. This is the anticipation of the congestion as it relates to Barnard School as it states. Great. Motion in seconds to move item number 20 to our consent agenda. Okay, and lastly, leave on the favor say aye Sorry Item number 21 chief is a proposed agreement to match assistance to firefighters grant AFG if awarded. If you look to add. Just we just need to confirm that if awarded the grant that the city would be prepared to match the 10% of the grant. Questions or comments from my colleagues when I didn't lower 21? If our city manager managers go with it. We're in love. Full support. Okay, motion and a second to move. Twenty-one's our consent agenda. Cades during all of their say aye. Any opposed? Three. Item number 22 will hold and discuss an exact session. It's the designation of WD mayor for your 2025. And item number 23 is the proposed transfer of City Council members Sarah Kays stipend authorizing a transfer of $10,000, which is our 2023 and 2024 stipend to the Green School Committee, Shucker, for the City School District of New Shell. Council member K, anything you'd like to add? Just happy to be in a position to support this crater. Excellent questions or comments from my colleagues. I'm item number 23. Green, uh, motion in a second to move item 23 to the consent agenda. I would assume Kay and Ash and Lay, our favorite say aye. And pose? One-a-team approaching back o'clock. We are done with this part of our meeting, but we do have several items for the sex session. One is with respect to the proposal of real estate, real property, two settlements, three are matters leading to appointments, and four is one that matters related to proposed litigation. May I have a motion and a second to enter executive session please? Mr. Louis and K.L. in favor say aye. Any opposed? Then this part of the meeting is adjourned and if you do not have a business in the executive session, see you later. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. It's a call this portion of the meeting to order please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America for the Republic for which to stand in one nation, other God, individual, participatory, and justice for all. Good evening and welcome to the public comment portion of tonight's meeting. The public comment portion is broken into two parts. The first are scheduled public hearings. On that matter, when your name is called, please provide your name and address for the record. You will have three minutes to speak on the topic that is at hand, and that I will introduce. After the public hearings are done and we do have five this evening, then it's citizens to be heard, which is an opportunity for you to speak on any topic, still limited to three minutes, and we still ask that you provide your name and your address for the record. So let me read the notice for our first public hearing, which is the proposed amendment to chapter 331 of the zoning code in map regarding recent changes in the downtown overlay zones. This was adjourned from November to today and was noticed on October 31st, November 1st and November 2nd. Now, if you will indulge me for a minute, so I can see the topics of the blue cards here. I do not see anyone who has identified that they would like to speak on this public hearing. One second, let me just make sure. So, and not seeing anyone running to the microphone on this topic. Okay, this one is closed. Our second public hearing is related to the zoning code and map for Lincoln Avenue and Brookstreet, similarly a journey from November to today and published on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, of October 31st, November 1st, and November 2nd. I did not see any indication for a discussion on this topic either. Not seeing any hands. Not seeing anybody jump to the mic. So we're going to close this hearing as well. OK. We have several for this one. It is the request by Iona University for a special permit to merge certain university-owned properties. This was another hearing that was adjourned from November to today and was published on October 31st. The notice, so we have several speakers. I will call you up in three so that you're prepared. Our first speaker is Mark Weingarden. Our second will be Arthur Sinkman and our third will be Victor Staniosis. Staniosis. Sorry about that. Mr. Wyndt-Darden. Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. My name is Mark Wyngarten. It's my pleasure to be here this evening representing Iona University and request for it in connection with this request for a special permit. It would seek to merge the lots of 33 and 45 beachmont, drive in 41 and 53, month, dump replace with the main campus located at 715 North Avenue to build a beautiful green space on a bucolic campus. The lots of issue are located within the walls of the main campus and have been continuously used as a part of the main campus since acquisition. These lots were acquired from the Christian and Brothers Institute, which remains affiliated with the school. We gave you a presentation the last time we won't repeat that tonight. The project was proposed back earlier in the early part of this year. The request from Iona did not seek to merge the lots or a special permit. However, after months of review, the city determined that pursuant to the zoning code, a lot merger was necessary to accomplish the project, which led to the requirement for Iona to seek a special permit from the City Council to be clear that it was not what Iona saw it. We were hoping to do it by site plan, but we were required to go through this process. We reached out to the neighbors of the Beachmont Association after we appeared before the council and gave a presentation prior to this public hearing to discuss any concerns they might have. The neighbors strongly objected to the inclusion of the pickleball courts based on noise concerns. I'm sure you are aware of the growing popularity of pickleball. We had hoped to offer it to our students, but because the neighbors objected, we have removed that from the request and file documents removing that from our plan. Unfortunately, this did not satisfy all of the neighbors. The issue that remains is a legal concern regarding restrictions and neighboring deeds dating back as long as 100 years, which somehow might be construed by a court to be extinguished by the approval of this open space project. I have had conversations with their council who I believe will be here tonight and will speak, and he agrees that while he's not sure that that's the case, he can't guarantee it so they need to protect against it. Iona has responded with a we believe a reason approach, which we will agree to any condition that preserves the status quo. We're not seeking to improve our position just to maintain it. We have, along those lines, we have agreed to a condition, which we have already discussed with the administration, which talks about making sure that anything other than open space that we are doing or passive recreation, we'll have to come back to the council. We also last minute and this is maybe news to some of you on the council because this just happened in the last hour and to the members of the public. I spoke to them and they were talking about, is there anything else we can do with respect to the restriction? Iona will also agree to either sign a letter, put it in the approval, do both. To say that, and I wrote it down to make sure it's read properly, Iona agrees not to raise the merger of these lots or the approval of this project as it defends to any action seeking to enforce a deed restriction against the subject lots. I gave that to Mr. Varian about an hour ago. We believe this treats their issue. We believe we've met the community by more than half and we would urge you to join the Plenty Board who will commend this and approve it. Thank you. Next speaker is Arthur Sinkman who will be followed by Victor Stonosnis and then David Ziegler's Iglomipologies. Madam Chair, members of Council, staff, Greg Varian, not on the agenda yet because I haven't signed in. But in light of the last minute recommendation of Council for Iona, I would request a slight delay tonight so I can speak with my clients and hopefully we can make for a very efficient and accommodative evening if that would be okay. So you want us to move on to the other public hearing citizens to be heard and come back? Come back. Okay. There are several folks who have signed up to speak so we'll keep the order after your discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Varian. Okay. Okay, so that's a new one for me too. So we'll take a pause on the third public hearing. Oh, sure. We're not waving anyone's ability to speak. Mr. Varian asked for a moment to speak with his clients and everyone who signed up to speak will still have the ability to do so. So while he's speaking with his clients, we can move on because we have two other public hearings and we still have citizens to be heard. So we have time. Okay. We're okay. All right. Thumbs up. Thank you. I see nods. Thank you so much. Item number four is related to a zoning code for experiential uses in the commercial districts. This is scheduled for the first time today, Tuesday, December 3rd, and published on Sunday Monday Tuesday of November 24th, 25th, and 26th. Let me just double check. I do not see anybody signed up to speak on this topic. So we will close this hearing and move on to our fifth public hearing, which is related to the city managers, public budget estimate for the year of 2025. This notice was published on Wednesday, November 13th. We so far have one registered speaker, which is Lisa Burton. If anyone else would like to speak on the budget, now is a great time to sign up with the blue card. Lisa, I'm as pertin. Hi, Lisa Burton, 257 Centraviny. Budget are supposed to be a reflection of the will of the body as well as the value of the community. And I wanted to say thank you for this budget. It includes jobs for our young people. It includes improvement to our parks. It includes workforce development. It includes all of the things that we so desperately need. And it's also looking for ways in which we can better improve the lives of our average citizen. So I know I come up here often and I really just wanted to make sure I'm very clear that you know we're, we all understand that you all have a huge job and a very difficult job. I noted this was the first budget for a lot of you and certainly the first budget for our new city manager. But it was for the first time in clear language, you could actually follow it along with it. You could actually understand where things go. There's so many things that were done well this year that I just wanted to come down and say a lot of other things, but I wanted to say that in particular that this is a really great step in the right direction. And I think that it's a very good reflection of the things that we need in the city, especially around summer employment and and transportation for our camps. I mean that is For all the non-parents in the who are listening in Our parks and recreation camps are by far the best value of any camp in the city. It's six weeks, it's affordable, it's reasonable, but they're not placed in, because the city is so long, 11 miles, you cannot get to, or you cannot get to Jefferson if you live in the core without extreme costs. So having transportation has always been one of those barriers to participation for so many of our kids and when we were doing the My Brother's Keeper Scholarship, it came to four that we could offer someone three weeks of camp free, but they couldn't take it because they couldn't figure out a way of getting their kids to ward or to Jefferson. So thank you, thank you, and thank you. Thank you. Our next register speaker for the budget is Mr. Vince Malfatano. And again, if you'd like to comment on the budget, now is a great time to fill out a blue card. Hi, Vince Malfatano. What's really planning on speaking on this? But I looked at it a little bit. If I remember, 1.8 something tax-level increase reasonable. But I didn't get a chance, I don't know if there's any real big large document to look at yet. But I'm just wondering if in this budget, we still have these ridiculous positions of sustainability coordinators harvesting and manprating through the various departments of the city. I know I commented on this before that you were going to hire one for the parks department, another one for another department, and then I rather cavalierly suggested, don't we all need a sustainability coordinator? Why not for the police department? How about for the manager's office? Madam Mayor, I know you need one in your office. It seems to me like we're just going out of our way to throw money away at this ridiculousness. So I'm hoping somebody can explain to me how many sustainability coordinators does this budget support. You know, it's like a partridge in a pair, three-year, or whatever it is. I don't know how many. Leaping lords, I mean, it seems like they're popping up everywhere. Is this somebody's friend needs a job or is this a little bit of a political thing to make people feel good? Come on, I don't want to get too ridiculous about it, but I think there's better ways to spend the money. Like the lighting that I see out front of the building, the trees that were decorated, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful expenditure, in the budget. I don't know who did it, but it's wonderful. But some of these ridiculous ideas of sustainability coordinators in the parks department or the DPW the last time. Do they exist? Were they actually hired? I hope not. I look, I don't mind paying a few extra dollars in my taxes, but such foolishness does not speak well for the leadership of this council. Somebody has to justify that expenditure to me. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I thought I'd come up and talk, so maybe Mr. Varian could have a few more minutes to settle his discussion. I have no other registered speakers for the budget, so we'll call that hearing to a close. We'll move on to citizens to be heard and as I noted at the beginning you have three minutes to speak of any topic please provide your name and address. Our first registered speaker is Molly Franco. Hi, good evening, my name is Mary and council members. I'm the community, oh, my name is Molly Franco. I'm the community engagement coordinator for Putnam and Westchester counties with power against tobacco. We're a New York State Department of Health Bureau of Tobacco Control grant funded program. And as a grantee of the state's advancing tobacco free communities program, our broader mission is to work to protect the health of all people through tobacco control policy and education. So I'd like to share my thoughts and concerns regarding the proposed amendments to the zoning code regarding smoke and vape shops. And although I'm very happy to see that the city council is taking steps to address the growing number of tobacco retailers and has not abandoned the issue as many municipalities do after adopting the moratorium. These changes do not capture the full scope of the problem in a city like New Rochelle. According to last year's health department data, there were 77 tobacco retailers in New Rochelle, and I definitely suspect that this number has grown since then. Of that 77, only 11 were listed as tobacco retail stores and would fall under your classification of smoke and vape shops. So the rest are going to be delis, bodega's, convenience stores. Stores that youth are frequenting every single day when they're getting their ex-samwiches before school or running errands with the parent. Addictive tobacco and nicotine products would still be sold at these other tobacco retailers despite the fantastic ideas that you guys have to reduce to youth exposure, you know, preventing these stores from locating near youth sensitive areas like school's day cares and religious institutions. We know that when tobacco is more accessible, people are more likely to start smoking and high retailer density normalizes tobacco presidents in environments and often contributes to smoking initiation, particularly among youth and young adults who are influenced by regular exposure to tobacco displays and advertisements. Communities with more retailers, not just smoke and vape shops, experience higher smoking rates compared to those with fewer outlets. So I've emailed almost all of you earlier today and would be happy to follow up with policy samples if you're interested and if you're interested in them. And put you in contact with the Public Health Law Center, they provide free technical legal assistance to municipalities looking to achieve similar goals that you all are. Additionally, I'd like to add, as I was going through the proposed amendment and you cite that one of the priorities is to prevent smoke and vape shop stores from selling cannabis products and I know that that's definitely the priority among a lot of municipalities that are proposing these these ideas. You have these smoke and vape shops opening under that guys but what they're really trying to do is become dispensaries hopefully in time. But zoning is really not going to be the most effective way to monitor these existing stores and conduct the needed enforcement to make sure that they're not selling those products. There are other ways to do that outside of zoning. So thank you for listening. I appreciate it. Thank you. Our next speaker is Vince Malfatano. Okay, hello again. By the way, the dispensary word I've mentioned before is really a ridiculous word. They're potchaps, okay? They want to give you the idea that dispensing medicine, God bless them, we've got to love the Democrats who wrote that law. All right, just another quick thought. Pardon me. Oh, excuse me, pardon Hunter Biden is what I meant to say. We all understand a father cares for his son and like if the president had said during the campaign and wherever else you know I'm thinking about pardoning my son I'm thinking but come to know I'm never okay. Well we all do know, people say, well he's been, I think it was treated differently. You were back there, that's right. Entire crimes that he committed will off the books. The Justice Department didn't even prosecute him for the serious crimes that he committed. Statute limitations was allowed to run. He was never charged with being a foreign agent. All the different things he did, they let it float. Gun charge and attacks thing. Oh, he paid that... Okay, he got it. Yeah, he was treated differently. But is this thing... I can't even hear myself. He's okay. But in any case, I feel badly for the president because he was made to look a fool. But you know, you can trust the word of a Biden. All right. Okay, well look, all of you guys up there, and you got to, you got to tell the line for the man, I get that. But let's just understand, President Trump has been vilified. Well, he might pardon somebody January 6th rioters. He actually talked about, at least the guys up front, not like that lion Biden, who lied to you face and wanted you to believe it, and all the left wing loons carried his water. Right? At least Trump is telling you, yeah, I might pardon some of these guys who've been sitting in jail for two years and couldn't get bail for trespassing. Okay, well let's worry about that another day. But this is the Christmas season. It's the time to celebrate the birth of Christ. A hope to the world. If anybody life had changed the history of this planet, it's Jesus Christ. Whether he was born on the 25th, there's a relevant to me. Okay? The sunlight, and I'll pay, okay fine. You can believe or not believe in his resurrection. That's your business. It's a hopeful thing, though, isn't it? Rather than the ugly and hateful stuff people put out. I'd rather live with hope. So let's talk about the hope of the world here this December, the birth of Christ. As Morgan Mead said, all it takes is a few people to change the world. I'm paraphrasing. And he certainly did. So let's try to bring that spirit to our hearts and act as honest brokers. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lisa Burton. Hi, Lisa Burton 257 Center Avenue. I'm going to read probably for the last time. Ivan Harper's statement. Arievin Harper was the young man that mistakenly came back home to Newsh Shell after living in Denver and was arrested and his protein powder became cocaine and somewhere along the chain of evidence it was transformed. Those charges were dropped against him and then he came back for, you know, when you have family you always come back to visit and then the second time he was again arrested but this time the body camera of the officer was on, showing him putting a white powder that turned out to be felony level cocaine. And he was charged, but those charges were dropped after the video camera of the officer was released. And this is his statement to the court after they had knocked the charges down, and he was released. All the charges were dropped against him. He says, I had a letter written out but I don't really want to say it 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. Can't sleep at night. This has destroyed me. This happened to me last year in the same courtroom. I got arrested for a protein powder. Mysteriously it turned to 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 back on track, they do this to me again. This is the second time in two years I've been charged with two B felony that destroyed my life. I was a celebrity fitness trainer and an actor. I got shows on Amazon Prime. 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 has just destroyed me. As you know, and you know what? I never had this video who would have believed me. This big white cop has been 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 copied 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 projects. This has destroyed us. Nobody listened to us. We've been down there complaining about this guy for years and look where we are at now. I just want to say, I hope this guy is not the best you'll have off to our community. I'm going to submit it to the clerk. I think it's critical that we understand that our individual experiences with our wonderful police department is not shared with everything. Thank you. Our last, our last registered speaker pending this break, I guess, is Michael Yellen. Good evening, Michael Yellen, 38 Lakeside Drive. I speak on behalf of the four Nureshel Municipal Housing Authority commissioners who were wrongfully dismissed from our duties two years ago. We are Reverend Harry Dawkins, Sheila Small, Hasflin Howard, and myself. Unfortunately, they couldn't join me this evening due to the calendar change in citizens to be heard because of the holidays. Otherwise, they'd be here and I'm sure they're listening. So tonight, I would like to read into the record the statement the city recently released, exonerating us of any wrongdoing. But before doing so, let me say that we're thankful to the mayor, the city council, especially David Peters, the city manager for recognizing the wrong that was done to ourselves and the residents of the housing authority properties by the previous administration. And we look forward to working with the residents, the housing authority, the city and HUD to improve the living conditions in public housing and thereby the city as a whole. The statement the city as a whole. The statement the city released reads in part. On December 29th, 2022, Newer Show Municipal Housing Commissioners Sheila Small, Michael Yellen, Reverend Harry Dawkins, and Haslin Howard were terminated from their respective positions from the Newer Show Municipal Housing Authority. Since that time, the City of Newer Shelf undertook a review of the Commissioner's termination and the operations of the Housing Authority, including engaging an external third-party auditing firm to audit the financial books and records of the authority. Among the key findings of the audit, the auditor determined that there was no financial wrongdoing or malfeasance on the part of the commissioners. Consistent with the above findings, the city has determined that each of the commissioners is eligible for reappointment to the housing authority in the future. Further, the city intends to reappoint at least one of the commissioners at the first available opportunity. It is important to highlight that each former commissioner has served the authority for a number of years and has worked hard to provide safe, sanitary decent and affordable housing opportunities for the most vulnerable populations in their community. Under the stewardship of the former commissioners whose positions were uncompensated, they were able to elevate the Nureshel Municipal Housing Authority HUD status from troubled or substandard to standard public housing authority performance status. The commissioners also steered the housing authority through difficult times, including the recent coldly pandemic. The city is thankful for the past service of the former commissioners. As the city we recognize the years of uncompensated volunteer service that the commissioners have provided to the nurse home municipal housing authority and its residents and the nurse shell community. Now the statement goes on to give some background on each of us in our time of service as a commission. It concludes we wish each of the commissioners continued success in all of their future professionally. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hill. Thank you. The other commissioners. Thank you. I see folks walking back. I think I saw one of our neighbors. Okay, let's just give it a couple minutes. Mr. Varing, will you be speaking first or should I go in the order of the card submitted? Wonderful. Thank you. And when you're done, just please fill out the card. You can do it when you're done. No rush. No, but I just want to. Got it. Love it. I think how we'd like to proceed, if it's acceptable, Mayor, is there are some people that would still like to speak regardless of the outcome. I would also want to request that anyone that doesn't speak but was intending to, that there remarks be made part of the record subsequent tonight's public room. Certainly. With that, I'll let go to the first person on your list if they want to speak. Sure. I think there'll be a temporal consideration for public hearing comments like how far after the hearing is after the matter of first impression for me, some just getting guidance. I mean, once it's closed, we usually don't accept, but you can agree to accept up to a date, sir. Okay. So we can accept written comments seven days after today. It's only Tuesday. All right, so we will accept written comments, email or snail mail, traditional mail from now through next Tuesday, which is the 10th. Okay, just so that the boundaries are set. So the first speaker is Arthur Sinkman, followed by Victor Stoney, O'Snees, and then David Ziegler or Ziegler. Good evening. My name is Dr. Arthur Sinkman. I live at 180 Beachmont Drive, right down the block from where these proposed changes are being made. And I want to say that I've lived here for 40 years. I lived on Beachmont Drive and very proud of the residential characteristics of our street and the neighborhood. And I'd be very opposed to any changes to make it into university kind of area and to take away from the beautiful almost bucolic surroundings. And I know the people here from my own can make lots of nice promises today, but I don't know that five or ten years down the road that once they get control of the buildings and lots and make some changes that it's not going to evolve. And I'd like to remind people about what happened to the Beachmont Oval, which was an area, the beautiful area that supposedly was part of Ioner and Beachmont together. When I moved here in 1984, I played ball with my kids on the oval and ex, you know, we go out there and hang out. It's beautiful. A big lawn and eventually I only got a hold of the area and it evolved. And as the years have gone by, it's now a walled in, a fence in rather a baseball field, controlled by Iona. And the point is that things evolve over time, and once you let the Iona get a hold of something, it's going to change so they can make all sorts of beautiful promises to you people about what they're going to do now and it's not a big deal It's not a big change, but just wait a few years and you'll see what will happen and soon enough Beachmont will no longer be a beautiful residential area, but will be the back side of a university So please do not approve any changes. Thank you Thank you our next speaker is Victor Staniosnis, followed by David Ziegler. Good evening. Mayor Ramos, Herbett, members of City Council and a City Manager. I'm going to begin with a full disclosure statement. I came to Nuret Schell from the South Bronx to study at Iona University in 1956. I graduated, attended graduate school, earned advance degrees, and became a professor at Iona. After teaching there a full time for 60 years, I retired three years ago as professor emeritus. I've also lived in Beachmont for over 50 years and served as president of the Beachmont Association for 31 years. I now serve as vice president. Now over the last 50 years, I believe I own a beach one I've grown to be good neighbors, to personal belief with a few bumps in the road along the way. I believe I own an attracting students to their beautiful campus needs beach one to be a beautiful residential area, reassuring to parents that Iona is in a very safe and beautiful location. Beachmont benefits from having Iona as an anchor that provides a beautiful environment and as a resource for academics, sports, cultural events that Beachmont residents are invited to attend. One benefits from the other, and as neighbors I believe each should be sensitive that it needs concerns and aspirations of the other. I view the relationship as symbiotic. However, it seems that many Beachmont residents are presently concerned with ION's petition for remapping individual properties into a single entity and in so doing, removing some of the checks and balances that have existed for 122 years. They're concerned about the long-term implications for their homes and properties if the petition is granted. I believe they would be more comfortable in having Iona develop its upper green project on the present zoning restrictions. There's also the impression among the residents that the petition for remapping is being rushed without community analysis. It seems Iona can develop its upper green project without the necessity of approval for remapping. Perhaps the best move would be to postpone a vote until after the holidays. Giving beach my residents more time to study and inform themselves of the pros and cons of this issue. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Ziegler, followed by Jeff Porter and then Fred Weiner. Good evening everybody. I had a speech prepared which may change a little bit, but only a little. The first thing that comes to mind. My apologies, Neymann Address or my city clerk will chase me. My name is David Zinkler, 291 Beach Monthrive. When Ms. Warren states that we have seven days to put in any additional comments, it makes me think like what's the rush? I mean, usually we should have time. There's 280 people on the Beachmont Association, 288 households, and we don't seem to be getting a chance to really respond, including to this offer by Mr. Wyingard who seems to say it's a take it or leave it situation. I'm not quite sure what the rush is. So all of the males that have been going back and forth between the few of us who have had time to study this at all, to be aware of it at all. And of course, which many of the council members have been included, certainly you Mayor Ramo Sirvert and Sarah Kay have been included in some of these. These males, as you can tell, they express a alarm, concerned, and a real dissatisfaction and consternation regarding the city's position, regarding the merger of four individual laws on the ION property. And maybe we should get a better chance to really understand your position, because I'm not that aware of what it is, and I don't think most of us really understand what the benefit is yet. We haven't really had a chance to discuss it, but none of the letters that I've been part of and seeing from all of our members is expressing support for the merging of these lots. And I have no reason to believe that the rest of the members of the Beachmont Association would necessarily say, oh, let's go ahead and do this. So as far as the governance, the restrictive governance, well at this stage, I think people will discuss this. But the fact of the matter is, as my time is running out, I think we really just are looking forward to a postponement so that we actually have a chance to really understand what the matter is and how it can benefit us and if any changes need to be made. We don't see any rush. There's nothing persuasive in this that I've heard so far to say. Let's just go ahead and run this through. Thank you. Thank you. Jeff Porter. Thank you. Hi, good evening. I'm Jeff Porter, 76, the Elephant and Avenue Nourishell. Mayor, members of the City Council, wishing you a belated happy Thanksgiving and an early, happy holidays. I teach at Fordham University, so I'm not unsympathetic to Ionis challenges. Hi-Red is a, to cutthroat business these days and it is, grow or die. So I understand Ionis impetus to expand its footprint in Neuroshel. That being said, though, I strongly urge city council to proceed very cautiously with Iona and to ensure that there is a robust guardrail in place to guarantee that Iona does what it says, it wants to do, and nothing more. Now, I say this for three reasons. Iona's default position is to litigate and not to advocate. Instead of trying to work within the law, Iona tries to change the law. If Iona's proposal was innocuous, it would have publicized the town hall, it well in advance, and invited members of the community in order for Iona to explain why its proposal was good for the community as well as for Iona. It didn't because it's not. Iona also always privileges the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. Iona does what it can do, not what it ought to do. I don't want to begrudge Martin, his bread and butter. But this is where you, as city council, counsel gratefully come into play, to ensure that our community is protected from bad actors dressed up in what is potentially permissible. Lastly, I only believe that it's better to forgive, to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. This approach puts the onus on the community to police Iona's compliance with its own commitments. And this works to Iona's advantage. We're just community members. We have families, we have jobs, we have other commitments that demand our time. And we don't have the resources to dedicate to ensuring Iona does what it says it's going to do and what it ought to do in the future. So in light of this, in light of Iona's predilection for litigating rather than advocating, it's privileging of the letter of the law over its spirit. It's acting unilaterally, steamrolling the betterment of the community. It's extremely important that City Council determine what Iona's long-term intentions are for the lots in question, and that it imposed rigorous constraints to ensure that Iona does not go beyond what it says it's going to do. One last comment. Iona doesn't vote, and Iona doesn't pay taxes. We do. Thank you. Our next speaker is Fred Weiner. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, our next speaker is Fred Weiner and the last registered speaker, there we go. On this Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no And I've been a resident, I wrote this letter today to all of you and I'm just going to read it and hopefully goes part of the record. I've been a resident of the Beachmont neighborhood for over 35 years and in that time there have been at least a couple of initiatives undertaken by Iona College focused on expansion of that institution that would have had impacts on our neighborhood. In both those cases, we've had to mobilize our neighbors and association. And in each case, have successfully defended our neighborhood to protect its physical integrity and its residential character. The proposal that is currently on the table, while not directly threatening our neighborhood, could potentially set the stage for future land use changes under the current or a future Iona administration that might have a serious deleterious impact on on beach mod our attorney Greg Varian has very particularly laid out in writing And we'll do so again orally if he hasn't already I think you have The circumstances under which this could happen, given that this possibility exists and the risk that it might present to the, I thought we had 350 homeowners, maybe it's only 250, I'm not sure. In our neighborhood, it is incumbent upon us to defend our interests to the maximum extent that we can. And in the manner that he is suggesting, with a reinforcement of the neighborhood's restrictive covenant, simultaneously with the passage of any special permit. The scheduling of this hearing for this evening, well, it may have been known to some, was not sufficiently promulgated to all of us. Many of us were under the understanding that would be held in December 10th, and many were not aware that any particular date was set. It is not a simple matter to corral majority of our neighbors to inform them of the particularities of land use law and all the nuances in play here. A four to five week adjournment would be necessary to do this at a minimum. The additional time we are requesting would not seriously impact Ion in this application but would be critically important for the residents of Beachmont. We seem to be acting alone on our behalf in this matter with no real representation in Council, and we feel we are being rushed into accepting the special permit that is being proposed. Given that this is potentially the most significant land use change in our neighborhoods history over the last 40 or so years, I see no reason why brief pause in the proceeding can't be allowed. Without that we feel like we are essentially being railroaded. Today is Giving Tuesday. Most of us have today made a variety of significant contributions to charities and other causes that we care about. It is not a day for us to be giving up our neighborhood and many of us feel that that is what is being asked of us. We need an adjournment of tonight's proceeding at least into January. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Bill Stump followed by Charlotte Abadir, Jane Van Lear, and Steve Brune. That's our last register speaker on this topic. If you intend on speaking, please follow out of Blue Card. Mr. Stump. Thank you, Your Honor. My name is Bill Stump. I live at 44 Beachmont Drive. My wife and I bought our home 40 years ago. We are long time residents of Nourishell. And I have a history lesson for some of you. More than 50 years ago, the first woman was admitted to Iona College that happens to be my wife sitting over here. But it was a historical perspective. Secondly, we have had a close affiliation with Iona College. And this in my 40 years is the most egregious approach to a project that the university has undertaken. We've been through parking garages, dormitories, athletic fields, the oval, you name it, we've had Iona come to the Beachmont Association work with us, sometimes it was tough but we got through it. This time this is being railroaded at us. We have 280 homeowners in the Beachmont Association. That number is accurate. It matches our mailing list with the association. Now, I want to correct two things that Council for Iona, Mr. Wiengarten said, which are erroneous. One that 45-beach bond and 33-beach bond were always used for college purposes since their acquisition. Not true. 45-beach bond drive directly across the street from us was purchased by the college from the Barker family. Mrs. Barker was an elderly woman and attorney retired. Sold the house to the college. The college let it sit for more than 10 years. In the early 2010s, all of a sudden, little encroachment started to happen. Rock walls were removed, fences, earth berms. Everything was taken out. And then a little by little you saw the college start to make use of the property. 33 Beachmont was always called the old brothers home. About three or four retired Irish Christian brothers lived there and had their meals served there. No college purposes were ever used on those two parcels. The other thing Mr. Weingon said was that they came to the community to tell us about this. No. In early November we found out about this application. We caused a meeting to happen. We've had one hastily arranged Zoom meeting and one meeting at a board room on the college. We said, you know what? We can't reach out to the 280 home owners and let them know about this. Give us more time. So we're asking the council tonight. We're not against the Green Space Initiative. We think it's a great idea. There's a better way to do this. Work with the Association will come up eventually with a solution. Thank you, council, and good luck to you. Thank you. Our next speaker, Charlotte Abedir, followed by Jane VanLare, and then Steve Brune. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Charlotte Abedir, and I live at 56th Hell Place. Although I'm not inherently opposed to Iona building green space on their existing lots in the Beachmont neighborhood, the community has not had enough time to review the proposal and all of its nuances as my neighbors have already expressed. I bought my home in 2021 and saw and continued to see Iona's campus in my neighborhood as a benefit. As a taxpayer in the neighborhood, I'm looking for more engagement from my own and our city representatives with the community before I feel comfortable endorsing Iona's plan. My concerns are as follows. Why is this process being rushed? Is this the last time the neighborhood will have the opportunity to publicly comment on the plans? Some of my neighbors were not aware of Iona's proposal until very, very recently. I was actually on a text message today, texting updates, and people were scrambling to try to be here. I actually was late, because I put my seven-month-old's bed before running over here to speak to you all. Is the community going to be more widely informed? Is Iona going to be sending out mailings? Is that on the Beach Mon Association? That hasn't been made clear to me. The next concern I have other than it being rushed is the proposed merging of the lot seem to have far reaching future consequences. I'm actually an affordable housing developer by trade. I'm a self-proclaimed DMB like yes in my backyard. But there's a right way to do things, right? And coming to community groups is something that I always advocate for prior to anything filed. You really need the community on board and I just don't feel like that really happened here. One other thing I would request and hopefully it'll happen in a meeting soon is there's been some municipal codes that have been mentioned here and there about how the special use permit will work. But I haven't really seen it laid out. This is the part of the code for the special use permit that is going to provide the same protections as the de-districtions that are currently on the property. Again, not against the open greenspace, I just want to make sure this merging of the lot doesn't allow Iona to build dorms in the future or gymnasium. I don't want to be here in another 5, 10, 20 years doing the same thing tonight that, and the same thing I've been doing today, of trying to rally my neighbors to come And speak out against this if it's this is a 120-year-old residential community It has been expressed by a lot of my neighbors that it should stay that way and I don't understand why This should ever be brought in front of the council again unless it was Something that was in the code that was allowed, right? I, anyways, the last thing. I'm happy to hear that the Picklewalk Quartz have been removed from my own as per polls. I'd like to see the revised plans. Thank you very much for your time. Our next speakers, Jane Van Lear, and then Steve Brunei. And that's our last speaker. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jane Van Laire and Steve Brunei. That's our last speaker. Again, if you intend on speaking on this issue, please fill out a Blue Card. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jane Van Laire. I live at 460 Beachmont Drive. I'm here in a personal capacity but I'm also here in a Representative capacity. I also am fortunate to serve as the president of the Beachmont Association. I'd like to just echo everything that's been said, but also make sure that all of you are mindful of the fact that for every person, for every advocate here on behalf of the neighborhood, there are dozens of others who feel just as, or perhaps stronger, about these issues than the people you've heard tonight. And I do think that echoing what some of the other folks have said, I think that given more time and more notice, you would have seen this room filled with those people. I've been in the neighborhood for just over 11 years, and it's I think telling that I'm one of the younger members. There have been people and you've heard from some of them today who've been in the neighborhood for decades. We all feel extremely strongly about protecting the neighborhood, protecting the integrity and making sure that its residential character remains for years and years to come. The issues here are very, very complex. It's not simply about green space. I don't think that many, if any of us are against green space, we are incredibly concerned about making sure that the protections that have been in place are preserved, that the character of the neighborhood is preserved for years and years into the future. That is what's at stake. character of the neighborhood is preserved for years and years into the future. That is what's at stake. That is why you're hearing so many people here. And as I said, so many people in the neighborhood who couldn't be here tonight who feel just strongly. So on behalf of the members of the association of our other neighbors, I urge you, all of you, to really think very, very hard and keep in mind the fact that these issues are extremely important to us and that we wanna make sure that this is done right. We do think more time is necessary to ensure that the protections are put in place, to make sure that our neighborhood survives for many many more years. Thank you. Thank you. And our last speaker Mr. Steve Brune or Brune my apologies. Hi, good evening Third guess would be the charm. It's the broon. Sorry, it's all the acts of art, so I was sure. I live at 34 prior terrorists and I'm much more looking forward to coming back here tomorrow for Santa bringing my three kids. Well I'm not trying to understand all the history and nuance of the Iona green space proposal. I am concerned about it in its current form. I purchased my home at 34 prior terrorists in March of 2021 with an understanding that there were protections and restrictions in place that would help us against changes in the future. My house is surrounded by Iona lots virtually on all sides and it leaves me gravely concerned about loosening things that I perceive to be restrictions about future uses of those properties. In fact, there was a day a year or so ago I came home and the house with a lot across from mine was filled with the basketball team, which was an inappropriate use of the building. I think it got straight now, but there have been some sort of squirrely things that go on if the folks in Peach Monter are paying close attention. Let me first say that I really love Iona. We have an Australian student who lives with us. She's on the track and field team, one of the stars of that team. I'm a volunteer with a youth ministry called Young Life. I have over 60 students at my house multiple times just this semester alone. And my children, five, three, and six months old, we go to sporting events almost every weekend. They love to say, go Iona, and root for the home team. I don't think my daughter realizes that she's going to want to go away when she gets older, but right now she wants to go to Iona. My time's ticking here, so I think as much as I love Iona, I think the relationship is quite delicate. We're very supportive and I think it's mutually beneficial, but I hope that we can be very careful here. I think we stand at crossroads. I can be persuaded to support a you know, a green space project, no problem there. But I do really, I am really concerned about the loosening of restrictions and the potential changes to future uses, things like parking lots and dorms have been brought up. I think the folks, the beach-mount community just want to have a sense that those things aren't going to happen in our in our backs and front yards. We've asked to have this adjourned from the agenda for the evening. I just don't think that we are able to fully understand all the nuance of what's happening here. Certainly as the Beach Mont Association giving the amount of time that we've had to review it. I think an unwillingness to postpone shows some sort of a bias. Some concern that we haven't been well represented here. And I look forward to speaking with you in the future, hopefully on something that feels a lot more positive. Maybe we'll see it the North Pole tomorrow evening. Thank you. Thanks again, Mayor and Council, to allow me to speak. I'm going to be very brief because I know there's been a lot of time on this subject very late in the day, only tonight. But I think Iona has made a very good proposal. But as you can hear from my fellow or the residents of Beachmont that it's, I guess there's no consensus that I can deliver to you tonight. And I must say not speaking, I was really looking forward to at least three minutes discussing restrictions on real property, private and public. But I realize after listening to everyone tonight, it would be a lot more than three minutes. So with that, I'll leave you. Thank you for your time and attention. Again, we would want what we said tonight, as well as what's going to be submitted within the next seven days to be made part of the record. And again, thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Thank you. Mr. Keu, go ahead, Mr. Mothatna. Oh, fuller. Yep. Yeah, I stayed to hear this. I'm very interested. Having been in town about 45, 50 years or so, I've seen many, many community groups come to this podium and speak about various developments and issues affecting their community of opponents like Iona. I've listened to some of the over the years. And the one thing that strikes me as a common theme is a sense that many members of the community, like this community, feel that they haven't been reached out too enough and that an extension of time is warranted to help them. So I would just suggest that unless there is a showing by Iona of urgency, time is of the essence, I would ask the Iona proponents, the please come to the microphone now and request of this council to delay this so that there can be significant discussion between the community and the proponents. There's no point in leaving many, many residents lately. I live near Pelham Road. I understand where you're coming from. Leaving them with a bad taste about this. If this proposal is, as Iona says, not harmful and maybe beneficial, they should not object to my suggestion to come to the right now and solve the dilemma for these people and maybe with the good offices of yourself or so arrange for some meaningful discussions. I don't know if such is a protocol that's allowed but I think this is warranted. Seeing that that's our last speaker this meeting is adjourned. Please get home safely. 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