Town Board - Regular Meeting

March 3rd, 2026. I will call our meeting to order. Please rise if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Uh board member Thomas Catalado is um ill this evening. He is not well, so he will not be attending the meeting. Uh the first thing we have is a public hearing. I will make a motion to open reopen the public hearing on the um local law 117D 1D10 uh to prohibit recreational oversized recreational vehicle parking on public streets in residential districts and in certain public parking lots without a permit. Um do we have um a second? Second. All in favor?

I. The public hearing is open. The correct law is attached to the agenda which defines oversized vehicles as those that are class A or class C and also that are fifth wheels. Um fifth wheels, right? And if they are uh 10,000 lbs gross vehicle weight rating

or 20 ft long. So there's a variety of um definitions there and they may those sized vehicles may not park on residential streets without prior authorization from the supervisor. Um but they may park in lot

three, two, and railroad avenue per the rules of those parking lots for no more than three consecutive days. um they can move I guess we sort of said after a certain period of time um after 3 days they would have to move to a different lot you know if they were going to stay around. So I think those are all the changes uh where we landed on this um any other are there any public comments? Does the board have any further comments or thoughts on this?

No. This came about because of uh one individual um we said we couldn't change the law you know for one individual it had to you know be comprehensive and this is how long it takes to do it right. So um well maybe one extra meeting um but this is how long it takes. Um it's very difficult to legislate around you know any one particular thing. It has to be apply to everyone. So it did take a long time. I think we did get it right and should large park on our streets now we have a law. Um okay. So uh do we have a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved. All in favor? I I get a second. Okay. Oh, I thought you second. Okay. And we have a motion to approve the um amendment to local law 1171D10. So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor? I call I think roll call. Oh, just do a quick roll call vote. We can do a quick roll call. Madam clerk, will you call the role? Council member Aorio I. Council member Bicker I. Supervisor Calvis. I. Council member McCain. Hi.

Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Um we now have with us uh our chief of our police department, Melvin Padilla, who's here to give us his annual report carding the activities of the department. Thank you so much for being here and preparing a report for us. Good evening. Good evening.

Thank you for an opportunity to share with you and the community the uh solid work the Bford Police Department officers have have been performing. Um put together a little slideshow to give more of a a visual of of some of those numbers. uh for the benefit of those who are seeing for the first time uh this type of presentation uh the basic information for uh what we cover is the the town is approximately 40 square miles uh three hamlets Bedford Hills Bedford Village and Katona roughly 17,000 residents and 145 miles of roadway all of which the Bedford Police Department provides uh police services we're comprised of 53 employees 40 of the 53 employees are sworn foreign officers. Uh we currently have three vacancies, six female officers and 31 male officers. Executive staff is made up of the chief of police, which is myself, three lieutenants. You can see the demographic breakdown there in the parenthesis. We have supervisors, our seven patrol sergeants. We currently have two vacancies. And hopefully we'll be able to recommend to the board for uh to fill one of those uh in the coming weeks. Uh that happened because of a of a retirement from from one of our current sergeants. Uh investigations, we have four detectives uh one detective sergeant. Patrol, we have 23 patrol officers. Once again, the demographics are broken down in parenthesis next to that. Current sworn staff 30 of 35. Six are United States military veterans representing all branches of the service except the US Air Force. 11 civilian staff members provide dispatch, administrative assistance, as well as parking enforcement, dog

control, and school crossing guard duties. 2025 overview saw a bit of a dip in total calls for service. Uh we wouldn't be able to identify any particular reason for that. It does fluctuate from year to year. Um, but we did see about 26,180 calls for service during calendar year 2025 in comparison to 28,738 in the year prior. Little graph here for crime data. It's kind of written low at the bottom there, but the 59, the large green uh bar that you see there represents lararsenes. I'm going to go one more slide because it's a little easier to give a an annual comparison for context. Um, generally speaking, lararsenes, which is theft of property, is the most frequent um criminal activity that we experience. As you can see here, year-over-year, 23, 24, and 25 remains pretty consistent with 55, 58, and 59 incidents, respectively speaking. The other colors represent assault in blue, burglaries in orange, criminal contempt, which is violating a court order. Uh, that's in gray, yellow is criminal mischief, light blue is DWI, as previously mentioned. green represents lararseny which is theft of property. Uh the dark blue, the navy blue is motor vehicle theft. Burgundy kind of rust color is sex offenses and a dark gray represents all other offenses. If you kind of look visually across the three years, there is some consistency

um when it comes to DWI, criminal mischief and lararsenes, which are the light blue, yellow, and green. An example, just to go back, an example of what a lararseny would be would be theft from coals. if somebody were to take a shirt of some type or something of that nature. Just to give an example and context, uh this slide is just showing uh kind of our comparison to some of the neighboring jurisdictions that shared their information, which was town of Carmel and town of Yorktown. So Bedford's off to the far left, my far left there. Caramel's in the middle and Yorktown is to the far right. the different colors. It's kind of written a little small there, but the biggest bar on each is assault. Um, you can see generally speaking when dealing with assault, burglary, criminal contempt, criminal mischief, lararseny, and motor vehicle theft, uh, the town of Bedford is experiencing, uh, less criminal activity than some of the neighboring jurisdictions. The reason for that is not only from proactive policing obviously, but it is from proactive relationships with our uh with our town residents. It's from a a great deal of support from our elected officials. Thank you for that by allowing us to have the resources and um equipment and training that is necessary to maintain that low level of criminal activity. So, thank you to the community for the partnership. Thank you to all of you for the support that you've given our department over the years. Arrest data since 2023, 2024, 2025.

Um this the demographic breakdown of how many arrests for white, Hispanic, uh black or other. The dark blue is white, yellow is Hispanic, red is black, and the dark gray on the far right is other. This piraphph is kind of depicting the comparison between residents and non-residents and arrests. Um, it's an interesting visual to see, but in 2025, there was a decrease in resident criminal activity and an increase in non-resident criminal activity. And um, throughout the year, we send kind of nixl messages out and different things like that to the community on how we might reduce our chances of becoming a victim of some of the crimes of opportunity. And um one of those things that we can really impact uh by bringing when I was speaking of larseny and theft of property is just locking our belongings up and trying to leave them out of plain sight in your vehicles or other types of areas. So if we kind of cover our our valuables, lock our belongings, I think we could have a significant impact on reducing overall criminal opportunity and I think that could have a really beneficial impact to the town in general. Use of force instances instances and 2025 we had nine total incidents of use of force. Just for context, use of force is anytime an officer has to put their hands on anybody for any reason. Um, that happened nine times in 2025. Seven

of those uses, seven of those use of force were physical use of restraining. So, even just putting your hands on to restrain someone um would be considered a use of force. That's seven of the nine. Two of the nine were displaying a firearm while searching a premise uh during a possible burglary in progress. So displaying your firearm is also considered a use of force and that is depicted here with two of the nine incidents. No injuries resulted in any of those. In comparison, in 2024, calendar year 2024, there were 11 total instant uh incidents, seven uses of restraining force, and four displays of a firearm during that calendar year. Traffic enforcement. This graph is showing the difference between warnings given and summons issued. The dark blue are warnings given. Uh the yellow is summon issued in 20 calendar year 2025. 1310 warnings were given. 1157 summones were issued. County year 2025 breakdown for demographics. Same categories as before. white, Hispanic, black, Asian, uh, East Indian, Native American, and other. From left to right, you can see the difference in comparisons between warnings given and total summones issued. In previous years, since we've since I've been providing this kind of visual, uh, you notice the Hispanic category, it appears the total summons issued in comparison to the warnings given is higher. And the

reason for that is because many of those are so each of the 455 are not separate incidents. It's 455 summones. And in these particular situations, they are non-discretionary, meaning unlicensed, unregistered, uh, uninspected, and many times they're in commercial or in a commercial capacity or an actual commercial vehicle. those are non-discretionary and need to be summoned. Uh and many times that involves um land maintenance type equipment or um that type of profession and Hispanic demographic is more represented in our area in that profession. That is the explanation for why that discrepancy exists. uh even though it's consistent with previous years, we still do look specifically at what those infractions were to ensure that they were in fact infractions that were not discretionary. And in this case again, they were. Here's a comparison from each year 2023, 2024, 2025. This graph is just breaking down the difference between warnings given and summons issued uh between male and female. Male is the dark blue. Correction warnings given is dark blue. Yellow is summons issued and in 2025 basically males roughly are 5050 for warnings given and summons issued. Females received more warnings than summons issued.

Motor vehicle accidents yearbyear broken down. We had a slight reduction in overall total accidents which is the dark blue, slight reduction in injuries which is the yellow and uh a reduction in fatalities from one to zero in comparison to calendar year 2024. Parking enforcement fairly significant increase in overall enforcement in comparison to calendar year 2024 which was 3150 rose to 44.87. Kind of a visual breakdown of the different trainings the officers participated in throughout the year. Uh I won't necessarily read every single one, but we'll take a second to leave the slide up to take a look at some of the different categories. There's three different slides. This isn't the uh the only slide. If you notice, uh in domestic violence, there's a couple lines there. The difference, the top line would be inerson domestic violence and autism training for an actual in-person class. CME are remote online offerings. Um most of those are incorporated into uh EMT reertification for domestic violence u observation and different signs that may indicate something is going on as well as human trafficking. Um and then there's a duplicate here. The domestic violence updates for hope store is also listed a few a few lines down. One supervisor a month uh attends those meetings uh not only with uh representatives from Hope Store but other neighboring jurisdictions to go over best practices, any trends and

different things like that so that that information can be brought back to the department and implemented should anything uh be actionable or need to be changed. We'll get a monthly update on that. More trainings continued. Use of force, defensive tactics. Wish county domestic violence high-risisk team. Firearms weapon maintenance investigations. and the like. Some of the different highlights throughout throughout the year. In February, actually I I zeroed it down to February of last year, we unveiled a new department web page to be more user friendly, more visual, to give a better experience overall, easier to find different types of information. Uh you can find it at bedford policeneny.org or you can it's linked through the town main website as well. Um but check it out. Uh we put we try to keep it very updated with information of upcoming events. As you can see there, it's referencing a defensive driving class. Um there's different CPR. Different types of classes will be will be highlighted on the on the first page. Um, there's pictures of command staff, including myself, so that we can be easily recognized when you come into headquarters. Um, some brief bio information and that type of thing. So, give it a look. Um, some pictures of some of the community events that we participated in throughout the year. the senior citizens Valentine's Day breakfast

as I mentioned uh CPR and AED classes he host at headquarters right across the street 307 Bedford Road check the website for upcoming dates Dr. pursue reading at Bever Hills Elementary School. This was in March, ironically enough. Just yesterday was the 2026 version. Um, which is always a fun fun day. March senior citizens St. Patrick's Day lunch at the community house. We also provide uh scam and fraud prevention classes and awareness for the community. There's a lot of different uh emerging tactics and events. I went a little ahead of myself there. Um but keep an eye out for scam and fraud classes so that you're aware of the new um kind of techniques that criminals are using to try and swindle us. Um here our SRO school resource officer Klein gets pied at the Foxlane High School Pi Day fundraiser. Um can't see him there, but he's he's he's covered in he's covered in icing. He's he's the bigger guy. Blue Path Maverick completes his training. Um we participated in training a service dog for a local autistic youth. Uh the department had three officers that volunteered to as called puppy razors for the first portion of that training. Once the maverick uh graduated from that portion, they get sent to a much more structured professional setting to make sure that they're suitable to be a a service dog. and Blue P or Maverick did in fact graduate that training and was

officially assigned to a local youth. So, it was kind of a proud moment to see, you know, the whole evolution from the beginning all the way through to the end um and participate in helping, you know, local youth be able to navigate this complex world we live in a little a little easier. So, we're super proud of Maverick and we look forward to potentially participating in this type of program again in the future. uh it did create some interest with other town employees that uh also wanted to participate. So it might grow a little bit with regard to who's participating in actually uh raising the puppet 230 Earth festival in May St. Pat St. Patrick's Carnival, which is always a fun event. The first, not the first, but the first kind of longer series of Chief's Corner, which you can find on our website. I'll play like the first 15 or so seconds for those watching to get a little taste of what that is. If you want to see the full one, you can access it through the website.

Hi, thanks for joining me on another episode of Chief Swan. On this episode, I'll be talking about our annual Memorial and police officer awards ceremon. All this took place last Tuesday, May 13th, here at Beford Police. Thanks to all the community members and town residents that came out to show support for our officers. For them to see the level of support we have in our community goes a really long way and certainly serves to be a morale boost. So, thanks for coming out and joining us. We start the ceremony by paying respects to our brother officer, Sergeant Thomas.

Tune in to see the rest. access the web Bford police website uh and you can see the full episode and new episodes will continue to be posted. It um it is a little more labor intensive than anticipated. Um so there I'm not able to post as often as I would have preferred, but there will be new episodes um posted as frequently as possible. Hopefully at least by annual if not quarterly. Um, but that's a project still in the works. In June, we had the Kona Fire Department carnival. This was a uh kind of an intern day at the at the police headquarters to try and learn a little more about law enforcement and police operations. And um it's interesting to interact with the youth that's kind of considering a career in law enforcement and some of the questions that you get. And um it's kind of a it's something I look forward to uh every year. We also have a uh program for high school students, a little more immersive than the the last slide we're showing. That's a one day. Uh this is depicting a program that kind of immerses them into all different types of a day in the life of a Bedford police officer. Um so these students or candidates um have a have a deeper interest in the profession and are trying to kind of look under the hood and really see what um what the profession provides. So that's a rewarding experience for the department. um you know all of the officers and then obviously the students themselves. So we'll continue to provide that opportunity

um as we move forward. Coffee with a cop, we uh we hold coffee with a cop events all throughout the year. This particular one was at the Bedford Hills train station in July. It's an opportunity for our officers to interact with community members uh outside of regular duty to make themselves available to answer questions and just talk sports or whatever it is that uh might be top of mind that particular day. In July and August, we had ice pops with cops um at the Bedford camps. We're trying different different approaches whether it's coffee or ice pops or ice cream or different types of thing to interact with all different ages and uh everybody everyone within the town to try and give a uh an opportunity to just interact and get to know our officers more on a personal basis and more of a social basis than always running into them um while performing their duties which sometimes can be less than social national night out is a uh is an event that we look forward to um once again to try and create kind of a a light-hearted fun music, food, you know, different types of events. You see there there's a bounce house, a very large police vehicle there is a is a bounce house and u face painting, that type of thing. It's a really fun event to interact with the community free. Um, so keep an eye out for summer 2026. We try and grow the event every year. This year was in Bedford Hills at the Bedford Hills Elementary School. Prior it was at the Town Park here in Bedford Hills. So, we're trying to move it a little bit um

around town so that different areas it's more walkable and um to try and attract the different hamlets to come interact with us. So, each year it does grow. Um hopefully next year or this year, this summer coming um we have even more participants. In August, we hosted a blood drive We provide training. It's called CRA training. Civilian response to active shooter events. Uh we've provided that to any institution or or or group that requests it um within town to provide training on what to do in that type of event. Um it's it's pretty popular. Um and we have provided it. We provided it in April, September of last year. this year. We will continue to offer it um based on availability, but if any interest, please access the website and email us to express interest so that we may be able to schedule uh one of those classes. Clean ride and drive event. Um this was to highlight some of the electric police vehicles. You can see the bounce houses there again. Um,

it's a great day.

That was a that was a good day to highlight some of the kind of green initiatives and uh environmental initiatives to reduce our overall carbon footprint as a police agency. Uh we've we've incorporated uh quite a few electric vehicles now into patrol uh with the support of the of our elected officials in investing in a proper charging infrastructure so that we can properly charge and keep these vehicles out providing service to the community. Um that's the only way it was going to work. So, we're in the kind of, for lack of a better way to describe it, sports term, we're kind of in the eighth inning, ninth inning with finishing um the charging infrastructure at headquarters. Uh we do have charging currently. We do have charging capability, but it will be able to increase so that vehicles will be able to charge simultaneously rather than taking turns, which would be far more efficient with uh overall police operation. In October, we received a traffic safety award from AAA uh which was nice. That award is for all traffic initiatives, not just enforcement. That is road improvements, signage, speed humps, anything related to overall traffic safety. So although the police department was receiving the the award, uh it is more reflective of the efforts of the town as a whole. So, congratulations to all of us for participating in keeping our roads safe. We participated in the trunk or treat. Um, I'm not sure if that's an officer in Pokemon or if that's just that's a resident taking a picture there. I'm going to have to get to the bottom of who's Pokemon. But,

um, it's a it's a cute day to interact once again with the community. Pizza with police. I mentioned we're trying different things with the coffee or ice pops or or ice cream this year. We tried pizza um at the community house and it was an interesting twist and uh lots of community members uh came out so it was a nice little event. So we'll continue that. Please check the website for upcoming events for that. I believe one's coming this month on the 20th at the community house. Uh please check the website for times. It's a free event. Um it's a fun event and we hope to see you all out there. In December we had the Bever Hills holiday market and tree lighting. Senior holiday lunchon

throughout the year. These are the different types of uh advertisements kind of we put out for DWI enforcement for prevention just to let people know how dangerous it is to drive while influenced by alcohol. Uh we have different grant funding also available to us for enforcement waves um to try and continue to keep our roads safe. We have a monthly child seat event where specially trained officers and there is a there is a specific and special training for uh child seat installation. Um we have a few officers that are certified to do so and we provide monthly child seat events to uh doesn't actually it doesn't have to be residents. It can be any any any parent or any guardian or anyone that has interaction with transporting children to properly install car seats so that they have a safe ride. Once again, it's on the website. In the news, uh Bedford was for the second year in a row named the safest town in New York from Safe Wise. uh we were proud to kind of receive that recognition and once again it's a product of the relationship uh with our community and the support we received from our elected officials. So hopefully we can keep up that trend. Um but we were proud to receive that recognition. We were just speaking about some of the electric vehicles. Uh Senator Harkham, we we were able to use some grant funding. uh there's the senator's office to purchase a fully electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck. Um you can see

this truck at a lot of our events, including the the electric event that we we spoke of earlier. Um, but it has a lot of different capabilities to give us um power and kind of function that we wouldn't otherwise have for command post and that different type of thing for special events or large scale events. Um, right now it's assigned to our supervisors and you can kind of see it behind supervisor, the senator and myself there. Uh late last year we had a fire at one of the kennels out in Bedford Village and this um there was there was it was occupied by a lot of a lot of pets that needed to be saved. So officers from the department and the fire department were able to rescue approximately 20 dogs uh and prevent them from burning. Um, couple bites occurred, but uh, overall uh, we were happy to be able to save those tests and that is about it. The board has any questions?

Fantastic. Thank you so much. I like there was a lot of um, interesting ways to present information. So, thank you. That was easy to easy to digest. Um, and great. So many good pictures. Uh but I think your Instagram account um is also growing, right? Oh, yeah. Good. Yes. Yes. Good. Are there any questions um or comments from the board? Um I guess I just was curious um are the char do you have charging stations actually being installed now? Is that a planned thing or a wish or So that was the ninth the ninth inning analogy. They are uh installed. There's there's there's going to be a total of five level twos. Yeah. and one level three.

Oh, great. Um the three of the five level twos are installed, two are still remaining and the level three is still remaining all on site. Um all the kind of infrastructure and conduit and all that has been run. when we're waiting on nice egg because it it it requires a completely separate 600 amp service to give the proper amount of electricity or juice for lack of a better term um to charge simultaneously. So the weather hasn't helped and nice delays, yeah,

they're completely out of our control. So I hope to be fully functional within I'd say 60 days or so or less. I hope it's way less, but I'll say 60 just to be realistic. Uh, and then we should be fully operational with five level twos with the ability to charge simultaneously and then the level three. Yeah, that's great. And I just I just want to add um it's great when you have that bounce um house out there and it's actually being powered by an electric Bedford police vehicle. That's really great. Yes. You know, demonstration of the power of of electric. So, and thank you for the presentation. Of course.

I just had a question because you were talking about the crimes of opportunity and the larsenies. Do you think that when you send out those nickles and I know this is subjective. It's hard to say, but you know, sometimes I'll see when I'm driving down, you know, Route 22 or wherever you put up those signs saying, you know, lock your vehicles. Do you think people are receptive to that? Do you think it's helping? What What kind of a feeling do you get? I think it it's helping but not necessarily to a large scale but sometimes it it just snaps awareness thought and then you think oh yeah you know my my grandmother or my mother just mentioned they got an email from you know easy pass um which is which is very common nowadays. So if if we all kind of look think back to that it's 900 p.m. do you know where your children are? I don't know if it's a large scale uh impact, but I do think it impacts on a smaller scale. And if we can prevent one, two, 10,

then uh then then then it's worth the effort. So yeah, no way to kind of measure it, but I understand why you're asking. Thank you. You're welcome.

Yeah, thank you for your presentation. It was really informative and as supervisor said, um very easy to digest. And you know, I noted a couple of things, but one in particular is that I really appreciated your explanation um around the Hispanics being getting warnings versus summones. You know, I think just taking the time to explain that discrepancy in a way that um demonstrates how you are approaching your work um with all of our community members. I really appreciate that. So, thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Well, context is important with that particular because visually it it appears something's arai.

Yes. Um but we certainly look deeper into it to make sure that that's not the case. And we appreciate that.

Yeah, we do. And it's um it's one of the reasons to look at the data annually, right? Just to look at what makes sense and what is requires a little further looking. So, thank you for doing that. Um, and really, you know, I do think that, um, the community engagement has been phenomenal and the efforts to reach out to people with messages, as you've said, to get their cooperation and have them feel like, you know, you'll be responsive if they report something or um, you know, they feel comfortable doing that is just tremendously important. And, uh, and I think it's working. you know, I think that's um part of why, you know, we have such a safe and um wonderful town. So, thank you for everything that you do, all of the officers, and um I think I have I wrote a lot of notes down, but um yeah, we look forward to the next Chief's Corner. ah planned uh some of the planned material for that episode will be kind of a tour of police headquarters and uh some of the police equipment.

Oh, nice. Uh we do hold throughout the throughout the year um kind of open house type things. But for those who aren't able to participate when that happens, uh I figured kind of making it available in a chief's corner um so that it's more widespread and available may be something people might be interested in. So keep an eye out for that in part um for one of the next Chief's Corner episodes. Great. Um one thing you did mention which may may still be on a on a launch phase is the blue envelope program. I think um yes that's

building we did we did uh start to participate in the blue envelope program which is uh it's in a literal blue envelope and it will give the ability to communicate better with uh those in the neurode divergent community to be able to communicate u to an officer some of their different important documents for instance in in a traffic stop for their license and registration and that type of thing. It'll also give awareness to the officer of the condition that the motorist is experiencing so that there isn't any questions or suspicion that something else is going on other than uh other than that. So, you can find information on the website. You can also register and receive the blue envelopes through uh through the paper police website.

Great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Um great presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Um, we now have our conservation board member, Philippine Hugland. Um, welcome back here to share with us information about this year's mayor's monarch pledge and um, some of the supporting activities um, and how we can support the conservation board in doing that. So, thank you for coming. Hello. Um yes it's going to be very short u update because uh I don't know remember I was here are supposed to be 45 minutes okay so I'll make it very long

but I was here in November

I don't know if you remember and um we are doing the mayor's uh monarch pledge since 2023 and the idea is that you repledge every year and we are already in the leader circle which means that the number of commitments that we need to do are getting less. And um so this might be our last year of uh a program of um assignments that we're going to do. Um the conservation board for this year has bought a number of milkweeds uh three species and there are planning to hand them out for free uh on Earth Day and uh we hope that the town board can um make this uh public. So everyone is invited to get some of these plants and those milkw wheats are essential to support um our monarchs. That's the idea behind it. Uh further we know that um the loss of our monarchs is part of a much more bigger problem and that um is about the loss of pollinators in general. And so there are a couple of things that we hope that the residents will take care of and that uh is especially connected to our uh landscaping and uh we have terrific organizations here in our town and um a number of garden clubs as well and they're all doing programs and lectures and presentations on this topic. So, uh, it would be my question to you if you could sort of make things like that public in our town. Um, that's it really.

Great. So, I know last year there were, I don't know, 20 or 25 activities that we were supposed to do to become, you know, go into the leadersship circle. Do we have to redo those things every year? No, we've completed those. So, we're in very good shape. I would say when we we're in the Olympics, we have silver now and we just need to get but we will be doing some of those things again. I I think yes. Well, these are many of them are sort of continue continuing programs so they just keep keep working and people can connect with those anytime they want. Okay. So those included things like um

free free home visits uh to give suggestions about how somebody can arrange their garden to be more welcoming to pollinators. Um there are um let me think the Westchester land trust has a presentation that they carry around which is specifically uh about pollinators. Um so you just look up their agenda to see where they have that presentation and you can visit it. Um there are uh plant sales going on in the area and we have uh we we have Westchester Pollinator Group that gives informations about all these things that are going around in Westchester and Bedford is really one of the many towns that are committed to these things. So, we have I think about 20 uh mayors that are now uh have been pledging for this uh call.

Great. We as a town board act as a mayor. So, Exactly. That's the idea. Great. Well, would love to highlight all of the things that you know are new and that continue um to help share the information about native plants and and you know what pollinators need to thrive. Um, so great. Okay. Well, thank you very much for your help. Okay. Thanks a lot for your support. It's a great project. Okay. Under new business, we have a request by Comproller Connealy to approve an abstract CLA claims the abstract claims and paid priors in the amount of 1,455,38711. Um, I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. All in favor? I um second we have a request by tax receiver Melanie Krebs to grant an extension for up to five business days for payment of taxes by seniors um who receive a senior exemption star exemption. Um hi hello receiver Krebs. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Good evening. Um yes, uh this is a program we've been doing for more than 20 years in the town. Uh it's a resolution that uh we've been approving each year for 20 years that allows seniors with certain exemptions as you mentioned the enhanced senior star and the senior low income an extra five business days to pay their taxes next month. Um some of these seniors are very relying on social security and they have to wait for their checks to come. So it's important to give them a little more flexibility. Um it's popular. It's a great way to support our senior community. So um I'm asking the board to approve it again. Okay. Okay. So, it's not for all seniors. It's

No, it's only for the ones that have those two specific exemptions. That's what we're allowed to um pass it for. We have the authority for that under New York real property tax law. So, it's those two specific exemptions. Okay. And you find people use it? Yes. Yes. They're consistently each each collection. We have some seniors and we have to do it every year. We can't say this is we actually have to do every collection. So, you'll see me here again in August. Okay. Um, I'll do We have a motion to approve. Some moved. Second. Thank you. Any questions? All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. And the next item on there is the

the request by tax receiver Melanie Krebs to acknowledge um the report of delinquent water accounts for the village/town of Mount Kiscoco as of March 2nd, 2026 and acknowledge unpaid accounts are to be relevied with the penalty when the tax bills are created as a part chapter 12 of the town code. Do we have a motion to approve? So moved. J. Perfect. Thank you all. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor?

I. Motion carries. Thank you, Melanie. Um, we have a request to approve the appointment of Vanessa Perez, an office assistant in the town court effective March 12th with a delayed start of March 30th. Um, Miss Carz current Perez currently works um in a court and um has been working over six years with municipalities and she's bilingual and I think we've been looking to fill this office assistant position for a very long time. So, we are very happy to have um her starting soon. Um so, I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Any questions? No. All in favor?

I I motion carries. Um, we have a request to set a public hearing for March 17th uh at 6:10 p.m. to consider an amendment to chapter 110-4 and 110-5 of the town code requiring a real property tax exemption to regarding a real property tax exemption to senior citizens 65 or older whose income falls below um the stated thresholds. Um, this exemption was implemented um by the town under it was implemented. What am I reading? Uh, it's enabled I think under section 467 of the New York Real Property Tax Law and we have in there already uh like a sliding scale.

Yes. Up to 50%. Um, so this would increase that. Um, yeah. In just in two ways. Sorry, just Oh, okay. So we have Jud Sbert here from Keen Bean.

Can you hear me? There we are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In in in a couple of ways with regard to the sliding scale. One is that um the enabling statute as the supervisor said is section 467 of the real property tax law. It basically gives you a menu of choices. That menu was expanded at the beginning of this year to do two things. one to increase the level of exemption. Um, currently it's capped at 50%, it can go to 50. It can it's currently capped at 50%, it can go to 65. And to bring down the um the the overall income qualification level from below 50 to below 47. So, it's really an expansion. It also you currently have 10 classifications. you have a sliding scale of from 50% all the way down to five. This just compresses that from 65 to 50. That's really the big substantive change. Um the local law also has some technical changes that are not really a um a product of the recent change in the law. It's just in consultation with um uh uh the town assessor. uh we felt that it was best to just better identify what would be utilized for computational purposes. Um it's federal it's federal adjusted gross income. Um I will note there is one um option that the town board would have um that is not included in the local law and that is that the uh New York state allows the town board if it so chooses to um ex to actually uh include include in the overall income distributions from IAS. We have not in we have we we are not

including that as part of income. It's just a decision for the town board and certainly I'd invite you to talk to the assessor as to the merits of doing that or not doing that in terms of who who would qualify or who would not if there are required distributions do they not are they not reflected in as income in a tax return? They are they are included they are not included in adjusted gross income. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. At a certain point there's required that you still pay tax.

Yeah. That you have to pay taxes on. Right. But they don't get counted as income. Currently we we do not that would not be counted as income. The question is if you want to render those as additional income, the idea is you know are there people who would other not who who could qualify even though they are receiving very healthy IRA distributions that would otherwise take them outside of an exemption class. Right? But we have never we have never adhered to that in terms of our computation. I'm just offering it. I I I I don't see any reason to change

the you know our current code structure in that regard. again that the uh the modifications that we're making in the definitions are just to make it clear.

Um particularly if someone picks up the code and reads it, it's just a a better elaboration for someone who is looking at that, you know, at at applying for an exemption or their representative or accountant or consultant, whomever to get an idea of, you know, what they need to present for purposes of eligibility. Okay. Um, are there any questions at this time? I know we're just setting a public hearing, but before you know to know what if we want to make any changes to this language, we would want to do that so we can post the final law and notice public hearing. Um, so Just checking. Okay. So, um any questions or

so? Yeah. Hearing now. So, we will need a motion to um set the public hearing for March 17th at 610. Um so moved. Second. Uh any other questions, comments, changes to this version of the law? Okay. All in favor? I Okay. Can I jump in real quick? Yes, please.

Just a side note. So there were some other exemptions that were onboarded by the legislature uh at the end of uh the 2025 legislative session and actually they just came back and and tweaked some of those but I just want to bring them to the board's attention. Um the first is with regard to veterans exemptions. There is now going to be a 100% exemption for fully disabled veterans. Um the what the state has done in that regard is they've taken it out of your hands. So that is going to be a mandatory statewide exemption um and will not be available until after the 2026 assessment cycle has concluded meaning it will be effective in 2027.

Okay. Um the other is an exemption for active uh active members of the military who are serving in a combat zone. That is a um local option. Um uh like the standard uh alternative veterans exemption. Again, the state has put that on the books, but it's not going to be effective until after 2026. And finally, an exemption for the surviving spouse of a police officer killed in the line of duty, which also because of the way that the the the stat the statute provides this exemption, but says that the eligibility standards are going to be set by the state, that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm again in consultation with Mr. Girdlestone. We're we're recommending that we look at that once we get through this assessment cycle. Very quickly, the reason the state puts these on the books at the end of the year and then says we're going to wait a year is that most of the state is on a different assessment calendar. Um, for most jurisdictions outside of Westchester, it was actually yesterday, March, it's March one. March March one is the taxable status date when exemption applications are due. So it's, you know, it's a real crush to to put an exemption uh make it affect, you know, if particularly if it's a local option, get it on the books, get it publicized, get, you know, so we have time to look at that, but just to keep it in mind and we can talk about it, you know, as we emerge from the U 2026 uh finalization of the role.

Great. Okay.

Thank you. And I think our assessor is on the webinar. If um there's anything else we have to ask of Harry before we let him go or if he has anything to add. Hi Harry. Oh, he's on mute. I think um Okay, we can talk more about the potential impact of the um current proposed change to the local law at at the public hearing. Um I think you had asked about um

I was just bringing up the memo on that. Um so yeah when I talked to the assessor um particularly about the new exemption for the seniors he said that there was going to be a negligible effect. So it was going to be negligible on the tax levy and to the residents and there was nothing that we had to be overly concerned about and it only is going to have a positive effect on these residents who we were going to offer it to. It it seems like a net positive. Mhm. But it would be still impactful to those few people who can take advantage of it. Exactly. That's what I mean. Right. Yes. And and not impactful to the whole community. To the whole community.

Exactly. Okay. Hi. Hi. Can you can you guys hear me now or Yes, we can. Thank you for joining.

Good evening. Thanks everyone. And Jud, thanks. You did a great job explaining it. I can't really do much better. Um, the only thing I would concentrate on this year is we didn't want to money the waters, but we wanted to inform the town board that there is adjustments to federally adjusted gross income that the town could exercise. I know a lot of neighboring communities have done so because when this legislation was passed in the in the early mid60s, IAS weren't very prevalent and I think the intent was more, you know, pensions which are included in social security. But as we're seeing a lot more uh IAS and some of them are very significant amounts that uh uh the exemptions granted because we're excluding it. So, our exemp exemptions for this uh low income has doubled in the last few years. Uh you know, the uh STAR program does not include them, and there's a lot of reason to keep it as is. And I would recommend let's keep it as is for this year, just passed the new sliding scale that goes up to 65% as Jud said, but I think going forward in the next few years, we're going to have to really look at that. uh and the town board may have to make a decision on that uh as this uh these taxable IAS become more and more prevalent and very very some of them are very large and they still qualify for the exemption. So that would be my take on it is for what Bobby said when I gave her it would it's a it would be under a dollar. I don't have the paperwork in front of me, but I did a worst case scenario.

It was 40 a typical homeowner, it would be an additional 40 cents, right? And that was kind of like a I what I did is I uh last week I took a worst case scenario. I said if everyone who was close to the $50,000 it qualified for the 65% instead of the 50 which is unlikely. The typical the the overall savings if everyone got the new increase would be a little over $2 for a typical assessment. So it's a it's a about a cup of coffee. So and that's the worst case scenario. It's probably going to be under a dollar as uh as Bobby said. So that's really all I have to add.

You mean you mean the impact on Sorry, Harry. That you mean the impact to all the other taxpayers.

Yes. It would increase the tax rate the worst case scenario about three cents per thousand. A little over 3 cents and that's assuming everybody got it was at 50 and it' be a little over $2 for the typical assessment. The typical assessment equates to about a value of $950,000. So if your if your assessment uh equalized assessment is under that you're going to pay a little less under two a little bit more you're going to pay more than that but that's the typical assessment. So that's the worst case scenario based on this new sliding scale. So it's not it's not really a significant impact at all. And I think for this cycle we just concentrate on the sliding scale as Jud mentioned to 65% going down to 47,000. But just I wanted to make sure the town board is aware that there are adjustments for income that qualifies or makes them eligible ineligible for the exemption. And currently we don't include any of that taxable stuff IAS. So it's probably something better for another date another year where we maybe go after that. But for this year I would recommend doing the uh the new sliding scale the expanded.

Okay. Yeah. I think it would be interesting to see how many, you know, how much that is impacting um eligibility and if you know if it could be subject to like almost fraud like you know kind of moving money around to qualify for this big exemption. Um

well they have to file a tax return and uh so you know but yeah the the the uh that would be something to look at but I think for this current cycle I just wanted to make sure the town board was aware of it because um uh I know a lot of neighboring towns have adopting it. The downside is that some people who are getting the exemption it's doubled we've we twice as many people get it now. a lot of these people now going forward may not get it and that could cause some people complaints there. So you can look at it both ways. So I think for this year, you know, it's something we just want to look at just so you're aware of it and I think this year maybe we just concentrate on that uh the sliding scale going up to 65%.

Um so how many do you know how many properties um benefit from what we currently have offer this exemption that we currently offer up to 50%. Currently we get for the for the last year's role it was 82 individuals qualified. It varies each year for income and for people who move or or who pass away

but each year it's based on income and it varies. So a few years ago we only had about 45. So it's it's a more almost double because of the IAS because more and more people are retiring with that IRA distribution and some of them are quite significant. So, um, because it's a little late in the cycle, I just wanted to let you know once once we adjusted our language to the federally adjusted gross income per the state, it's an option that the town board has, and we should probably take a look at that going forward because it it would knock down the exemption, but some people who are currently get it would not be eligible for it. So, it also has repercussions both ways,

right? But fair warning, right? Yeah. So, I think for this year, you know, just so we're aware of it, we could we could vote on the the the new law, the legislation, the way it is, just the 65, but just put that aside for this year and and then this way we can maybe attack that a little bit more and get under the hood on that more, see what the implications will be because if we did adopt it, certain people would lose the exemption and that, as I said, that has consequences all of its own. But as far as for the sliding scale, the tax impact is is insignificant as Bobby said.

Okay. Any other questions from the board? Okay. Thank you. We will public hearing. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, we now have a request to set a public hearing uh for March 17th at 6 p.m. to consider amendment to the town code section 12 uh 5A uh to eliminate the requirement that there be one member of the board of ethics who is a town official or town employee. Um, so do we have a motion to set the public hearing and then I'll explain. Second. Uh, I'll make the motion. You second motion.

Sounds good. So, um the ethics law um has been on the books for a long time and it says that it should consist of five members appointed by the town board. One and only one shall be a town official or employee. And then it goes on to say some other qualifications for the members. We have had five members on the town on the committee who are none of whom have been town officials or employees um for a very long time. We've had uh town we've had the town clerk serve as um like the secretary to the ethics board, but we've never had a participating member. We've had five um members that weren't. So, um, as we were reappointing members as terms had expired and gearing up for the year, um, filling the ethics board, um, it was brought to our attention that, you know, we weren't following exactly the law. Um, so this is not necessarily a requirement that other, you know, a lot of other ethics um, laws have that it be an employee. And in fact, if another employee were asking for an opinion from the ethics board or or an elected official or a town board member was asking for an advisory opinion from ethics board, it actually may create a conflict. Um having

that's yeah the the language is in there because the enabling statute states that that has to be the case. Although the town board has the opportunity to supersede or override the general municipal law and I think most board of ethics do not have a town official or employee for exactly that reason that it could potentially I won't say taint but it just it it creates you know issues you know if you have an official or employee certainly you know someone that they interact with it it's just best to have five non

affiliated nonaffilated. Yeah. Okay. So, um any other questions? All right. All in favor? I I Okay. Uh we have a request um from the town clerk for approval to execute order an order form for the implementation of online vital records platform and madame clerk is here to tell us more about that. Hi Ally.

Thank you. Um so briefly I will just request approval to execute a contract with Permodium for its vital director online records platform. Um a couple of neighboring towns use this and really like it. Um essentially when we get a vital records request from a resident or a past resident, they're looking for a certified copy of an official life event record such as birth, death, or marriage certificate. Often people need these for passports, social security purposes, school enrollment, estate matters, or legal purposes. That's certainly not an exhaustive list. They come in for other reasons. These requests currently come in by mail, by phone, email, or by walk-in. And identify verification is handled usually through those same um routes. payment is then either done via a mailedin check or in person or over the phone. So, it's not very secure. It can also be paperheavy, time consuming, and not very secure. Um, it's also not, in my opinion, the most customer service friendly option that we can offer people. And so Vital Director will allow applicants to securely submit their requests through an online portal, upload identity verification through an encrypted verification tool, and then remit payment through a protected system. This would reduce manual data entry. Um, it would also improve workflow tracking, enhance verification, and strengthen our data security in the process. It will also, as I mentioned, improve customer service. It will allow residents to apply conveniently online. They can also apply whenever is is good for them at night in the morning. If um they're in a different time zone, which happens often a lot of times people move out of the area or they're looking for a record for a relative

and it's not always convenient for them to contact us during office hours. Um and there's importantly no cost to the town for the implementation or subscription to the service. the fee would be paid um by the applicant when they're processing their request and paying for the fee um which would include the copy because they're there's a fee for the copies of those. So it would just all kind of be in one cost and approval of this would modernize our office making these requests more secure, more efficient and more accessible. Um, our town council has reviewed the contract from the vendor and the vendor did also agree to execute which they already did an indemnification and hold homeless forum um for the town. So that's our

great thank you. Sounds uh very efficient and uh really really good service for people. Um any questions? So just so it sounds like your office wouldn't have to like it would cut any having to do anything to do with this like you'd free up all that time. Is that right? So we'll still get the request and actually make the physical copy of the records but we'll get them through the portal online and we will they the identity verification and payment and all that will happen through the system instead of through paper or mail. Will you still be able to take um requests at the counter?

Absolutely. Yes, we are not cutting out counter service for those. It's more so expanding our offerings. Right. I imagine most people aren't local who are looking for some of those records. Did you say are not? Are not. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Okay. A lot of times they're not anymore. Right. So that cuts on the down on the phone calls or the emails. Yeah. Then in a lot of situations they need it's time sensitive and them mailing an application in or faxing it and then having to either pay via credit card or check it could take a couple days to close the loop on the situation if they submit it online. It it just kind of shortens that time frame for them so we can get it out to them. That's great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um do we have a motion to approve? So moved.

Second. All in favor? I motion carries. Um, we also have requests by the town clerk to submit a New York State Archives local government records management improvement fund grant application. Um, and to uh issue a resolution acknowledging that the board supports the financial commitment um for this project for whatever goes above what the grant covers, which seems to be a small amount, probably will be a small amount. Um, it looks to be about $600, which are it's currently in the town clerk's budget, that amount for records preservation. Okay. Um, but we wanted to be transparent about what the grant may not cover.

Okay. And are these um sort of the same kinds of records that we've been preserving like over time the Yeah, just kind of um you know, I know it's something that the previous clerk started preserving a lot of records and it's something that our office is very committed to. So, we identified certain records that are not preserved and want to, you know, kind of just get the rest of our office preserved. So, this should help us get closer to closing that loop. Great. So, it would be a $75,000 grant. Excellent. Yeah. Okay. Um, do we have a motion to approve? So moved. Second.

Thank you. Um, any questions? All in favor? I. I. Motion carries. Uh we have a request to approve the 2026 agreement uh with Friends of John J. Homestead um to use lot 2 for the farmers market again this summer. Um do we have a motion to approve? So moved. Second.

Uh this is slightly amended from last year to allow them to start earlier and end later. I think May 2nd through November 21st. They want to go right up to Thanksgiving. Um but for the most part um they were are operating um pretty much the same layout and deal that they had last time. We did um we did not really need police coverage, but there is a number in here that should it become so busy that they need a lot of police attention that the town board would agree um to co-sponsor, you know, those services because it would be every single week. um police being there up to I think 10,000 and then anything over that um the market uh friends of John J would have to cover at the overtime rate of $154 an hour. So I don't think that's going to need to be used but it's in there just as um as a just in case they are going to need that. And um they're also going to be offering a rev up 250 table at the market. So different not forprofits will be um encouraged to use that to go and um encourage community participation in a lot of our local not forprofits. Um any questions?

All in favor?

I. Motion carries. And finally um I will move to make a request to appoint a housing policy work group. We discussed this when we had um Blue Mountain here talking about um we've discussed it a few times that they've mentioned it at their forum about affordable housing uh that um perhaps we need to review some of our housing uh requirements and processes and policies to um just to make sure that the type of housing that you know is appropriate in our town and that um whether it's affordable or naturally occurring affordable through ADUs or multif family or even single family. Um that what we have um is working to get what is identified in our comprehensive plan and that would work in our town. So I recommend um that we appoint um members of our current housing committee and Blue Mountain Housing Development Corporation. uh Julie Stern, Tom McGrath, David Con Gorum, and also a member of the zoning board Meredith Black, planning board member Michael Tierney, and town board member Amijorio as the liazison to the town board for this working group to um produce, you know, just review the existing conditions and what kind of housing we have. um what the process is for those that are identified as affordable and um then look at what the issues may be, obstacles may be and then maybe meet with some stakeholders who you know the housing action council or others who have seen this done differently in other places to see if those there are solutions to those obstacles and then deliver a report to us that may identify what we might want to consider whether it's a process change or um like the fee waiver idea or

um or even a code change of our own code or maybe even recommendations to the county or the state. So, you know, maybe just some recommendations for what the town board should consider and then we could take that and decide whether we want to move forward with asking the planning board to weigh in on some of those or um the public or you know what we want to do with that. So, um we have a motion. I made the motion for all of that. So, do we have a second? Second. Any questions, comments? No, it just looks like a great group of people to work on this. Good. I think so, too. Okay. All in favor?

I. Motion carries. And thank you to those people for um offering to be part of that group. Um not an easy task, but I think they will get it done. Uh do we have any comments from the public? We got online. Okay. Okay. Any board member announcements?

Okay. Hopefully we'll stop snowing. That's my announcement. Um, there being no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone.