City Council - Regular Meeting

It's downstairs. Good evening, good evening city of Newburgh City Council meeting is 2 minutes after the hour. May 26 2026. Before we take our moment of silence, I do have one request and that one request is. that the New York Knicks win the championship for the NBA this year. Go New York, go New York, go. We're hoping that the New York Knickerbockers win. It's been 53 years since 1973. I was one years old the last time they won the championship. So my request is that we think about the New York Knicks. They just won the Eastern Conference finals. So we'll take a moment of silence and then we'll commence with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very much. Roll call, please.

council members martinez present council member mclemore will notice absent council member monteverde council member shakur council member stewart present council member zoria here mayor harvey here so carried

Thank you very much. Next we move on to communications and item number 4 on the communications. We need approval for the minutes from the City Council meeting of May the 11th 2026. So move. First motion is said to the councilman should court we have a second. Seconded by Councilman Zoria roll call on the motion, please.

Council members Martinez. Aye. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zoria. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. So carried.

Thank you very much. Next item number five under communications, we have the city manager's update. Mr. Morris.

Thank you, Mayor. The city of Newberg is proud to announce that its North Interceptor Sewer Project has received the 2026 Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York. This award recognizes the outstanding achievement in engineering design and infrastructure improvement. Designed by Arcadis of New York in partnership with the City of Newburgh, the project included the installation of approximately 8,600 linear feet of new interceptor sewer through the city's riverfront and historic districts, utilizing an innovative microtunneling technique that reduced disruptions for residents and expedited the project's completion, removal, and abandonment of the old interceptor sewer. city of newberg thanks ace of new york for this award arcadis of new york inc for its outstanding engineering excellence and all federal state railroad construction and project partners who helped bring this critical clean water infrastructure infrastructure project to completion The city of Newburgh celebrated the opening of the Delano Hitch Aquatic Center for the 2026 summer season on Friday, May 22nd. The Aquatic Center features a youth splash pad and a full-size accessible swimming pool, making it the perfect destination for family fun, recreation, and community gatherings throughout the summer. Regular Delano Hitch Aquatic Center hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and is closed on Mondays. For more information or to purchase a pool pass, visit cityofnewburgh.recdesk.com or contact the City of Newburgh Recreation Department at 845-565-3230. On Monday, May 25th, the city held its annual Memorial Day Parade. The parade began the travel down Broadway at 10 AM with a memorial service held at Washington's headquarters immediately afterwards to honor our deceased veterans. The city of Newburgh is grateful for another successful year due to the hard work of the Memorial Day Parade Committee. On Wednesday, May 14th, the police department held a badge and gun ceremony for officers Alicia McLemore, Mario Flores, and Anthony Galindo, our new officers who are graduating from the police academy. This ceremony held the day before the police academy graduation is when the police department issues the new officers their official badge and gun. Congratulations to our new officers and their families who join them. We look forward to the positive impact you will make as you begin your service. Continuing from the police department, The City of Newburgh Police Department fielded 2,733 calls for service entries in April 2026. The city's crime reduction strategies continue to produce results. Preliminary part one crime data through April 30th shows a 27% decrease compared to the same time frame in 2025. This includes a 26% decrease in violent crime and a 27% decrease in property crime. From our Planning and Development Department, the Land Use Boards received the following applications in April. The Planning Board received no new applications and issued three approvals. The Zoning Board of Appeals received three new applications and issued two approvals. The Architectural Review Commission received three new applications and issued five approvals. Seven informational requests were received in the month of April. The 2026 Summer Movie Contest has officially begun. The top six movies with the highest vote will be selected for showing during the Summer Movie Series hosted at Safe Harbors Green on the following Thursdays, June 18th, June 25th, July 9th, July 16th, July 23rd, and July 30th. Online voting is currently active and ends Monday, June 1st. For more information or to vote, please visit the city website at cityofnewberg-ny.gov or scan the QR code shown on the screen. From our Department of Public Works, the Sanitation Department collected a total of 843 tons of solid waste during the month of April. A total of 77 tons of recycling was processed, supporting the city's sustainability efforts. Additionally, 41 sanitation warnings were issued reflecting ongoing enforcement of waste management regulations and community standards. Now that the asphalt plants have opened in April, the Department of Public Works staff resumed paving city roadways using hot mix asphalt, a material that is stronger and more durable than cold patch, providing longer lasting repairs. Recent repairs include the intersection of Washington Street and Lake Street and Broadway and Grand Street. Over the last four weeks, DPW has applied 20 tons of hot mix asphalt across the city. The Department of Public Works responded to an alarm condition at the Crescent Avenue sewage pump station caused by clogged pumps. While managing the dewatering of the wet well and repair of the pumps, staff coordinated with the water department to install a new valve, tee, and riser, giving the city the ability to bypass the wet well during future pump failures, replacements, or station upgrades. This added capability ensures continuous operation and reduces the risk of disruptions, increasing resiliency within the city's infrastructure. A failed sanitary sewer main at the intersection of South William Street and South Lander Street has been fully replaced. Additionally, the storm sewer in that area was replaced and tied into the existing manhole to allow future access for cleaning and closed circuit television inspections, helping prevent blockages, backups, and roadway deteriorations. The next bulk item pickup of 2026 will take place on Wednesday, June 24th. Residents are required to schedule the bulk pickup item by 3 PM on Friday, June 19th. Once scheduled, residents must put out their bulk items at the curbside no earlier than the night before collection. There is a limit of five items for pickup per address. The collection of bulk items is limited to indoor and outdoor furniture, washers, dryers, and tires. Building materials, car parts, except for tires, and hazardous items will not be collected. Anything beyond the allotted five items will be left in place and must be removed by the resident. In April, emergency medical services responded to 460 calls, resulting in 471 dispatches and 289 patient transports. Average response times fluctuated throughout the week, with Friday recording the longest average response time. The busiest day of the week was Thursday, which saw the highest number of emergency calls. The fire department received a total of 251 calls for service last month. One of those calls, or half a percent, were for structure fires. For all other fires, 15 calls were received. 57 calls were for non-fire hazard calls. 68 calls were for non-fire calls for service. Lastly, 43.8% of the fire department's calls in March were for false alarms and false calls. The city of Newburgh Human Rights Commission is accepting nominations for the 2026 Human Rights Hero Award. The commission is looking for nominees whose actions promote equal justice, dignity, and opportunity for all. Nominations must be submitted through the online portal found in the notice on the city's website or by scanning the QR code on the screen by July 31st. This annual recognition honors individuals who have demonstrated outstanding commitment to advancing and protecting human rights in the city of Newburgh and will be honored and celebrated on Human Rights Day, December 10th, 2026. For the latest news and announcements about the city of Newburgh, sign up for our news flash via notify me. Visit the city's website and click on the Notify Me button towards the center of the homepage. To subscribe, you must type your email and phone number in the profile information section, click the email under our phone icon next to the list you want to subscribe to, and you can also subscribe to receive the latest city news, agendas, and job exam postings. Members of the news media are asked to direct all press inquiries to press at cityofnewberg-ny.gov. That concludes the city manager's update.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morris. Excellent job. Next, we go to presentations, and we have a resolution for a key to the city, and the key to the city is it comes— highly recommend it and it is the top honor that the city government provides for a citizen or a past citizen and so the key to the city is being proposed and will be voted on for Harold Shirley we can we can clap to that let's clap to that um so do we need to okay so do i have a motion for resolution number one one zero dash 2026 to bestow uh upon the key to the city of the city of newburgh in honor of harold shirley so first motion is said by councilman shakur do i have a second second second by councilman mclemore roll call on the motion please

Council Members Martinez? Aye. Macklemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur?

Yes.

Stewart? Yes. Zoria? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Resolution approved.

so i want to um the family's here you got the key now oh is the family here right yeah oh the family's here yeah oh all right oh let's let's let's go so if the council would come before the council can we say something real quick oh yeah we'll say we'll grab we'll come out front and then we'll pass the mic and then we'll do it i just wanted to say thank bishop woody for okay we could do that yeah we'll do

So once again,

The key to the city is the highest civilian award awarded to a civilian resident, past or present. And we are very, very honored to present the key to the city. And I'd be remiss not to thank Bishop Woody, Jeffrey C. Woody, for bringing this to all of our attention. And we are very, very happy to do this. We know that Mr. Shirley is a longtime resident in the city of Newburgh. His family members are still here. And he is responsible for the annual Newburgh reunion in North Carolina. Now, I don't remember what part of North Carolina, what part of North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina. I was going to say Enfield or Durham. That's where my mom was from. Anyway, yes, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we are super, super excited. You want to say something?

Yes. God, I gotta take this mask off. So I'd like to invite the sister and Bishop Woody up, because this, Bishop Woody was the one who planted the idea. Come on up. And he said y'all were giving a speech. And so I've known... Come on, Bishop.

Yes. I ain't trying to be bully, Bishop. I ain't trying to be bully.

So I have known Mr. Shirley for over six decades. In fact, I knew him before he was born. I knew this young lady's sister and the bishop. And they asked me to do this for the community. And so that's why we got it done. And so I will give this to this sister so she can explain why we're here tonight.

They want to take a picture. Get in the picture. Get in the picture. Come in the picture. You can all come in the picture.

Come on, Tim.

First and foremost, I would like to thank God who's the head of my brother's life and our life. Good evening, everyone. Today, we honor God and those who come before us. The people whose prayers, sacrifice, and strength helped shaped our lives and the city we proudly call home. This is truly a special moment for me, and I am deeply humbled and grateful to receive this recognition from my brother, Harold Shirley. I want to sincerely thank the City of Newburgh, the Mayor, Council Members, Bishop Woody, my parents, my wife Paula Brown, Shirley, my family, and everyone who has supported me throughout the years. Your love and encouragement have carried me through every season of life. Newburgh has always been more than a hometown to me. It is family history, pride, and purpose through the original Newburgh reunion. My goal has always been to bring people together, celebrate where we come from, and remind us of the greatness, resilience, and love that live within this community. No matter how far we go in life, there is something special about coming home. Thank you for making this day a part of Newburgh history and for honoring the legacy of the Jones, Diddley, and Shirley family. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. We love you and may God continue to bless our hometown and all the people who made it special. I am Newburgh and I will always be. Due to health issues, I am unable to travel. and attend at this time, but I will be watching with love, pride, and gratitude. I look forward to seeing everyone and sharing time together again in the near future. May God bless you all. Harold Hardy Shirley, the original Newburgh, New York Reunion founder.

Yeah!

Anyone else want to say anything? No, I just...

I just wanted to say thank you to Bishop Woody for bringing this to the council. This means a lot to the family and to Newburgh as well. So thank you once again.

Yes, so this has been six generations. We have known basically six generations.

Yeah.

Council members.

Congratulations. It's always a pleasure to hear about the deep roots here in the city of Newburgh and to see all of the originals and all of the family members and the roots that come from the foundation here. So knowing Miss Shirley, I'm sure your brother is just as beautiful as you are. And I'm glad and happy for him. Congratulations.

Congratulations, I hope we get invited to the next reunion down in North Carolina. It's always great to hear, awesome, it's always great to hear the stories of the people that came before us and that have built the fabric of this community. Honored to, I haven't met Mr. Shirley, but honored to bestow upon him the key of the city and it's great to meet your family and congratulations.

Congratulations to the Shirley family. I mean, what an honor to receive the key to the city. And I hope that maybe one day I can meet him. Congratulations.

So lastly, I want to say again, congratulations to you and your family. And I've known you since I was a kid. So anyway, but I want to go a step further. What I would like to do is I would like to do a certificate of recognition from me and all the council members with all of our signatures and officially declare today, May 26, 2026, Harold Hardy Shirley Day in the city of Newburgh. So let's go a step further with that. And we owe you a certificate of recognition, and we'll be in touch so we can get that to you. Frame, you know, all wrapped up. Okay, yes, we'll make sure we have that prepared. Oh, okay. Let's give it up again for the Shirley family. Congratulations. This is an awesome occasion. Oh, there you go. Take one more picture.

Thank you.

Also, I see Kelly in the audience and I know we voted and we approved the street namings for Mr. Moody and the other one was Ralph Harris. So let's give it up for the street naming of Mr. Moody and Ralph Harris, Reverend Harris. We have to coordinate with the families so that we can, we've already ordered the signs, we'll let you know when they come in, and then we'll set some dates when we can do the street reveals according to the families, you know, liking. So we'll do that, all right? So thank you all, thank you so much. All right. So that's one of the greatest part of our job is to celebrate families and celebrate people who have done wonderful deeds in our community and continue to do noble deeds in our community. all right so next we go to comments from the public regarding agenda and or non-agenda items and those non-agenda items can be general matters of the city so we ask everyone to come respectfully tell us your name You don't have to tell us your address, but please let us know if you live in the city, if you're one of our neighbors that's in the town of Newburgh, or if you're a neighbor in New Windsor or nearby, let us know that, and then give us your comment. We ask everyone to maintain decorum. We know some of the issues that may come up in our city are sensitive and are volatile issues, and we just ask everyone to share with us respectfully so that we can do our very best to respond after the public speaks in public comment we always ask people to stay behind so they can hear from their ward representatives and Council members and myself at large so once again please come forward give us your name tell us if you live in the city or not and you have three minutes to share a public comment thank you

Good evening. My name is James Smith. I live in the city of Newburgh. And I just have one thing to say, is that I appreciate all the restaurants on Liberty Street. It's fine. But there's one problem. I live there and there's no parks. When I come home, I have nowhere to park. So we can do something with this municipal parking on Washington Street. I'm asking that you let the restaurants know to please let them know to park there. Instead of the residents do live there and it's not fair that we come home and cannot park. That's what I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Good evening.

Good evening. I'm Robin Williams, R-O-B-Y-N. I live in the city of Newburgh. I've lived there my entire life. I live on Bayview Terrace. My concern is the conditions of the bluff on Bayview Terrace. I have spoken to a number of people about the conditions on the bluff. About a month or so ago, I did speak to Councilman McLemore about the concerns that I had. He listened. He came. He looked at the area. And then probably within a couple of days, Someone came clearing down the trees and mowing. First time that's been done in years. So since then, the grass has grown and no one's maintaining. And so what I've heard for many, many years is that it depends on where you live, right? If it's owned by the city or owned by the residents. But it's ironic that on the left side where other people live and my councilwoman lives, it is perfectly groomed all the time. On the other side, where I live, is not being kept. It is the city's property. So what I'm asking is, it is considered a historic area. It is the bluff. We can't make changes at our home without it being approved, but yet no one's taken care of the conditions in the city of Newburgh. And so I would like someone to address the concerns where I live. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Cynthia Gilkyson. I live at 11 Grand Street. I'm a co-chair of the Working Families Party, and I'm here to speak on their behalf tonight. I would really like to get the flock out of Newburgh. I know there's a resolution on the table, and I wish you all would vote on it tonight, because we really need to get the flock out of Newburgh.

Hello, my name is Leo Dry and I used to be residents of the city of Newburgh. I grew up here. I went to school here. I'm a businessman here in the city of Newburgh. I work right here at CHI Shelter. I have a great concern about the homelessness that I see plaguing our streets. I see it day after day, night after night. I was wondering what we can do about this problem. I've been lately going to Beacon, doing a little comparison. I tried to count the homelessness in Beacon, and every time I go, I don't count no more than two. And it's something maybe we could do and emulate what's going on in Beacon or in our surrounding towns because it seems to be Newburgh is the dropping grounds for all the homelessness in different counties. I see them coming from New York City, from Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and I know there's something we could do. Tell me if we can and what it could be. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Pastor Rosie Ward 1. Good evening.

Good evening.

The decision is not easy concerning Flock. We're approximately 28,000 people, and with Flock, all 28,000 of us are surveillance 24-7. The general current violent crime rate is about 1% of our population. I want us to do whatever it takes to have safer streets and law enforcement. I'd fight for this with no apology. I'm a law-abiding United States citizen. My license is clean and I have nothing to hide. However, I do not like the idea of being under 24-7 surveillance. I'm requesting the council to take a closer look at the flock, table the matter, and do more research on the alternatives. I took a boy of color to live in my home for one year who was sleeping on the roof of his apartment because his mother was endangering his life. I never thought of what color he was, but rather his safety. I brought a single Mexican mother of six children alongside of me, providing for her with bountiful boxes of groceries, clothes, gasoline, and household appliances for seven years. I didn't think of her ethnicity, but her need. I pioneered the kids initiative that served black, Hispanic, Arab children, Arabic children and their families for 14 years in the city, never showing partiality to the race, political party, or the color of their skin. They were humans to be treated with dignity. Martin Luther King was a Baptist Christian pastor. He was not a politician. He fasted, he prayed, he put his life on the line fighting for the day when one nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. All men and women are created equal and that our children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character and that one day black, white, Hispanic city council members would all be able to sit down and fight for safe streets and cities in our city. where we all could work and play together in peace. Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes verses of scriptures in the Bible in his I Have a Dream speech. He talks about faith and brotherhood where we would work together and struggle together and fight for freedom together. The horrific evil things that have happened to the people of color is no joke. But sitting in your seats you have the power to bring us all together or bring attention to different political parties that we hold. The color of our skin and the ethnic differences and thus you can divide us. I bring this to your attention tonight because some of the comments said with great passion coming from this council are promoting prejudice. Right now, there's a very diverse group among amount of people that really want to work together. Please, counsel, be mindful of how you're speaking. Do your best to make Newburgh a place where the blood that was shed from the life of Martin Luther King would not be wasted. I have a dream that men and women and ethnic groups would work together in this city with fair and equal respect for one another. I have one more sentence. Regardless of our color of our skin, our political party, or other differences, in order to make Newburgh a great and desirous place for people to live. God bless you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay? So if you are going to speak, please, if you can, if you're able to, stand so we can get an estimate. So we got two, three, four speakers? Okay. Oh, okay, okay. Thank you.

Okay. Let's hear me. Okay, good evening esteemed city council and my fellow residents, Gabrielle Hill. First, let me just say Jason, I don't think I publicly congratulated you, so congratulations on your new appointment. Just a couple of items on the agenda tonight, item number 15, 16, regarding new city parks. And some rehab projects are, if you could elaborate a little more on what those projects are. And also item number 17, which is the resolution in support of Bill A-10568. And that is a resolution asking the City Council to support that bill, Consolidated Lead Line Elimination and Replacement Program. The Newburgh Clean Water Project, along with many other environmentalists, have been meeting for over six years, almost every Thursday, to get this resolution up to the Senate so that we can get more money for the replacement of our lead lines, which we all know have detrimental effects on young children and young brains. So we want to make sure that the water that is coming through is clean, but also that our pipes are clean. So we have clean water, Wayne. We're just working on the pipes. So if you guys could support that, that would be great. Item number 18, just a question about how much the agreement is with Ms. Nadia for that project services. Somebody wanted to know that. And for my own personal clarification, I spoke with Chief Rolla about some things that we're both concerned about and both want to work on regarding community relations with police. We understand, you know, historically in the black community, the police are not the people that we usually call first. Growing up, I don't even remember the police being called to our house or to our neighbor's house. Any family disputes or any neighbor to neighbor disputes we handled within the block. We handle within the family. But now we call the police for everything. And sometimes, you know, in our community, it doesn't always end in problem solving. But I had an incident that had a great outcome. After speaking to the chief and some police officers, I understand there's work to do. And if we're willing to do that work, we can reach reconciliation. But we have to think about a serious conversation. Because there is some aggression. And I just want to share this one story about double parking. There was a gentleman double parked. There was nowhere to park out here. He was waiting for his child to come out of a program. was nobody else in the road the police officer pulls up behind him went went why he's got his hazards on he's clearly waiting for someone he was not blocking traffic he was not doing any of those things but yet she continued to aggressively try to make him move so me being me went was headed toward the police officer like what's going on he's not bothering anybody But before I could do that, she whipped around him and kept going, which is what she should have done in the first place. So I'm saying all this to say, like, life is stressful enough. We are going through enough. We don't need added pressure from police officers, rude cashiers, anybody. We're going through enough. And I just want us to be the best example that we can be and work together for this reconciliation. And that car number was 119, Chief. It was 119, car 119, and it was around 8.15 p.m. last Friday, May 22nd. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Joshua Brown. I live in the Heights. Tonight I'm not here to ask for anything. I'm here to say thank you. Thank you for moving on the new city parks resolution. Thank you for taking up the resolution to apply for the New York Plays grant. And thank you for hearing the parents who came out a couple weeks ago and the ones who couldn't make it, who wrote letters and sent emails. You listened and you acted, and that means a lot to the families in this city, many of whom are home dealing with toddlers and babies, can't make it to city council. If we win this grant, and I believe we will, our kids will have something they've never had before, a world-class inclusive playground in their hometown built for every kid in the city regardless of ability, regardless of what their family can afford, and that's a big deal. Council should be proud of putting Newburgh in position to receive it. This is the beginning and not the end. Newburgh has multiple playgrounds and recreation areas, and most of them need a lot of attention. Delano Hitch would be the flagship, but Tyrone Crabb, Audrey Carey, Xavier Luna, Hasbrook, and Gidney Avenue basketball courts and others deserve the same kind of thought we're putting into Delano Hitch right now. Not only do we need new play equipment, but we also need accessible pathways, water fountains, trees, and shade. I hope the city will continue to pursue funding to remediate all of our public spaces and play areas. The grant cycle that opened this opportunity is going to keep opening new opportunities if we're ready to move when they come. Tonight proved Newburgh can move. Let's stay in position to do it again. Thanks.

Thank you, Josh.

Hi, everyone. Corbin, Lead Line Ward 3. First, I just wanted to echo Joshua's words. I'm really excited about the New York Plays Act. I'm excited even if for Malachi and all the kids in Newburgh just to have, you know, seeing the renderings that they put together, like it's really exciting to have that. I'm also here to share a statement from Ali Mohammed, who is the Police Community Relations and Review Board Chair. I have printed out his statement that he made about the flock cameras. I'm gonna pass it to y'all, but I'm just gonna read some excerpts from it. He said, based on complaints from neighbors and constituents, as well as a deeper review of the city of Newburgh's ongoing expansion of surveillance technology, I support the legislative push to remove flock safety cameras, not only from utility poles throughout the city, but also from police vehicle dashboards where technology has reportedly been integrated. that individually, each of these technologies may appear as tools for quote-unquote public safety. Collectively, however, they stand for the rapid expansion of a real-time surveillance ecosystem, working with limited public awareness, minimal community input, and insufficient long-term discussion regarding privacy, civil liberties, data retention, cybersecurity risks, oversight, and potential misuse. At what point do we trade guaranteed privacy rights for perceived safety benefits? As fiduciary stewards of the People's Trust, the City Council has a responsibility not only to approve funding opportunities, but also to fully educate and engage the public on the long-term implications of these technologies before deployment occurs. Even if funding did not directly come from local tax dollars, these systems still impact the daily lives, freedoms, and privacy expectations of every resident in the City of Newburgh. Moving forward, I urge City Council to remove fog safety technologies throughout the city, establish stronger public oversight and transparency requirements for surveillance technologies, hold public forums before adopting future surveillance measures, publicly show all data sharing agreements, retention policies, and vendor partnerships connected to law enforcement technology, and lastly, prioritize community trust with the same urgency given to technological expansion. The folks of Newburgh deserve safety, accountability, transparency, and informed consent through meaningful public dialogue. That's from Ali Muhammad. The last time, I just want to say I've been coming since late March. It's been two months. I feel like I've given y'all plenty of time to learn about this dangerous technology. I'm very grateful that five of you have come out in opposition to it, and I think now is the time we have to move forward. We have to immediately... get rid of this technology before people get hurt, before more people be disappeared. You know, the police chief brought a boilerplate FAQ from Flock, which was laughable because it didn't address any of the concerns that we brought up. We were talking about indirect access through local police departments that NBPD is sharing data with, not direct access from ICE. They didn't have anything to say about that. And so we've yet to hear any responses to the real concerns people have, just aside from a boilerplate FAQ from Flock. So thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, council members. Peter Fraze, Ward 2, also with the Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America. Two things. First, I would like to echo much of what was just said. I also would like to see this council end the contract with Flock and take down those cameras as expeditiously as possible. Um, you know, a few weeks ago, this council unanimously voted not to enter into an AI facial surveillance contract, which I, and I think many people in this community greatly appreciated and flock for some of the reasons that have just been said, uh, brings up many of the same issues. Um, and I certainly would unite with the critique coming from Mr. Ali Muhammad. I'm also a former member of the police community relations and review board. And I really, I think, I hope the council members will take seriously what he has to say there. I will just emphasize the point again here that. This is an issue that is not just about just our local city government or our local police department. This involves two major actors in our country and our society that have shown disregard for privacy and disregard for the law. That's big tech companies like Flock, and that is the US government under Donald Trump. PLOC, we know, has lied in the past about who they share data with. They said they weren't working with immigration. Then it turned out they had a contract with the Border Patrol that they admitted to last year. We know that the Trump administration and ICE have used their backdoor relationship with other police departments in other states in order to get information, even when it's not being directly shared and not legally supposed to be directly shared from any local police department. so for these reasons i'm very much in favor of ending this contract we don't need it we don't want it then lastly the only other point you also have on your agenda local law a establishing the charter review commission that's been debated to death in this room but i'll just say i hope you will past that. I think it's the right time to do it. We as residents need a chance to evaluate how our government is working for us. Members of this council have expressed the limitations that the current charter has placed on their ability to serve us. You know, this is only establishing the commission. Nothing will change without it going to the voters, which is very important, I think, for everyone to understand. And the way, as I understand it, the law is written, it establishes the commission to last, if necessary, as long as not just this year's election, but next year's, so that we can take the time and do this right, which I think we should, because I also hope that everyone takes into account the concerns that have been rightly raised in the debates over this that we make this the broadest and most inclusive process possible that we educate the public that we make sure that all parts of our community are bought in to whatever decisions we have to ultimately come to and whatever is ultimately put before the voters in terms of possible charter revisions thank you thank you

Good evening, Tammy Hollands. So I'm just wondering, I got a question for the city council. Last week on the work session, I think the mayor, he brought up about the Boys and Girls Club not being able or maybe not having a summer camp program or something. But then I found out that this year, year 2026, our City of Newburgh Activity Center was gonna only give three slots or three openings to our children in the City of Newburgh. So let me just say this. Over the years in the city of Newburgh, the activity center has always been the major, the major employer for our youths in the city of Newburgh. How do I know? Because my two kids worked there. It was one of the places. Guess what? My kids fared very well. There's a lot of kids who've gone through there. They've done very well. I'm just trying to understand why would we only have three slots? They've always hired our kids, 20, 20-plus kids. The kids knew they could get a job there. We knew our kids. You've got the swimming pool. You've got, what, the summer camp. Who's going to be doing that this summer, and why, Newburgh City Council, are we only employing three of our children? That's a problem. I mean, did we not know? I mean, is there something going on? Like, we are curious. Our kids deserve to be able to work anywhere that's available in the city of Newburgh, coming from the city of Newburgh. Guess what? It's good on a job reference. It's good for experience in real life. It's good financially. They get to earn their own money, you know, do different things. Why would we stop that? I'm just wondering. Maybe y'all can help me out here. Thank you.

So before the next speaker, and I know we got one more left, I want to break protocol briefly because that's how narratives get out there that are not true. There are more than three young people working this summer for our city. Okay, so I'm gonna let Mr. Morris speak, but let me just say this. Hold on, hold on. Tammy, hold on, hold on. That's how false narratives get out there in Newburgh, in Newsburg. So the recreation center has hired multiple lifeguards for the swimming pool alone. That's part of our recreations department. There are summer camps that are, there is a summer camp that is going to happen this summer through our recreations department. I don't see the rec director. Mr. Morris, you want to address? Oh, rec director is here. I didn't see him. Can you speak to this, Mr. Morris? Excuse me.

So I don't have exact numbers, but we'll get you the exact numbers of the summer hires before the next meeting.

well can you say there's more than three yes there's more than three hires for the for the pool for the wreck for the summer yes okay okay okay miss kelson we have the summer youth employment program that is administered through orange county okay we can only take, when we have meaningful work for kids who are eligible in that program, we will take as many as we can. It is not fair to to take on employment when you don't have meaningful work experiences for these students. These are generally students, they are generally teenagers, and they are looking for meaningful work experience. So we need to make sure that we have the work, that they're properly supervised, and that they get a good experience out of it. We don't always have that level of work for tens of of students we take as many as we can take per summer and we can get you the number of students we've taken over the years sometimes we're able to take more sometimes we're able to take less we take them in different departments depending on the work that's available this is summer youth employment it is true oh please it is true okay so okay hold on hold on all

Hold on. So, for the record, the summer youth employment through Orange County, they are gonna get us the numbers. There are more than three people, from my understanding, but we will get you guys the exact number as soon as possible. That's number one. Number two, our Recreations Department has summer youth employment for our summer camp. Number three, we also hire within the city of Newburgh our youth and even neighboring towns for our aquatic center. So there are more youth working in our city in the aquatic center. In addition to that, the Armory Unity Center has a summer youth program and they too are part of the City of Newburgh because the City of Newburgh owns the building and have a licensing agreement with the Armory Unity Center and the Kaplan family and they hire a lot of our young people. so our young people are going to be busy this summer with the various programs that i just mentioned we are still investigating the boys and girls clubs issue but that is a separate entity all right we'll take our last speaker yes tracy So we got two speakers, Tracy and then the gentleman. And then we're gonna hear from the, now Tammy, I'm gonna ask you one last time. Please be quiet, respectfully, so we can hear the other speakers. Thank you, thank you.

my name is tracy wallace i live in the city of newburgh i'm speaking today as a community member i am in support of legislation to remove flock hammers from our community while i understand the importance of public safety we must also balance safety with privacy, civil rights, and accountability. Many residents are concerned about the long-term impact of automated surveillance systems that continually collect and store data on people's movements without their knowledge or consent. These cameras track where people travel, when they travel, and can create databases of everyday activities for individuals who have done nothing wrong. Communities deserve transparency about how data is collected, how long it is stored, and who has access to it, and how it may be shared. As someone who advocates for inclusion and equity, increased surveillance can create fear mistrust and unintended harm rather than building true community safety that's on that i have two other topics um the other one is um before i forget i wanted to i don't know if it's thank mr zaria uh councilman zaria uh for the um I just found out about the children are now going to get the chance to go to a sleepaway camp for Outdoor Promise. I don't know if you're speaking about it, but I found this out and there's a lot of children who really never get to have that experience and I found out that Mr. Zaria was in collaboration with the outdoor promise and that brought this to the city of Newburgh residents so I encouraged some of my fellow neighbors for their kids to join because I remember I went to summer camp a long time ago and I also lived in the city in the Bronx and I was able to get out and that experience changed my life so um this opportunity that mr. Zaria did for the city residents and I'm sure he'll talk more about it the outdoor promise is really giving kids the chance to have this sleep away experience and I just want to thank him for bringing that to the city of Newburgh because you know it's important that children get these experiences and for those I looked up you know if we didn't join your program and it's $350 per person per week So really bringing it to free summer camp opportunity. I just want to thank him for that. And for anyone that hasn't signed up, if there's any slots up, I know they're booking quickly to sign up your kids for Sleepaway Camp. I only have 40 seconds. I did want to talk about Governor Hochul's New York Plays grant and that the, I think it was $62 point something billion for any nonprofit municipality to apply for. My concerns are I didn't go to the hearings or the listening sessions but I'm concerned about the layout that was presented from the designers because it's not really inclusive there is a space in the picture if you noticed of somebody in a wheelchair on one little spinning thing and then there was hills and there was um a playground and other things where um really the child with the disability really can't do a lot please give me that 30 seconds so then um so i just want to also encourage the city to i know we're focused on deliano hitch but there's a lot of concern for the other parks and you know what that money can do when you get that grant if you're only choosing to apply it to deliano hitch park then what about the other parks that can benefit from these renovations and this grant and you know what does that look like and i'm hoping that you have more listening sessions before you decide on one designer even though i know that you posted that you were looking at this design for some time um this brand just came out so you just had this opportunity to be able to get the grant. So I'm just hoping that as a collective, you know, you all look at this collectively on what you decide for that grant because it affects everyone.

Thank you. And our last speaker here, Tracy, hand the mic behind you. Thank you.

My name is Michael Kolb. I'm a resident of the third ward. And I'd like to support the previous speakers who urged the council to closely examine the city's contract with FLOC. I'm relatively late to this issue. I have some questions about it. I don't expect you to answer them today at this proceeding, but I think they are questions that you should consider carefully. What type of vetting has been done concerning FLOC? I'm sorry. What type of vetting has been done concerning Flock? Did they meet with members of the council or any civilians before this contract was entered into? Or was it just a sales pitch given by Flock to the police department? I think it's extremely important for something like this, for there to be civilian involvement in whether some device like this is going to be used. The mere fact that some technology is used, I mean is new, does not necessarily mean that it should be used by every municipality. And I think we need to balance the impact on the community at large and some of the, that impact has been described by previous speakers, against the effectiveness of the technology, and the potential for abuse. The thing that precipitated my coming here tonight is I read an article in Bolts Magazine, May 15th of this year, that the city of Verona, Wisconsin had pulled its three flock cameras after police elsewhere in the country not the Verona Police Department. Police elsewhere in the country accessed Verona's cameras on behalf of immigration officers. I think that's a potential for abuse that the council must recognize. The other thing, is there any current oversight of how the police are using this technology. Again, this is consistent with the thought that technology of this nature should be controlled by civilians and not by the police department. And I really don't have much more to add. Thank you.

Thank you. So next we'll hear from the council members in response to the comments that were made by the public agenda and or knowledge and items and we'll hear from council member Martinez first.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. I just really quickly wanted to speak about the announcement from Governor Hochul a couple days ago regarding gun violence. how shootings fell over a 64 since 2021 which is a huge win um specifically here in the city of newburgh well throughout the state there was a decrease 17 um throughout the four first four months um of 2026 compared to um last year And on that list where departments reported no firearm related homicides for those first four months, the city of Newburgh was listed. So thank you to our officers who have been working very closely to address ongoing gun violence in our community. but also for all the effort that has gone into youth engagement as well as employment opportunities for our residents. There was a gentleman who spoke earlier today about homelessness, and all of these issues are intertwined. Crime rates go up when employment is low, and that also leads to housing instability. People's needs have to be met in order for crime to drop. And so somebody asked, like, what is the solution? A couple years ago, we tried helping the Newberg Ministry with a shelter, what ended up happening is that surprisingly a lot of certain community members came out to oppose the shelter so the issue really is what can we do we need help from the county the county has repeatedly brought people into our city because we have services here but then they don't give us extra support to be able to maintain everyone here and So I look forward to speaking with our county legislators, especially county legislator Genesis Ramos, and she is the chair or co-chair of the Housing Task Force in the county, and to come up with solutions as to how we can bring more resources to continue addressing not just housing, but everything that is being affected, and crime is definitely one of those. And then I also just wanted to support, again, the charter of review i wholeheartedly feel that having a commission established just to get the ball rolling on this is necessary we have really great momentum and people are starting to ask what is the charter change and i think we can work very hard together as a council to engage our community and see um to really dissect what that charter is and then lastly i also just wanted to oppose flock as well i share the same concerns that many of our residents did thank you

Thank you next we hear from Councilman Macklemore.

So thank you everyone for coming out on tonight. I'm glad that that everyone had their chance to to speak and voice their concerns, especially the view Terry some. Hopefully will come to a resolution as as far as the mowing and getting that resolved. The entire strip. Also, I want to put it out there that Rhodes' funeral home is continuously getting graffitied and so that's something that we have to make sure that we look at. He's getting violations and he's not the one that's defacing his own property. So if we can look into that and see how we can do some type of enforcement to stop or prevent that type of crime that's going on over there, the graffiti that's going on over there. Also, I want to thank Brian Denniston, and I think it's Mary Keller, and Billy Keller for their participation and organization in the Memorial Day Parade. So that's something that happens every year, and they're the ones that organize that. So I wanted to give a thank you for that, and also including the council in the parade as well. Also, I met with the fire department just to talk and to have good conversation. I thank the city of Newburgh fire department for bringing me there and talking to me. They didn't ask for anything. It was just more of just coming together to see exactly how we can move things forward in the city. It was just great conversation, so thank you, Chief, for allowing that to happen. Also, REACT, Rising Every Day Above Circumstances, and their mission is to educate and educate, let me get this right, is to educate the youth towards the next level thinking. They focus on creative writing, arts and crafts, poetry, fitness, painting, and their community, they have a community outreach dance team. They're looking for building. And so if there's anyone in the community that can help them with that type of resource to look for a building and to help them out, I think that that would be something that could push our youth into positivity. And so I'm hoping, and the organizer of that is, 30 seconds. the organizer of that is miss robbins if you can re wave your hand um so people can can see and hopefully um someone will open up their facility to to help you and your organization as well um i got ran out of time i have to go next uh i mean go after all right thank you very much councilman mclemore next we hear from council member monteverde

Thank you. And thank you, everybody, for coming out tonight to speak. So a couple of things. I, too, am in agreement. I did some more reading today about flock and what's going on with it. A lot of information on the ACLU website about get the flock out. As we all know, Flock is a mass surveillance system and there are no guarantees from what I was reading that this information is actually not being shared. So we actually need to know from our police department Are they sharing that information and can they can they stop that do they have to agree to? You know share that One thing that I did read about What a couple of people were talking about is that we are constantly being watched without our permission And I think that's the whole thing about the surveillance and what's going on today and with being tracked, right? I think that for our undocumented community in particular this is a threat and um i take it very seriously it's something that we in this day and age right why are we doing this why are we tracking our our community members um and it's it's a pretty scary thing so i'm in agreement as well that we need to go back we need to review the contract see how we can get out of the contract but i do want to say to the chief that you know i commend him and his department for working on bringing down the crime. And I understand what this surveillance software system does, but there has to be other options that we need to look at at this time. And I think that we're there and we need to start doing that. So also a couple of things. I've been getting calls. I was away for the weekend. And there has been a lot of noise down at the river. I don't know if it's the river, the cruise ships or whatever. I don't know if any other council members got complaints, but I got back Monday. They said it happened all weekend, Sunday and Monday in particular. You know, I don't know if it's at Billy Joe's, Billy Bob's. Is that the name of it? Oh, OK. Billy Bob's, Billy Joe's. You know, if they're having like these loud parties, but the noise when I heard it on Monday is just not acceptable. I don't know what the decimal is on that, but I could hear it clearly in my house. So that is a, you know, something that I think we need to go back and look at. I have been getting calls also about some issues in the Heights. For example, there's been some issues with businesses and parking. We're working on that. I went to the Transportation Committee and it's in process with some of the Liberty Street and also Colden and Renwick Street. So I'm happy to hear that that's in process. Also getting calls again about noise and over on Bridge Street. um some issues with the warehouse there and some funny business going on and i did speak to the chief and thank you chief for addressing this and being aware of this and also i want to just mention real quickly that we were awarded a shelter a grant for our shelter our animal shelter 500k so that is a good thing thank you thank you very much council member monteverde next we hear from councilman shakur

Yes, thank you everybody for coming and speaking. So I want to speak about the parking on Liberty Street, because I live at 55 Liberty Street. We've been talking about this forever. Not only are there businesses down there, but they're getting ready to build five stories right across the street from me. now we already don't have no parking near the residents who've been here but the people who are building that they said well there's plenty of parking on ann street remick street or uh william street so nobody's working or going to come home 11 o'clock and walk past the graveyard or whatever that's one of the things i'm asking for another parking study again because that's going to be 145 units two parents probably with two cars that's 290 cars coming back into our community on one block so we need to get that figured out Bayview Terrace, I talked about that because that's my brother, Billy Howard, and that's his wife back there. And I did that six months ago, about six or seven months ago. Macklemore followed up about a month ago, and we're still having the same problem. Jobs. When I first got on the city council, Newburgh is 80% black and Hispanic. Newburgh was 70% white, and 70% of the people who worked here didn't even live here. At the activity center last year, they talked about kids were hired. Yes, a lot of kids from New Windsor and the town of Newburgh were hired for them jobs where our kids were supposed to get. So the problem is, there are jobs here. And they keep saying, oh, we got to put this out there. But I go to New Windsor, you don't see our kids working there. You go to the other place, you don't see our people working there. So why we got to hire people all the time here? That's one of the biggest problems right there, the job. Because with jobs, we can create stability in our community, and the crime will come down. The crime is up because we can't work here. That's one of the problems right there. And to go back to that, because the Third and Fourth Ward, basically, I've been getting calls because nobody since the election knows who their representatives are. I've been getting a lot of calls about stuff happening in the Third Ward, the Fourth Ward, and the Second Ward. And nobody, they don't know who their representative is. That's why you had that problem. That's why you had to go up there because they didn't know who was up there. That's why on the Third Ward we had to go somewhere with such things happening. I talked to the same manager about them. I can't go through that whole list right now because I got to talk about Flock. But Flock. I asked for a resolution at the last meeting. It was supposed to have been put on after we had the conversation. I don't know what happened after the conversation, why it wasn't put on. But I'm asking for that resolution to be brought back up tonight. And we want to resolve to terminate the contract with Flock Group, providing 30 days written notice of termination as per Flock return. And any Flock cameras that have not already been installed and covered up, all the um we want to uncover all the existing flock cameras with black paths that have not been removed on july 1st 2026. any money that is saved this year should be used for real community issues and needs that proactively can build a healthy community so we don't have to worry about crime and so to say that right there i also want to say 30 um this is stuff i had got up by i wrote about the disclosure of um footage 5.3 in the um wherever this resident or um this application or whatever it was but it says subject to enjoy retention period flock may access use preserve and disclose the footage to law enforcement authorities government officials and or third parties if legally required to do so if flock has a good faith belief that such access use preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process enforce this agreement or put or detect prevent or otherwise address okay i'm putting my resolution together right now and also also it says the termination for convenience either party may terminate this contract for us okay i got 10 more seconds of providing third 30 days prior written communication of termination effective and immediately after the such notice upon termination of this customer will immediately cease all use of flock services because i asked to do this last week all right now

thank you very much councilman shakur next week next we will hear from council member stewart

thank you um thank you everyone for coming out and speaking um on issues that you feel are important to you so i just wanted to um just touch on a couple of things one there is a tool library that is being built here in the city of newburgh and it will be on on Chamber Street, 26 Chamber Street, and they are looking for volunteers to help build a tool library. The tool library will be for residents who don't have access to tools, power tools, anything. You don't have to go and buy something that is expensive. You'll have a tool library, just like a library, and you can go and take out a tool utilize that tool and take it back so you don't actually have to go and spend money. The person that is responsible for that is Zach Blue. And if you wanted to get in contact with them to help volunteer, you know, you can please do so. The other is the charter conversation. The conversation is expanding as it should. You have a lot of people are asking about charter, what the charter is and how it is impacting them in their life. And I think that that is the message that's important. From what I'm hearing, there is a consensus about charter review. It's just about what that process was. It should happen, but I think we all need to lead with how the current charter, the way it is structured, is impacting people's lives because that will help people understand what it is and why it would need to be changed, and then they can actually contribute to the conversation more fluently. the other thing is flock flock we again of her consensus that flock should be gone but i want to point out some details that we as a council have to be realistic about one um we just missed the renewal period for flock the last renewal period was january so that is a two-year contract if we break that two-year contract one will be in breach of the contract and we learned this on wednesday we will be in breach of that contract we know that flock is not a good company is not a good company we do not want to continue a relationship with that but we also have a fiduciary responsibility to um to the city in terms of how we are spending um money breaching that contract and stopping that contract right now we would be given this bad company a 500 000 almost a 500 000 windfall that is not something that anybody wants to have we have to figure out how to balance it and one of uh the residents talked about the balance of that we have to figure that out uh the other thing is that breach of contract um 30 seconds If we do not have any kind of system in all of us, if we are in a place and something happens and we fall victim to something, somebody is missing, somebody's car is hit, somebody is hurt, there is an accident, we are relying on technology. If we are absent of that technology, we are putting ourselves in a very vulnerable position, and that is in terms of public safety. So we have to figure out how to balance what the technology is, get rid of the company because the company is disastrous. We've already heard from Chief Rolla in terms of how the technology can be used. We've done our research. We've heard from residents about the research. Flock is not a good system. It's not a good company, period. We have to figure out how we do not leave our public vulnerable if something should happen. And I gave a short story on how the technologies and these technologies that we are in and using right now have helped people that have been missing, a senior missing with dementia, someone who was abused, had an issue with domestic violence. They found a person due to the ALPR and actually re-arrested the person, Chief Rolla Gates. Thank you, Councilwoman. So the reason why we need it is there, but I do agree flock has to go. We just have to figure out a balance so we don't leave ourselves vulnerable.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Stewart.

You're going to get me in trouble.

The other side of the table.

All right. Councilman Zorio.

i thank you everyone for for sharing your thoughts um i will i'm not sure where to start i'll start with new york plays i'm excited about this grand opportunity uh I won't I'm not going to comment on the jobs because I we have been pushing city staff on all kinds of things and initiatives and although we don't we don't delve into staffing issues I think we have to be mindful of the decisions they make so it's kind of hard to push in those places but I do agree that youth need jobs they need places to spend time they need places where they could grow and learn and that's why I think the New York plays grant is a great opportunity It's rare that you get an experienced nonprofit that is willing to apply and write the grant, help secure the funding, and have a long-term plan for a place. Facebook is not the best place to get comments on things, and it could get pretty nasty. I have heard some interesting things about comments people have but i think there is a misconception about grant funding that we need to clear up this grant you can't apply for existing parks it has to be for a new park it would be great to invest in all our parks and i would love to continue that conversation as we discuss it the budget coming up this season all our kids deserve nice playgrounds This specific grant is almost made for Delano Hitch and this work didn't start this month. This started years ago when Mayor Harvey brought in New City Parks and they started work on a master plan. Thank you all of you who have shared comments. The survey is still available and all the comments and Tracy, your long email on accessibility has been shared with the designers and that is not the final design. So there will be other opportunities to engage. I don't mention Outdoor Promise because I like to keep my council work and nonprofit work separate, but there are still summer camp opportunities. We've booked 35 young people to experience a week away in the Catskills, and we have more room for young girls. 11 of 17, I think there's 15 more slots, and the boys are being put on the wait list. excited about charter review and seeing where that goes it is obvious that what we had here wasn't working and i'm excited to take the next steps and educate the community and see more and more people engaged in showing up to these places flock i i it is a very difficult decision um i do think that we should i do not agree that we should have a surveillance state i do not i think it is a disaster that our uh Police Department has to navigate this space where there's very little trust in, can I get 30 seconds? I will stick to 30. It's tough to navigate this space of very little trust in government and institutions. So I am torn. My family, who is documented after some of them, after a long period of waiting, are now walking around with their passports even though they're US citizens because they're scared. And I do not want to surveillance state on the other side of that token as a council person with a fiduciary responsibility for our funding. I would hate to just hand over, it's actually $390,000 to a contract. So I think finding a balance, the police department did submit a new policy for welcoming city. I do not think we should renew ever with flock, don't get my words twisted here. But I do think we should find strategic ways to cut ties and not just use the blunt force of we'll pay 400,000 and walk away. So I think there is a conversation to continue having and exploring and thank you all for coming out tonight.

Thank you, Councilman Zoria, for your comments. I want to thank everyone else for coming out, speaking up, speaking out tonight. Very important. I want to thank Councilmember Stewart for her comments regarding flock because between she and Councilman McLemore and my other colleagues, no one has taken a position except for a couple people on flock. We are in debate. We're vetting this. We're speaking with our city attorneys, our city police chief. No one has officially taken a position. I haven't. 2016, 10 years ago, when I got on council, one of the first things that I worked along with my colleagues to do is to create somewhat of a comprehensive video surveillance program. We also studied what Mayor Ross Baraka was doing in Newark, New Jersey with the ShotSpotter. Crime in the city of Newburgh in 2016 was astronomically different than it is 10 years today. If you go back to 2010, Look it up. Google it. You can check out what Newburgh was if you haven't been living here for 20 years, 30 years. Even when I was a teenager coming over here to visit friends in 1988, Newburgh had the highest murder rate per capita in the entire state of New York. And it was also in the top five of murder capitals in the country, along with Compton. California so if you know the history you know as Councilmember Stewart and Councilman McLemore and others have said we have to vet this we have to have public trust with our police department Chief Rolla said it at our work session on Thursday Not only in 2017 did we pass a resolution to be a welcoming city, in 2017 we did it again last year to put more legislative teeth into being a welcoming city so our police department and no other department in the city government participate with ICE, which is a federal entity, Immigration Customs Enforcement, they do not work with the federal government and and that's what that legislation spells out specifically if we do away with uh... flock it comes at a very very high price when we talk about surveillance let me tell you something after nine eleven the federal government under the former president george w bush uh... passed the patriot act Then they renewed it a few years after that. Ever since they passed that federal legislation, we are all under surveillance. They went from analog broadcasting cable network television to digital cable network television. And everybody had to get rid of their rear projection TVs and get digital... high-projection TV's I could go on and on let me lastly say in my 30 seconds 30 seconds in my last 30 seconds let me tell you public safety is always going to be the number one priority and that those that technology that we've had in the last 10 years has along with great policing along with police community relations foot patrol have drive down the city's crime and that's when the businesses come back that's when the bankers come back that's when half a billion dollars of private and public investment came back to the city so if you don't want surveillance at all because there has to be a balance to serve in the interest of public safety then ask how many of your homeowners have the ring camera the ring camera is surveillance

all right now we'll go on to city managers report Thank You mayor resolution number 111 dash 2026 contract with CT Malley for engineering assessment of Washington Lake Dam they have a motion for resolution number 111 dash 2026 a motion

Is there a motion?

So moved.

First motion accepted by Council Member Monteverde. Do I have a second? Second motion, resolution number 111-2026.

anyone second segment by councilman zuria roll call on the motion please council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde yes shakur yes stewart yes zuria yes mayor harvey yes resolution approved resolution number 112-2026 contract with arcadis for the south interceptor sewer improvements project

We have a motion for resolution number 1, 1, 2, that's 2026.

So move.

First motion is said by Councilmember Monteverde. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Zoria. Roll call. Discussion granted.

I just want to point out for the next several resolutions, I want everybody to just be aware that this is about infrastructure so a lot of work is going on underground and engineering so you'll see and hear some high prices but this is all based off of engineering and infrastructure so don't be alarmed this is all this is making the city better for all of us in terms of how we're living building and all of those things thank you council member Martinez you had something to add

yes um just to piggyback off of council member stewart um infrastructure projects especially the ones underground are not usually like the hot topics or things that people can see so when we talk about progress sometimes the progress you don't see above ground because it's happening under and just to remind that our city is really old and it like the crumbling infrastructure is going to take some time to fix so this is one of the ways that we're doing that and i just want to thank um jason and of course the engineering department the water department everybody who's worked on the interceptor sewer improvement projects and i mean we just got an award for the north interceptor sewer one so thank you so much for all the work

excellent yeah i want to i want to say thank you as well thank you council member martinez council member stewart for your comments on this um the 32 million dollar north interceptor relocation uh project just to give you uh a visual before that 32 million dollar investment was completed um the city of newburgh was dumping 54 million tons of untreated sewage into that beautiful estuary there called the Hudson River per year. 54 million tons of untreated sewage per year was being dumped into that beautiful river, which is an estuary, which means that it's fresh water and salt water. And that is horrible. And so this award comes from that effort. And it also got me an invite as the mayor to the White House twice for water water summits under the Biden administration and the Harris administration. and an invite to a think tank up at the Rockefeller Institute in Albany to speak about the master control plan, which has been ongoing, the water sewer separation project in all four quadrants of the city. It also talked about the $2.5 million lead line replacement. I believe the statistic is somewhat over $200 private homes was replaced where they had lead water service lines in over 200 homes in the city of Newburgh and those lead line replacements were for free at no cost to the residents and that is the most aggressive lead line replacement program TO THIS DATE IN THE MID-HUDSON VALLEY OF ALL THE RIVER CITIES WHO ARE OUR NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS, WE WERE NUMBER ONE ON DOING THAT, AND THAT WORK CONTINUES. SO WHEN YOU LOOK AT REVITALIZATION OF THE CITY, THE AGING INFRASTRUCTURE, AS MY COLLEAGUES HAVE MENTIONED, IS SUPER SIGNIFICANT, ESPECIALLY WITH ALL THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT THAT IS IN THE PIPELINE. SO THAT'S IMPORTANT. ANYONE ELSE? YES. COUNCIL MEMBER ZORIA.

yeah i do want to thank the city staff that have been working on this five phase plan uh when you read the documents some of our sewers are being held up by old bricks and clay and it's amazing that all that stuff has lasted for over 100 years so i'm excited to see this investment in the future of our city i also wanted to give a shout out uh to miss hill in the newberg clean water project because it it does take advocacy to get this investment and aside from uh the politicians that show up in these places there's hard-working residents that are advocating behind the scenes and showing up and going to the boring public meetings so uh thank you for your advocacy in these in those places to that spurs funding into our city

And in fact, before Mrs. Hill became County Legislator Hill, she was very much active, as you said, in the Clean Water Project. And you and I were in Albany together at the Rockefeller Institute. And they were, that think tank was blown away with the presentation that you did on behalf of the Clean Water, Newburgh Clean Water, and the information I was doing on behalf of the city government. They were amazed at the work that the city of Newburgh has been doing under Mr. Morris' leadership, Chad, Wayne Vandenberg, the entire engineer department, that they were really amazed in Albany with what has already have been done and the plans that we have moving forward with all this aging infrastructure. And last I want to say, You can ask our superintendent of the water department when it's 19 below zero and a water main break happens and he and his guys are out there, sometimes he'll call me and I'll go to the site sometimes. sometimes he would call me and sometimes I'll go out there but sometimes I'm not going out there because it'd be like it's like two in the morning three in the morning and these guys are out there 18 hours 22 hours working on 20 inch main uh repair main water uh breaks that have happened in the city um and let's get let's give that water department a hand because They'll do it. Rain, snow, sleet, or hell, those guys are out there, and they will do it until the job is done. One time they had a 20-inch main or something like that, and I went and looked at it, and that thing was put in the ground in the 1860s after the city of Newburgh was just chartered. The Newburgh was chartered in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, and that's when they had some of that aging infrastructure. I'm like, wow. So anyway.

So I also want to highlight the women that are in the water department that are out here. That's right. digging in the streets and doing the hard work and with the machinery and saving lives, you know, of their colleagues and stuff. So shout out to the women. Shout out to the women. That is a fact. The water department.

And when it happens, they'll be like, we outside. The ladies, we outside for real. Okay, anyway, roll call on the motion without further ado.

council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde shakur yes yes stewart yes zoria yes mayor harvey yes resolution approved resolution number 113-2026 contract with arcadis for the west trunk sewer contract number three project

Do I have a motion for resolution number 113-2026? So moved. First motion is set up by Councilman Zoria. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Roll call on the motion. Discussion. Discussion granted.

Sure. It's my understanding that this is the work that's going to be done on Renwick and Liberty, correct?

This project is to repair a deficiency on the west trunk sewer in the area between Lake Drive and Little Bright.

It's the next one.

Thank you Anyone else if not roll call on the motion, please

113 right okay thank you council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde shakur yes stewart yes zuria yes mayor harvey yes resolution approved resolution number 114-2026 contract with arcadis for the reconstruction of liberty street project

Can I get a motion for resolution number 114? That's 2026. So moved. First motion is settled by Council Member Monteverdi. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Council Member Stewart. Roll call on the motion. Discussion granted.

I just want to get clarification. So, Mr. Morris, I just want to ask the question, will this impact any of the traffic or closing of streets on Liberty and Renwick?

It will absolutely impact all the traffic on Liberty Street and the area between Renwick and Ann Street once it moves into construction.

Great. I just wanted the public to know that so they're prepared.

So between Liberty and what? On Liberty Street between Renwick and Ann Street.

Okay. So, and then we definitely, because we don't want to run into issues that we did in Lower Broadway, the signage, advance notice, some kind of communication, because that's part of our business corridor.

So we'll be able to do that. Absolutely. There'll be a robust public information session, public input session during the design phase. And keep in mind, this doesn't move to construction until the end of 2027. Oh, the end of 2027. Great.

So we got time to prepare. I'm assuming it will also impact parking, which is very tight over there.

will absolutely impact parking yes and speaking of parking before we go to a vote i know uh councilman shakur mentioned about the parking there was a resident on the liberty street corridor just know and understand that that new development um well some people call it one lafayette some say 50 uh liberty street it's right across from the terrace lounge ANYWAY, THAT DEVELOPMENT WILL BUILD IN NEW PARKING. SO IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE 142 AFFORDABLE apartments one two and three bedrooms but also it will have commercial retail development that will also bring jobs to the city of newburgh so there's a lot of nuances to that development and i just want to state for the record that that project will build in new parking now whether or not the parking is sufficient um or not that's a different um dialogue and debate but i just want to make the public aware that that will come with new development and new parking for the development so all right uh motion uh i'm sorry um roll call on the motion please council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde

Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zoria. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 115-2026, Prudential Life Insurance Renewal Contract.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 115-2026? So moved. First motion is said by Councilman Zoria. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zoria. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 116 dash 2026 born and Kenny rehabilitation project National Environmental Policy Review Act.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 116 dash 2026? So moved. First motion is settled by Councilman Zoria. Do we have a second?

Second in discussion.

Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Councilmember Stewart grant your granted discussion.

So I just wanted to just get give some information about what this study is this is not impacting the actual residents at the born and Kenny this happens and it's triggered because of the potential sale for it and change of hand so this study goes hand in hand with the new on transition so I don't want people to be alarmed about uh to ask if this is going to impact uh the residents anyway it's just triggered by uh the potential cell correct perfect thank you anyone else if not roll call in a motion please

Council Members Martinez. Aye. Macklemore. Aye. Monteverde. Aye. Shakur.

Yes.

Stewart. Yes. Zoria. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 117-2026, 59 Broadway, release of restricted covenants and right of reentry.

We'll have a motion for resolution number 117-2026.

So moved.

First motion accepted by Council Member Stewart. Second. Seconded by Councilman Zoria. Roll call on the motion, please.

Council Members Martinez. Aye. Macklemore. Monteverde. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zoria. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 118-2026, 75 Broadway, release of restrictive covenants and right of reentry.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 118-2026? So moved. First motion is settled by Councilman Zaria. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Roll call on the motion.

Council Members Martinez? Aye. Macklemore? Monteverde? Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zoria? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 119-2026, New City Parks Cooperation Agreement.

We'll have a motion for resolution number one one 9. That's 2026. So move first motion is that the by Councilman so do you have a second. Second by Councilmember Stewart. I'm going to do a brief discussion. And I know you said probably enough about this, but I don't think it's ever enough. We're trying to advocate for funding for our youth for our kids particularly in the families Councilman Zaria I want to really thank you for doubling down on this and supporting this effort as you mentioned earlier it was something that came up a few years ago and it got the kibosh I'm gonna be very honest about it and you know with your support and support of other council members you know it looks like we may and potentially after the vote can move forward on this and it's very important when we talk about our kids continuously fighting for our kids to have safe spaces green spaces places for kids to have fun with trees and access to the waterfront as some have already advocated for the river we have the best view of the Hudson Mount Beacon in our backdrop when I first moved here I said man it looked like Picasso painted that himself and so yeah I just want to say thank you for everyone that is looking to support this so any other yes

I would also like to say thank you for the work that was done before. Opportunities like this to get grant funding from the state to make historic playground are disappearing. A lot of funding that goes to develop spaces for our young people. And our kids that are just growing up are disappearing, unfortunately. So I think we have to take advantage of all the state funds and funding available. This is not a guarantee. We're applying and hope we get state funding to make this a reality. But I'm glad we're taking that step.

Can I just I want to say thank you to our legal department for making space for this. Yes, our legal department as I'm learning is wearing like a 1000 hats. So thank you legal department and Michelle for making space to get this cooperation agreement to the table.

Yes, thank you council member Martinez.

I just also wanted to mention that, like Councilman Zorrilla mentioned, when there is free money, we should take it. And I think when there is a tight deadline for any type of grant that could benefit the city, I think that should automatically be a priority. So I wanna thank, again, like our city, our executive team, legal department for also prioritizing this. But thank you to Councilmember Zorrilla for just being so passionate about the parks and green spaces in Newburgh, and I saw a comment online, I was actually confused that people were against this, and it just seems like such a non-controversial issue. We apply for it, if we get the money, great, and if we don't, then, you know at least we tried so i think that it's you know we're putting ourselves out there and getting the the most for our city and just thank you for your leadership on this council member monteverde

Thank you. And I, too, want to thank Councilman Zarilla as well, because this is just the beginning. We're investing in Newburgh. And after we do this, it's a domino effect. We'll continue to improve our parks. We deserve it. Our kids deserve it, and our community deserve it. It's time that we start thinking about this and making this place a better place. Thank you.

Yeah, first of all, I love Outdoor Promise. And if you think about the name, just think about that, an outdoor promise, making promises to celebrate and to appreciate the outdoors, right? we're better to appreciate and make a promise to the outdoors than here in the city of Newburgh and to enhance and improve those green spaces, especially if those are green spaces for kids, right? And I'll never forget just the joy we had a year ago when we cut the ribbon on the new Aquatic Center. I took a plunge for everyone. For everyone, literally in a suit. It was raining, it was cold, and I took the plunge in that new swimming pool because it was my metaphoric way of saying we finally did something for families and for the kids in the city of Newburgh with having a swimming pool. Because I remember when we had a push to put those water systems, Jason, in Audrey Carey Park, Tyrone Crab Park, Luna Park, and what was the fourth one? I'm missing one. There was four. Those three. Oh, those three. We had to put the splash pads and sprinkler system in those three parks because we couldn't reconstruct the swimming pool because of COVID. And there was a moratorium on all construction unless it was health related or if it was an emergency related construction. So for like three years in the state of New York, no one could do construction on recreational parks and things. So when we finally got a chance to, we got those three local parks and put those water systems uh while we were trying to get the funding and the funding for the aquatic Center went from like 4 million to 15 million like that because of covid and so anyway so this is really I'm really excited about what what this may do so anyway we're good okay roll call into motion please council members Martinez aye Macklemore Monteverde Shakur

Y'all didn't ask me how I felt about the park, so forget the park. No.

Stewart? Yes. Zoria?

Yes.

Mayor Harvey? Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 120-2026, New York, please grant.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 120, that's 2026? so move first motion is said by councilman zuria do we have a second second second by council member monteverde and before we take a vote i want to give space for councilman shakur because i asked if anyone had anything else in the last resolution but councilman shakur do you have anything you'd like to say or add to this particular resolution relating parks and uh a plays grant Anyone else? Anyone else? If not, going once, going twice. All right, roll call on the motion, please.

Council members Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur.

Yes.

Stewart. Yes. Zoria.

Yes.

Mayor Harvey. Yes. Resolution approved.

Resolution number 121-2026. Resolution of support for Bill A.10568. Do we have a motion for resolution number 121-2026?

So moved.

First motion accepted by Councilman McLemore. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. I know there was a question on this, so I want to ask Mr. Morris. I want to go into discussion. Can you articulate what this resolution is for the public?

This is a proposed bill by Assemblyman Jacobson to create the CLEAR program, which is basically a $10,000 grant program to replace lead drinking water lines.

So it's a continuation of some of the work we've done with the lead lines.

It's a continuation of the work we've done and hopefully it will make funding easier and more accessible to move projects along such as lead lines. At the state level? Yes.

Okay. Excellent. Anyone else? Sure. Council Member Martinez?

I just wanna give Assemblymember Jacobson his flowers for this because he gave us money the first time when we did the lead line replacement and that was so critical. Our lead lines, there have been studies that show how much it affects the children, the youth development, that played a role into why people feel like they can't trust our water in general and I think that this is one way that we're gonna remediate that and you know try to establish some public trust and just make sure that everybody's safe but thank you to the Assemblymember thank you yes this is good Jonathan Assemblyman Jacobson a hand

can i also um add anytime we're talking about lead lines if you have an opportunity to hear county legislator hill's story on why she is so passionate about lead and you know getting rid of lead and all of the monies uh making sure we get all of the monies for um remediating this please uh tap her i'm sure she will be willing to share the story so with her um continuous advocacy around lead lines thank you as well thank you so much for that yes uh if there are no other comments from council members roll call on a motion please

council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde shakur yes stewart yes zoria yes mayor harvey yes resolution approved resolution number 122-2026 nacc art biz 2026 project manager do we have a motion for resolution number one two two that's 2026

First motion accepted by Councilmember Monteverde. Do we have a second?

Second in discussion.

Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Discussion granted. Councilmember Stewart.

There was a question about the amount 18. Yes. I think that was from County Legislator Hill. This is in regards to the NACC project manager. This is going to be for the seven-week period that this program will be. It's for youth and adults to be able to showcase their art here in the city of Newburgh. one of the questions that I asked was is this something that will be reoccurring every time that we have this opportunity there will be a new person that is going to coordinate it so this resolution right now is specifically for Nadia because this is the person that's going to be the project manager for this year. Next year there will be someone else and then they will interview to see who will get that next position as well. So every year when they do NACC, it will be a new project coordinator to support. The price, I think, I'm not completely sure, I think Michelle can answer.

So the project budget for the entire program is just under $10,000. The project manager will receive $3,000 for approximately 120 hours of work.

Also, I want to add, I know there was questions about not having sufficient enough of employment and activities for our youth for the summer. We're really excited about this because it does engage our youth in workshop series for the summer. I'm really proud of the Art and Cultural Commission for some of the great stuff that they're planning and that they're getting a jump start on. And I want to thank Michelle Kelson again for stepping in and stepping up to participate with the Art and Cultural Commission because I think that you don't have revitalization without a thriving art community. You don't have economic stimuli and job creation and all the good stuff, the good synergy that comes to a city making a comeback if you don't have and celebrate and support. a thriving art, art community. So I'm really excited about what the Newburgh Art and Cultural Commission has in line. So if anyone else. Okay.

Councilmember very quickly, I just want to point out that this program is focusing. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to point out that this program is focusing on youth between the ages of 13 and 18.

yes anyone else if not roll call on a motion please council members martinez aye mclemore monteverde shakur no stewart yes zuria yes mayor harvey yes resolution approved local law number a-2026 local law establishing a charter review commission

have a motion uh for the local law number a as 2026 establishing a charter review commission so moved all right first motion is settled by council member martinez seconded by council member monteverde discussion discussion granted

so i want to point out that there is an excellent letter to the editor in the mid hudson times last week by yaniel pearson and it just breaks it down completely and makes it very clear why now and why do we need a charter review commission please take the time to read it it is excellent thank you anyone else yes council member martinez

Yes, I also want to mention and thank Yania for writing that letter to the editor. I think that regardless of our timeline, what it's looking like, we have to get the ball rolling on this. There has to be movement and keep going with our momentum. Like we mentioned earlier, a lot of people are starting to become more curious about what we can do or what can come out of a charter review. And I think these questions have to be answered not just by us, but by community members who have already taken the lead to teach people about what this looks like. And I think that there is a lot of work for us to become more inclusive and to include a broader group that is going to be interested in learning about the charter review so i full-heartedly think that this is a step in the right direction once we get this commission started they can start really just forming the questions that they want answered doing the research that is necessary and giving us options and really just bringing us forward to dissect what is going on with our

like the form of government that we have and how we can just improve it and make it work for everyone yes so I want to thank everybody for their dialogue as far as with the charter review those who come from the commit from the community that have spoken up In regards to the charter review, I do believe that we do need a charter review, and I believe that's supposed to be done every 10 years or so, or something like that. But I am not in favor of the process of how it's being formed. And so I know people are trying to figure out where do I stand. I am for the charter review, but I am not for the process. And I do believe that the voters should be able to vote on this process.

you know that's that's where I stand as far as with that so I am for it I just I'm not I'm not in agreeance with the process anyone else yes yes yes I'm for the charter review too but I'm not for the process because we say we look for transparency transparency and accountability so let's let the people vote on it

So that the people vote on it if you really wanted to come from the community let the people vote on it Yeah, and I I want to I want to agree with that because I I am for the Charter review as the mayor of the city of Newburgh and I wasn't in the beginning after I heard from the people and heard um different perspectives on the charter review uh I was convinced I changed my mind on charter review and I want to thank all the residents that had the heart the courage and the gumption to get before this council and speak their point of view and perspectives and their position you have changed my mind openly I'm being very respectful and very honest you changed my mind on Charter review I agree now with Charter review and I agree with reviewing the Charter for a number of weeks probably a month and a half now after hearing from the people but I do know that that the history of the city of Newburgh, we have a long history of mistrust in city government. We have a long history of not having transparency in the city government. We have a long history of people who I call poverty pimps were stealing from the people in the history, I'm talking the past. And I don't want people to blame this city council or any of my colleagues because we are a team. I don't want them to say that anybody cooked the books or people rushed the process or that the voters were not involved from the very beginning. So we have an opportunity to petition and take that petition to the people so that they can vote in November on whether or not the commission should move or be brought together. So there's a people involvement that happens before the commission. or if this resolution passes then we're voting to put the commission together without the people voting on that and that's the process so there's different ways to move forward with this charter review and Depending on how this vote goes tonight, if it carries with a simple majority, people are going to say, I don't know what a charter review is. I don't know enough information about it. I wasn't a part of that process at the very beginning. You guys put the commission together first without our consent. And they're going to be people who challenge and question the integrity and the public trust of that process. And me personally, as the mayor, I don't want no part of that. So I am not going to vote yes on this resolution. I'm stating for the record because I don't agree with the process. I agree with the charter review. We heard from less than 5% of this community. We heard from less than 5%. right so it's 95 in the community we haven't even we haven't heard from and if you go door knocking and you speak to the people they will say they don't know what it is they don't know enough about it so that's that's my position you know and even in the charter as it stands i have an opportunity to call a charter review commission myself as the city mayor i ha i could have done that but i don't do that because i don't think it is being transparent and it's not being fair to every registered voter in this city and the last thing i want to say about this vote before the resolution is is moved and voted on we are actively pursuing a new city manager now we are finalizing the consultant for the city manager city manager contracts are usually two years if this resolution carries and you actively put together a charter review commission and they start and commence with the work of doing the charter review with this commission you might taint the pool of candidates that want to apply for the city manager position you might have a negative effect on that city manager search so I'm letting you know it is a possibility if this resolution carries and the charter review commission comes together and moves forward you know how word travels when we start looking for a city manager you may have an adverse effect on the city manager search council member stewart

Thank you. So city charter conversation is definitely something that people are talking about the different approaches to it. And dare I use a saying from the mayor, people get paralysis in their analysis on things. I didn't say that. I just said it. I don't know who said that. But what I want to say is that If we know that something is not working, we have all acknowledged in various ways, either publicly or behind closed doors, that it's not working. There are things that need to be addressed. We do not need to wait until a certain time in order to start the process to fix it. We have the ability to do that now. And when I mentioned this before about Audrey Carey being the first black mayor in Newburgh, but also in the state, when she ran, she won six months after she became mayor, she herself chartered a commission for charter review because she felt like there needed to be change. There needs to be charter review every so often. It should not even be a thing where we have to debate whether it's happening. It should be in the books that it's happening every five years we need to be reviewing the policies or how things are happening. That should be, that's, it's clear process. When people came in, I didn't like that there was this misinformation about, oh, only a certain number of people showed up. And I want to be very clear on what that looks like in real time, in real numbers. There are 11, 28,000 people here in the city of Newburgh. Almost 11,000 are registered voters. On any given time when we have an election, we get less than how many, 2% of the voters come out to vote. So when you have 50, 75 people coming to a city council asking for a charter reform, That is a lot of people that is asking for charter reform from all over, all of the wards. So I don't want to play into the numbers that less than 5% have come here and asked. Well, less than 5% actually get out and vote. This is an opportunity for us as the council to get out and educate the people on what the charter is and how it's impacting their lives and then allow them to contribute in an informed way to the conversation. You don't just say, oh, just leave it. We don't want them to know about it now until later. No, you say, hey, This is the conversation that's happening. This is how it impacts you. And this is how you should be, you know, apprised of what's going on. We have a responsibility. So all of us have to roll up our sleeves and we have to get out in the streets and we have to start talking to the people about what the charter is and how it impacts them.

Excuse me, we can do that with a petition.

Mr. Mayor, when we just had an election last year, did anybody run on the charter change? Did anybody mention the charter?

What does that have to do with now? So we're not debating should we have the charter review or not. We all agree. I think we all agree with the charter review. It's just process. Go ahead, Councilmember Martinez.

So actually, during one of our debates, charter change was brought up. This was specifically for the Ward 1 group. And I think it was myself, the opponents, and Ms. Hill was there as well. And one of the things that was brought up was, well, X, Y, and Z is not working. How do we change that? And that's when really one of the first conversations that we started having about charter review. And so personally for me, when we talk about representation, I wholeheartedly agree that we do have to be inclusive, but going based off just numbers, as Council Member Stewart was mentioning, we have to remember that even there are groups of people that are not even gonna be represented just in general. Like when we talk about our undocumented community, they can't vote. They are not represented full-heartedly in a way where their voices are being heard, right? And so when we talk about what groups we're targeting or what groups we're talking to, this is for everyone. And it might not seem like that or there might be language and confusion, but I am personally pushing for a chart of review for the working class. i am personally pushing for this because i know that there is more potential and more power that can come out of the city council if we have this review and again this is not um to point out a single person just it's the systemic uh process of a city manager the way that it's written as of now We're lucky that we have a city manager right now that is cooperative and working with us and has very nicely transitioned into this position, but I am thinking about the future, future councils, future elections, where the council and perhaps a new city manager will have or butt heads and have problems. And what happens when the person in power who's not even elected is vindictive and tries to use politics against council members? This is a power imbalance and that is why we're pushing for a review. not even saying that what i would like to see is going to happen because i'm not going to be on the commission that's why each of us are here to a point and to and we'll have a voice and say on who is on that commission but this is just to give newberg residents an option if newberg residents do not feel that they want anything to change then that's on you know the voter but we're here to present options and my personal opinion is the longer we sit here and do nothing nothing is going to change and so i'm going to take a leap of faith and say that we need to at least review and push for something

okay so i wanna i wanna i wanna make a motion to table local law number a 2026 do i have a second yes i second it seconded by councilman shakur we're going to take a vote i didn't get the comment but oh you had a comment oh i did but Okay, so we made a motion to table. We seconded it. We're going to do a discussion before we vote on the motion to table. Go ahead, Councilman Zoria.

You got the table.

well we we i made a motion to table councilman shakur second it to table and we have room for more discussion before vote so to give space to councilman zoria yes And then Councilman Shakur. Okay.

Macklemore. I'm sorry. Macklemore or Shakur.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay. For starters, if a city manager doesn't want to apply because he's scared of charter review, he probably won't make it in Newburgh because it's a pretty tough place to lead. And I will say that for the process... i think so people know after we vote on this people are going to be able to apply to be a commissioner just like they apply to any other board they have 30 days to select them we're going to pick nine people each one of us picks one and as a council we pick two and then we have alternates and that is open to everyone that wants to apply in the city of newburgh so to to say that the process is pretty clear in these three pages of what's going to happen we've been talking about this for months we've had a public hearing we've had many people come out so this is not a new conversation we've had this conversation in public many times and we will continue to have it and i think Saying that people people don't know about the Charter But they should go vote on it in November and not building any Commission or any community engagement is like setting up our community for failure So it doesn't make sense to me that you would ask people to vote on something that you admit that they don't know about so establishing a commission of people that are part of the community that apply and we decide on and and we vote on them publicly here like we do all the other boards so that they can educate our community on what is happening things are pretty clear that they haven't been working for months we have sat here sometimes got yelled at had interesting interactions have tried to see where the power lies in this government and for many months we didn't know because it's a black box so i think the process is pretty clear and the people will end up voting anyways the people will decide whether they accept what the commission has brought to the table or not and this is not a new topic i'm excited that we've had a public hearing and that over months there are more and more people filling these chambers talking about all these issues

Thank you, Councilman Macklemore.

We talk about transparency. And if we're being transparent and we say they're going to vote on it anyways, that's not transparency to me. Saying that they're going to vote on it anyway and I'm not coming at you or trying to debate you or refute what you're saying. What I am saying is that we're not giving the people, the entire community or the whole of the community, the opportunity to learn and to vote whether they want this or not. That's all I'm saying. As far as when it comes to the process, the process is what you want. The process is what you've established or what is established of what our the council is coming forth and saying this is the process of the charter review. I get that. But what I'm saying is that we're not given the opportunity for the entire community to see if they want this or not. You're talking about, it was 25 people. We counted it. In the papers, they gave you an extra person. They said 26. So, you know, if it's 25 and 26, regardless, that, yes, that was the amount of people that came. And I don't discount or discredit anybody for coming up and speaking on behalf of what they want. And I know you're going to try to sit here and debate me and try to refute this and this and this and that. And we're going to go until 10 o'clock talking about the same thing. I get it. But at the end of the day, I don't believe that the entire community is aware of what's going on. And yes, I know you said we gotta go out there and educate them and do this and do that, but at what point do we hear from the community, not 25, I'm talking about if we hear from the whole of the community. Once again, I said last time, where Johnson Street, Lander Street, Chamber Street. Yeah, so we're not reaching out to that community as well. And so it's only a certain amount of people that's speaking up. And granted, I thank you for speaking up, but you ain't speaking on behalf of me. You're not speaking on behalf of my neighbors, because I speak to my neighbors, the ones who are on the side of me, the ones down the street from me. So to me, it's more of what agenda are we pushing and why are we rushing? Why are we rushing to do something? And yes, I'm for change. I want to see change. I understand that certain things aren't working. I get everything that y'all said. I get it. But at what point do we include the community, the entire community, and say, OK, you know what? Let's just take a step back. Let's take a step back and let's talk to everyone. That's all I'm asking. And that's what I'm saying about the process. I don't think the process, I'm for the, I am for, because I know they're here. So I'm for the charter review. I'm for it. But I'm not for the process. over how we're doing and y'all can roll your eyes you can say what you want to say you can do what you want to do but at the end of the day i have my opinion just like you have your opinion can we call a question hold on we got one more comment one more comment so i think we've been very clear about this process right and once we establish this this commission

You know, everything that we do in this government, I've been doing this for eight years, this is my ninth year. I hear from the community, right, They are not always here to hear, well, I didn't know you made that, you voted on that. I didn't know that. Nobody told me. This is Newberg, right? It is going to be up to the commission, and I've said this over and over, to engage, however that means. I was part of the, one of the stakeholders during the master planning. That was a tremendous job, right? We stood on street corners over on Liberty and Broadway. We went to churches. We went to community, the community center. We engaged as much as we possibly could to ask people about the math. Did they know we actually had a master plan? This was back in 2008. What was it that they wanted to see change in Newburgh, right? We got some comments. You know, we put out a survey. We put it in the paper. You know, however we could get people to just participate and give us their input. We tried to do. And for a city of 30,000 people, it's not going to be perfect, but we are very well going to try to do this. And it's something that we actually need to do because I'm going to say it again. It has not been working. When people come to me in my community or my ward, my constituents, they say, can we do this? Can we do that? Can you take that parking sign?

No, my hands were tied because I was not loyal to Todd.

It did not work. So my hands were tied. I couldn't get anything done as a council member in Ward two. It didn't work. We need to change the system or review it. Thank you.

All right. So we have a motion on the table to table the local law number a 2026. We're going to vote. We're going to vote on the table. Roll call on the table.

Council Members Martinez? Nay. Macklemore?

Yes.

Monteverde? No. Shakur?

Yes.

Stewart? No. Zoria?

No.

Mayor Harvey?

Yes.

The motion, the table's defeated.

all right so then we're gonna we're going to go back to the original motion which was we had a motion and a second to local law number a that's 2026 roll call on a motion council members Martinez aye McLemore no Monteverde yes Shakur no

Stewart? Yes. Zoria?

Yes.

Mayor Harvey?

No.

Local law enacted.

Resolution number 123-2026, authorizing settlement of in-run property for 220 Dupont Avenue rear.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 123-2026? So move. First motion is set up by Councilman Zoria. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilmember Stewart. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. Macklemore?

Yes.

Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zoria? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Resolution approved.

That concludes the city manager's report.

Thank you very much, Mister Morris excellent job. City Council, Mister Morris. So next we go to if there are any old business items that the city manager executive team and Council needs to consider for the next work session in the old business.

Yes, yes. Councilman to core block. I like to know what's going to happen with my resolution log resolution are we going to be for the community or what we want to do we will sit here and just try to feed the people some bull and talk about it like we're widows. But then when it comes time to vote, oh. So I wanted to be voted on.

OK, so I'm at the next work session will take up the flock resolution and work session anyone else yes, I'm in Macklemore on the hometown heroes banner program.

In recognition of our veterans.

Hometown hero recognition will take that up anyone else all business.

Yes. He Sir, even if we can just get a a briefing from corporation Council.

Okay he served corporation Council at the work session anyone else all business. I like to add to the or session since everybody's talking about flock flock cameras. One if we can get an articulation about. flock cameras are for LPR license plate reader am I correct so we want to be yes yes okay so we want to readdress that and then the old business item for me is an update on the camera system that is not regarding flock but camera system how many cameras are actively working in the city uh how many are not working and and what we're gonna do uh regarding that because we do have a surveillance program in general Anyone else for old business?

Can I just add a little bit to what you said? If we can just help for the work session. If we can get options for FLOC, like an A, B, or C option in terms of the contract. If we breach it, what options do we have? Different vendors, what that is, because I did do some reading after the work session about a couple of cities who now

uh they did terminate with flock but they have new vendors and i looked up a couple of those new vendors so if we can get some options on what that looks like yeah that'd be great so we can do get a cost benefit analysis on that what are the um risk mitigation factors in terms of um legal liability uh if we opt out of the existing contract i know council member stewart mentioned that there would be a 500 000

It's $390,000.

Okay, $390,000 buyout cost to the city. So, yeah, we look at a cost benefit analysis, those mitigating factors, which would include any legal liability that we may incur if we were to opt out a flock. All right, any old business, any other? If not, we'll move on to new business. Oh, you got something else? New business, yes. Yup, we're in new business.

Can I get a parking study for Liberty Street? Okay, this will find out for the residents because the residents are already having a hard time parking. Can we get a parking study because the 245, I mean 145 units coming, that's 290, at least 290 more cars and they only ask for 45 parking spaces. So I would like a parking spot.

So we'll discuss that in the next work session if it's fiscally possible because I know that a parking study is going to come with a cost and I know also we may be able to lock down a grant for that. So we'll discuss that in the next work session. And there is a parking lot around the corner. Right. Anyone else?

new business anyone else if there's no okay i would uh i know a lot of people bring up the the waterfront and i would love an update from planning on like what next steps are how can we support the cfa process the grants that are coming up but i think uh looking forward and our city and and continuing to build and have a vision for the future i would love any update and to support any applications to any grants that are coming up for that Awesome yes.

For all I'm sorry can I do an old business item I just remember. I wanted to follow up on our retreat and to see where we are with that because we desperately need to like councilmember Stewart has been mentioning talk about our vision and goals and everything so.

OK so we'll put that on the work session for discussion for the retreat as a business item anything else new.

If we can before Tuesday if we can just read that the proposal and offer any edits to the retreat so when we talk about it on. There is no such as yet that's where session we are more informed than we can move it along faster.

OK. And just as a quick reminder, because I've had some ongoing discussion with Mr. Morris and the legal team. So we're finalizing a city manager consultant. We're finalizing, oh, now there's going to be a charter review commission.

Mm-hmm.

and we're going to have to pin down uh a consultant for the retreat and then also please keep in mind mr morris has made a request to hire a consultant for the budget for 2027 so there's a lot of moving parts i just want to make the council aware of that um so just just be uh And we only meet once a month starting in June. June, July, August we meet once a month. And so just keep that in mind. We'll make adjustments and recommendations when needed. But, yeah, so there's a lot happening. All right? okay all right anyone else if right and if all right now we'll go to final comments from the council we'll start with councilmember Martinez

thank you I was really thinking about a couple of the comments from the audience today about just overall housing employment poverty here in the city of Newburgh crime and it reminded me of my final my capstone project when I graduated with my masters and One of the projects in the research that I was doing involved how everything is interconnected and how these systems are made to really keep us in a cycle of poverty. The more you make, the less help you get, and then people aren't able to because they'll lose their benefits, they'll lose the support that they have, and really, What I really want to do is to, again, once the council is able to do this retreat and have a combined vision and goal for what we're doing for our city, is how we can get out of this poverty cycle. how can we increase our revenue here in the city of Newburgh how can we increase employment opportunities work with the county and state to bring opportunities and have people be able to sustain themselves without relying on predatory systems we talked about housing we talked about how much people This goes into folks who rely on housing assistance, Section 8, who have HUD funding, who have these vouchers that any little thing, they can lose them, and that becomes housing instability. And honestly, being so involved in a lot of the housing issues here, when I meet with tenants, the tenant unions, when we meet with people who are on the verge of being evicted, these are the insecurities, the gaps that we have to address in order to have people just have more secure housing, have a roof over their head so they can be more involved and really care about participate in what politics is about here and so that's just a reflection that i was thinking about today while people were talking and so i really hope that people can continue to come out voice their opinions and really keep us on the council here grounded so we can continue fighting for people of Newburgh, but specifically the working class because majority of Newburgh is working class. If not, I'd say everyone is here. And just to remind that there's a lot of division and at the national level, I feel like it's starting to get uh trickle down into the local level just a reminder that we're stronger together and we have more in common here in the city of newberg than we will ever have um with billionaires who don't even care about us so thank you thank you so much uh next we hear from councilman mclemore

so um thank you everyone for coming out um i'm gonna make mine short uh we have on saturday at 10 a.m at 245 liberty street we have the faith-based leaders summit so all are welcome it's in ward one so all are welcome to come and be a part of it we have mayor de stefano from middletown mayor flowers from poughkeepsie Mayor Harvey from Newburgh and they'll be here talking about bridging the gap between faith-based leaders and Our public servants and so all are welcome. Once again, there's no registration So everyone can come and show up and be a part of it other than that, thank you for everyone who who spoke up and We're gonna keep moving forward.

Thank you

Thank You councilman Macklemore next we hear from councilmember Montevideo thank you I'll keep this short I've had a migraine all night so to your point councilwoman Martinez I agree you know I was reading an article actually just today about I forget which municipality was going to vote on billionaires and millionaires buying Homes in our city and jacking up the price for rent and that's exactly what happened all over the United States That's why there's been you know, I mean renting an apartment is not affordable because of that I think it's something that we actually need to go back and look at we talked about in the beginning about doing a looking at Airbnbs and, you know, you have to be an owner, owner occupied. I think that's something that maybe, not now, Michelle, I don't want to worry you. I don't want to put that on your plate. But we need to revisit that and pass a resolution so that we kind of limit those Airbnbs. Thank you.

Thank you next we hear from councilman shakur.

Yes, thank you for coming out Sunday is my 50th birthday and Monday, I got to have a major operation so between the birthday and operate if you don't see me the 4th you'll know I didn't make it but yeah, you'll keep doing the job.

Thank you councilman shakur we don't bring it to make it. Next we hear from councilmember Stewart.

Thank you we're going to keep this short it is always a pleasure to see when people stay behind. I just wanted to bring to your attention through the resolutions that were passed today there was $2,195,000 that was moved and again, I want you to know these numbers and pay attention to these resolutions because if you're tracking the money, you get to hold us accountable and if you understand what is happening, you get to hold us accountable. You can't hold us accountable if you don't know what's going on and you don't know the dollar amounts that are attached to a lot of the things that we are hearing in terms of the resolutions. I tried to intentionally slow them down because and when you're sitting on the side of the desk as I was, I didn't understand a lot of those things and I want people to walk away from every city council meeting that they either listen to or they are a part of and they attend, they know something, they're learning something. So I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate all of you and I have been thinking long and hard about how as a newly elected official what my role is in terms of making sure people are empowered. And I take that very seriously. So when I say that we have a responsibility as a council, as staff to be able to educate people, I'm not saying that just to say it. I say it because I mean it. When you know better, you do better. And a lot of times people just don't have the information and sometimes they don't even know what to ask. So my job I'm taking on is making sure that people either know the right questions or they have the correct information. So thank you. I appreciate it. And I want to ask if you know anyone that writes grants or that has the ability to connect with our local nonprofits regarding grant writing to help get funding, please send them our way. We have several nonprofit organizations that are looking for ways to increase their grant funding or to get more grants. So if you know grant writers that are being generous and not trying to charge you know a whole mortgage please send them our way i would love to connect them with some of our local non-profits thank you very much uh next we hear from councilman zoria thank you everyone for coming out um

I'll try to keep it short also. It's definitely a sacrifice being an elected official and people will shame you and bring up things and make things up and try to tarnish your reputation and make slight comments to try to pick away at you. Half the battle is like starting not to even pay attention because I know what I'm about. I know the things I've invested my time, the sacrifices I've made. I literally could be home cuddling with my daughter right now and I decided public service and it comes with a lot of ups and downs and turning around and learning, which I am doing every day. I think for those of you that don't have my number and do want to get in touch with me, for many meetings I shared my number. And I thought it was a mistake at first, but it's actually helpful to hear everyone's perspective. My number is 654-0355. But imagine being on a team, and one of your team members gets a message and instead of letting you know, comes to a public hearing and just tries to shame you about someone in Ward 4 not knowing me. I would like to meet everyone in Ward 4. I also have a full-time job, a nonprofit that I do as a passion project that makes opportunities available for youth. I have a four-year-old daughter. I am definitely reading all these packets. I am invested in the city of Newburgh and the future. And if any of you know someone that might want to reach me, my number is 845-654-0355. So it's easy to launch attacks and try to shift narrative about people, but I think that we should respect each other and our characters. We are all here because we are trying to make a difference and we took this, made a hard decision that we're all sacrificing. We get name called, we get blamed, we get blamed for things that are not real, we get called all kinds of things. I've been told to go back to my country and I was born here. So, I mean, it's just interesting that this job comes with a lot of pressure people try to try to make a joke about it but we take this seriously and I appreciate all my colleagues and would love to actually find unity I'm excited for eventually doing the retreat when the time comes and it makes sense but in terms of these issues the city managers search that went on longer than I planned the city manager search part of it is a public engagement process where the community will get to meet the candidate another part of it is that our department heads will get to decide on the candidate and the commission we have to make hard just 30 more seconds on the charter review commission there is no way we could reach everybody the turnout for the school district was 1800 out of the hunt uh i don't know how many thousands there's 28 000 newberg this is a whole area the the last thing I want to say is we live in a representative democracy we cannot consider continue deferring our responsibilities as leaders to other people the city manager the voters we were voted to make hard decisions and we have to make them thank you

So I want to thank you, Councilman Zoria, for your passionate comments about unity. I also want to thank Councilmember Stewart for the paralysis in the analysis quote. It was my quote from King, and I like that.

That was really nice. That was a good touch.

I think that we can disagree without being disagreeable. I think we can disagree in healthy debate, right? And we can be respectful, and I agree with you on that. There's no need to publicly shame anyone just because we take different positions on a particular matter. I trust my colleagues. I think you guys are working very hard. You're very wonderful people. I'm learning about the new council members and your personalities and I'm really, really appreciating who you are and how diligent you all are. just as well as the existing council members. I appreciate and respect your due diligence. And you're right. I think that it really takes a lot of courage and takes a lot of gumption to make the sacrifice to serve the public in an elected position. We'll pause it. Pause real quick. Pause me. We're with the fire trucks. okay okay so more importantly I want to say thank you for the public coming out speaking up about the matters in the city there's a lot of work to do I'm excited about the summer I'm excited about what the city has to bring in terms of our revitalization in terms of crystallizing our vision and our master plan uh and to all our executive team thank you all all the employees in the city thank you for coming out and have a good night meeting adjourned