City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, it's the City of Newburgh City Council work session for legislative priorities. The date is September 14th, 2026, and the time is 610 PM. So the purpose of tonight is for the City Council to discuss, review, and list its legislative priorities for the 2027 budget season. We'll put up the previous year's legislative priorities on the screen, and the City Council can either delete or add to that list. And then at the next legislative priority meeting on September 28th, the City Council can rank the priorities that they developed tonight. So on the screen is the list that we have from last year's legislative priority work session. And we also distributed the list, a paper copy of the list to you. That's in front of you now.

Oh, sorry. No, you go.

Is this where we could add as well?

Yes, you can add, delete.

So I would like to, I don't know if we're moving a little fast, but since he just walked in, I'll let him say it himself. But submitted the local law for surveillance technology and oversight.

Local law what?

For surveillance technology and oversight. And that was sponsored, that was council led by Councilman Shakur and I.

Also, I don't see it here, but I wanted to add, 1% for our legislation I know that was something we have been discussing 1% for our legislation. The art and cultural. Commission because I noticed that there's a lot of development going on there's a lot of um revitalization affordable housing and infrastructure upgrade and and most importantly i think that um There's a strong, strong art community here in the city of Newburgh. And if we can revisit that 1% for art legislation, we may potentially, with the time that I have remaining on city council, be able to get it up and going so that we can create a funding vehicle for the Art and Cultural Commission and we can also have funding so that we can bring the art community together because there is a serious thriving art community in the city and i think that anytime you revitalize a city anytime you see strong economic impact or improvement it it always involves a very significant art community so I would love to do that I don't know as far as the Juneteenth City staff holiday I know myself councilman Shakur councilman Macklemore had had it listed on the legislative priority list if you all want to speak to that if you still believe we can make it a priority for workers to have that day off in the city of Newburgh for it's already been made a national holiday the state made it a holiday so if you all want to speak to that

Thank you, Mayor. I do believe and support the fact that Juneteenth should be a designated paid holiday, or however you want to term that. This is something, as the Mayor said, is nationally recognized, so I would like to keep that on there on the list. Councilman Shakur.

Yes, because basically I've been doing it for six years, working with the Juneteenth event in the city of Newburgh. And one of the things that our city workers want that day off, especially when it's a weekday, they would like to have that day off. So that would be a part of why I would like that to happen because

I do know that it is. I know different contracts and negotiations are coming up, but I agree that it should be a day off for everyone. Yeah, and I think that would make you stronger.

Very good, so far I have a local law for surveillance technology, 1% for the arts, and Juneteenth, designate that as a city holiday. Those have been discussed so far.

So one thing I would like to discuss also, the block resolution. How will we be moving forward on it because we also me and Councilman on Macklemore we have been working on it and we also want to make sure that once the resolution. Yeah, we also had a law.

And you would have we talked about the technology oversight so okay, what does your radar right before you came in.

Okay, so yes, that was one of my priority one my also my priorities. the hiring practices in the city of Newburgh and to make sure that the city residents have a priority because right now A lot of residents are looking for work and I think work begins right here at home. Just like we made sure the residents were done when the housing front had that priority, we'd like to make sure that priority is in the hiring practices and strengthening that oversight and making sure that our department heads and because I don't know if you may on the HR department is having a problem or where the problem is, but this is our problems along with residents of finding work in the city of Newport.

One of the deletes that was brought to my attention, Councilmember Monteverde just reminded me, the moratorium on street excavations, if we could delete that, I don't think that's no longer a legislative priority. I do want to speak quickly to the standardized garbage containers, 96 gallons. sort of as an addendum to that uh... if we could include the newberg street sweepers program i know that uh... we have funded the newberg street sweepers uh program but i think if we can add it to standardized garbage containers 96 gallons and then as an addendum to that legislative priority um include uh legislation to the Newburgh Street Sweepers program and the focus of the Newburgh Street Sweepers program which also falls under sanitation where we can make a concerted effort an intentional effort where we can hire folks to intentionally street sweep and then during the winter months we can have them doing some of the shoveling and uh particularly those who were formerly incarcerated if we could focus on on on those individuals that may not have employment if we can you know include them on the street sweeper program

so to the to the garbage cans that's on the list um speaking to the street sweeper program that's something that's funded in the budget right the city is implementing that it is funded now okay uh it it is doing exactly what you described okay um i don't know

all right so then we don't need to add it to the list it's more of a budget item legislative item and also um oh sorry are you done last year when i did point out the uh standardized garbage cans to mr todd benning he mentioned that this is something that we could budget on the council so i just want to make sure that we're all aware if that's the case that we need to do this during our budget hearings

And to follow up on this, on Mayor Streetsweeping, a lot of young men, they want to go to sanitation, and when they apply for sanitation, they're told they need a license to take garbage off a truck, you know. But five young men I know have applied, and they said they were told they need a license to work with sanitation, to work on, you know. And I understand if you're driving a truck,

but I would like to know all right so one of the things that it is a budget item councilman Shakur so what we'll do is when we get to the budget hearings because we're hoping that the street sweeper program will be a feeder to giving guys full-time employment you know if they do well in this program so we can work on that councilmember Martinez

Thank you, I have a couple questions. I wanna start off by voicing my support for the inclusionary zoning. I think that that's gonna be very instrumental, especially since we have been discussing the Boa Hillside for a while. Any new development that is coming into our city, I think this would be very beneficial. I know that this council supports mixed use, mixed income housing. But inclusionary zoning will really just make sure that even our most vulnerable populations are still having accessibility to these new housing developments. And I would like to really work on that. I think that if housing is one of the main priorities of the council, this should be one of our priorities at the top of the list. And I know Councilman Grice had really worked on inclusionary zoning before he left, and I would really like to kind of continue that work and get this going. I also wanted to voice my support, or actually just to revisit the short-term rental regulation. We introduced this probably like two, three years ago and it kind of fell off. And I would like to explore maybe what that would look like in today's, like in the following year to come, what that might look like. And I had additional questions regarding what might fall under the budget and what might fall under a legislative priority. we discussed previously like what to do with certain money regarding a sidewalk repair program and I'm really interested in kind of making that a little bit more permanent not just kind of like out of our community block grants but if that falls under the budget I'm happy to discuss that then would that be the idea of allocating funds to residents for sidewalk repair or hiring staff to repair sidewalks um or both kind of both yeah kind of like open to discussion um i just really am interested in in getting some type of assistance to repair the sidewalks especially in ward one where We have a lot of seniors on Grand Street and especially during the winter, the sidewalks are very uneven and broken and people have fallen and hurt themselves. So just whatever option I guess would make it easier for residents to access. and then this one might be a little bit harder but following what New York City has recently introduced I don't know if this would fall under good cause eviction like protections but regarding housing In New York City, they added protections and they made it like a legislative item where they recognize and protect tenant unions, where private landlords are required to give tenant associations protection, basically allowing them to meet in common areas without any retaliation, which I wasn't sure if already falls under good cause.

So there's already a general municipal law provision that talks about what units of local government can and can't do regarding tenant associations. So you can form a committee, but everything else is going to be preempted by state law. And the caveat here is lot of what New York State legislation says except in cities with populations or more and that is the cutoff that tells you New York City has different rules than the rest of the state that's why I asked thank you I think that was it and I support Crystal Lake becoming a park

Councilmember Shakur.

To follow up with Councilwoman Martinez, especially with the inclusionary, definitely with that. But once we get these residents into these places, I would have, like I know we've been having problems on 90 Grand Street besides the snow. I've been aware that they haven't had an elevator service on one of the elevators for approximately two months or something like that. but one of the things is um with all these i remember up on day street they were having problems with um i guess insects i mean bed bugs or whatever and so once we get these including stuff going helping residents getting to there is it possible we can do like a yearly um cold uh on these buildings to make sure that they're we're not putting people in places where there you know that there's no of course we're talking about senior citizens a lot of them maybe not don't have the means or don't know how to follow up on how to get things fixed or things like that so just some way maybe once a year we could do some type of follow-up to make sure that they're living in better conditions or good conditions.

Councilmember McLemore.

With the designation of Crystal Lake, I know that the council is for that or is in agreement with that, but I do know that there were some things that were going on with Crystal Lake. Could we um get a refresher on that I know uh the former city manager had had did a whole presentation on that I believe but um I would like to get a refresher on what the issues were and um you know the pitfalls and everything like that that were going on with Crystal Lake

I could summarize them right now, if you will.

Oh, okay.

I wanted you to be prepared. I didn't know you were prepared. Okay, go ahead. So the city owns a number of parcels in the area of Crystal Lake. I believe it's over 100 acres. Some of those parcels involve encroachments from neighboring properties, so properties that the city does not own. So there's adjacent properties that have structures or other items on city property. It's referred to as an encroachment. um the there was previously a law passed to increase the restrictions related to wetlands that law went into effect at a state level and there was concern about how that law would affect the resolution of those encroachments because the resolution of those encroachments would require physical work on the land which likely had these newly designated wetlands The city went through, surveyed the wetlands with a wetland biologist and brought the delineations onto the map. And shortly after doing that, the state rolled back the newly adopted wetland regulations for various reasons. Resolving those encroachments is still an issue that the city needs to undertake. In addition, the city was also recently awarded a grant in the amount of $500,000 to construct a future dog shelter. The city does not have a dog shelter and it is in need of a dog shelter. the location for that future dog shelter is on one of the parcels that would be designated as parkland so if it was designated as parkland there would be a problem constructing the dog shelter this piece of property fronts along Corwin Court so it has road frontage it doesn't detract from the the parkland atmosphere but it is technically on one of those parcels so those are some of the larger items associated with the designation of parkland for crystal lake

Thank you. Also, if, I don't know what the food truck, that's something that you did, if you wanted to explain that so I know exactly what's going on with that. Yeah, this is you. It says colds or something. Was there an issue or?

Yeah so this actually happened I think a year or two ago where due to code enforcement we had food trucks that were usually parked on Broadway were unable to park where they usually had like their businesses and Um, we, or I wanted to designate a certain area in the city or adjust legislation to allow food trucks to park, um, in areas where, um, I guess like higher density, just more accessible to people. A couple of food trucks already have been parking in like, um, the rec like parking lot or they'll, they'll have like their own like little, um, or wherever they you know if they if they live there but I think a lot of food trucks really were affected by having to find a different location and relocating so just wanted to touch base on that okay councilmember Shakur

Yes, I also would like to explore maybe some feasible funding for expanding our bus services in the City of Newburgh because transportation has been a big problem in the City of Newburgh, especially with residents trying to get to the surrounding shopping areas, jobs and stuff like that. And how maybe we can work, because I know we don't have, we don't, that's not our bus. Correct. But some way we can work with it or just expand the possibility of people being able to have better transportation. How can we do that?

Yeah, we could certainly work with the county to identify the issues with the existing bus service. The county does run the bus service in the city of Newburgh. I don't think it would be a legislative priority, but it certainly is an issue, and we can certainly work with the county to identify the issues and try to resolve them. Thank you. Council Member Martinez.

I actually just remembered. sorry regarding um constituent management i think maybe some of this would fall under the budget if not all but i wanted to see what we could do in terms of having either some type of system or more assistance like staff specifically that is dedicated to helping council address constituent issues. I think one of the things that all my colleagues and I have experienced is that Many of us work full-time. We have to balance a lot of our full-time jobs, families, and everything outside of this position. And we get a lot of communication via email. via social media our personal phones and it's honestly not realistic to expect everyone to respond to everyone 24 7 and I really do think that in order to better serve the community we have to have some type of better organizational system in place or have something where I'm not saying to create like a new office or a new committee or anything but perhaps something that will allow us to organize ourselves much better to take notes because a lot of us will work on the same issue but we don't always know so there's a lot of overlapping and in order to just be a little bit more efficient and get back to everybody on time I really would like to come up with some type of a either invest in a constituent management system um either or add more staff that can help us focus on that or have some type of legislation where we add a new committee and perhaps we get volunteers and assign community liaisons but whatever that might be i think a lot of us are drowning and we would really appreciate more help

Okay. Depending on how we resolve that issue, it may or may not involve a legislative priority, like you mentioned.

Yep. I remember talking to Mr. Venning about this last year, and he said that it was just a matter of us, as a council, requesting that we put this in the budget to add additional staff for support.

Council member Shakur. And also one of the things I wanted to go back on was the possibility of getting investigated before I did funding to the police review board instead of relying on the police to explore their own issues. And I would also, I know a couple years ago, During one of our budgets, we had to review some issues that were going on with our police department. I'd like to know how can we get the results of that, whether there's compliance with these results or lack of compliance and what are the gaps that we need to fill back in.

I didn't hear what he said. I didn't hear what you said. I'm sorry.

Oh, I was saying, so a couple years ago during budget, I guess, a budget hearing, we had issues with the police department. And it was supposed to be, I guess, the investigator looked into or whatever. And I would like to see the results of those issues that we talked about. I think it was two years ago, and possibly two or three years ago. Had they complied with it was a mission they had to comply with to get the budget I guess or whatever and I just like to know did they comply with all the gaps that were in this in that budget hearing and what happened and did we catch up and are we ahead or just look at it.

Any additional comments? Council Member Monteverde?

Yes. Regarding economic development and small business assistance, I'm constantly being asked about this. I don't know if we want to include the bid on here as a legislative priority action item because I do get a lot of questions about that and when is that going out? What's the status on that? Also, if there's anything that, you know, in economic development, if we can include any type of grant or funding assistance for small businesses, I know that we do the small signs already are, I'm sorry, not the small signs, the sign, signage, but if there's anything else we can do, maybe perhaps out of the CDBG grant as well. Thanks.

Councilmember Stewart.

Thank you Jason. Going over the list that was here from 2025. I just wanted to touch base on some of them that I would definitely like to see move forward one of them is the exclusionary zoning and inclusionary zoning and also the designation for Crystal Lake not sure what needs to be done I just heard you talk about the wetland designations and how all of those things are rolled back so what would be the next steps for us if.

So our our next step is to possibly eliminate the parcel that the dog shelter would be on as a designation of parkland or subdivide off a piece of property to encompass that dog shelter and then resolve all the encroachments that currently exist on all the other parcels and the resolution of those encroachments are not necessarily straightforward because they involve the say septic systems structures uh fill other issues that are not necessarily easily resolved do we have a report on that on everything that needs to be done we do before it's not a report it's a essentially a list a list of things that would need to be done before there can be a designation um no we don't have that well we we have the survey that

Indicates what issues we have with the boundary lines and the property so you don't when you designate parkland It's a council resolution and It is a what it's a one-way option. Okay, you can't undo you can't undesignate or once it's designated, you can't undo it without a special act of the state legislature. So it's really important that you get the area correctly demarcated and that you're 100 sure that that's what you need to dedicate so we did a survey of the lands that the city owns we know where there are boundary line issues they're not uniform um and we have to and so the resolution of those issues is not going to be uniform they almost have to go on a case-by-case basis and then subdividing off a parcel or changing a lot line to address the dog shelter situation that's um that's fairly straightforward planning board application, but the resolution of that particular designation doesn't stop or preclude the land that we do have that we do use for recreational purposes from continuing to be used for those purposes. And as long as the council is uniformly supportive of keeping it as open space, it is not going to hamper the goals and objectives for the property. And simultaneously with resolving the encroachments and getting the meets and bounds and the land designations ironed out and and finalized you can go on and think about and continue to do master planning and other project management project beginnings for the other things that you want to see happen in that location so it doesn't have to be completely linear things can happen like on a Gantt chart you're going to work on this phase over this period of time and it may overlap with this other phase and so all those things can happen somewhat simultaneously at the same you know along the same timeline and so you're not

uh you know it's not a one foot in front of the other process okay okay that's really helpful to know um because i think we should think about starting whatever the next step is or taking that next step or whatever that first phase would look like and figuring it out from there is it possible to get a copy of the survey

Yeah, the survey should be still on the city's website.

Is it? OK. Thank you. The next, I'm sorry, go ahead, Ramona. No, go ahead. The other one was the short-term rentals, I'm sorry, for the rental registry. The rental registry, I know this is a part of mine. I see that it's connected to rent, so I have a list of stuff. um one of the things that i was concerned about um even going through the issues with the born and kenny was the rental registry and the code enforcement gaps that we underwent i think that is really important for us to address the gaps and code enforcement that's tied to our rental registry. Reason being that that is one of the reasons why a lot of these things slip through the cracks and owners and landlords that were negligent we're able to just allow residents to live in squalor. We really need to figure out how we close those gaps on enforcement in that rental registry. I know we have the resolution in the charter. but it has not been enforced that way so I'm not sure how we do that how we move forward but we definitely need to close those gaps because it's not just the born and kinney that is going through this in terms of residents it's citywide and I think that we have teeth and we have laws to do that and we need to do it I was really disappointed that We even had to call the Attorney General for the Attorney General to step in because we have this enforcement or capabilities to enforce our own laws, and we did not do that. So I'm hoping that we can move forward, and we are able to do that. And I know that when this came out, it was like coming off of COVID, and there was a lot of issues around enforcing things, the actual language, because of... staffing and things like that but that's a failure on the part of the city and we can't have that and allow that uh and if we are responsible for protecting our residents and their habitability so we definitely need to close those gaps um I'm not sure how you frame that as a legislative priority or is that a part of budgeting because it may be staffing related in terms of enforcement or it may be training on how to enforce these things, you know, unilaterally across the city with landlords. i'm not sure so but i'm putting it out there that that is definitely it should be a priority for all of us because this ties into so many other issues that residents are complaining about and are dealing with in the city regardless of where they live in the city if they're renting they are living in uninhabitable conditions nine times out of ten code enforcement is probably something that is that needs to be looked at

So if I can just clarify about the short-term rental registry, that was for... Oh, that was the Airbnbs. For Airbnbs, the short-term ones. So I think we talked about that when we were In the beginning when, right, they were buying up houses, investors, and doing Airbnbs. And we were having, of course, obviously we have a housing crisis. And I know that other municipalities have done this where if you live in the house and you have a two or three unit building, you can do one Airbnb, but you have to occupy the building. That's my understanding. In terms of the rental registry, I think that we had talked about putting this on here because, and I'm not sure it's the place to put it, but we wanted to make sure that we were following up. At the time, we weren't doing the rental inspections and following through with those. And the council was being asked a lot of questions. We were getting a lot of calls. regarding um housing that was deplorable so that's why we put it on here but i'm not sure it's the place to for it to be i i think that we need better training we need to have you know if it's the software or something maybe in the budget we discussed this but there has to be some sort of accountability i guess right um with the codes i even asked for you know uh reporting when the city manager can you give your report if we can get a report uh from codes um you know how many buildings passed the rental registry how many were inspected um just so that we are able to track it somewhat thank you um and also in terms of the rental i'm sorry in terms of housing

It seems like everything leads back to codes, right? All things and all roads a lot of time leads back to codes. I recently got a report and on the report there was one big missing piece and I was speaking to Jason about that missing component and it was this area or this this category where we did not have a place to show the follow-up so there was no closeout of the actual item that was listed under code maybe it was a complaint about no heat no hot water and it showed that there was something that was it was addressed but it didn't show up in the report that it was addressed and it didn't show up in the reporting that it had been closed out that is a major issue and a major gap when we are talking about reporting because it looks like we are not going back to follow up to close out these items so I don't know if it's a software issue and that's something that can be in budget I know muni city doesn't have that option as Jason was saying I don't know if we can get that option or is there an additional software we can use to kind of give us a more comprehensive reporting system to show whatever we had our code enforcement officers went out if that item was either closed out it's open whatever the status is we want to be able to get that line item because I mean that that category because that would help in a lot of reporting if codes can just run a report to say no that was done we followed up this is accurate So I think that's important. The other piece that I have, I know we are getting ready to close out, that I would like us to look at is our tax assessment. We need tax assessment reform. We have a lot of homeowners that are drowning in taxes. We need to examine how the city's current tax assessment and approach how we can provide relief to some of the residents, it's a lot. And I know people look at gentrification one way, but gentrification also can look like pricing out homeowners who can no longer afford the taxes. We have one of the highest tax base in our area, and we really need to figure out how we offer our residents some tax relief. don't know what that looks like we can work with the tax assessor but our home owners are drowning and that should definitely be a priority for 2026. council members are real

I'll just run through them pretty quickly. I know we have another meeting, but I kind of try to lump these as far as good jobs and stronger local economy. I really do think we have the bid study that Councilwoman Monteverde mentioned. We have the BOA study. We have the comprehensive plan that needs to be updated. really do think that we need an overall and I know we just hired a economic development person I think we do need a kind of economic plan that ties all these into one kind of cohesive strategy I would love to see that I think as being on the council I see a bunch of think we need to revisit our kind of surplus property policy and see what we how we deal with reverter clauses tolling agreements after sale and and just make sure I know we mentioned it back in February I had little idea of what that was but would love to kind of review that policy to make sure we're standardizing and speaking of boa and the waterfront I do think we should be clear on like what community benefits we would like to see as we develop a plan not sure if those things go hand in hand or if that's part of the planning process but just wanted to bring that up Permit fees. I think that a $75 permit fee, no matter what the size of the event, is not adequate for our city as it's growing and things are getting bigger. I mean, a massive fair that requires overtime police, requires DPW, requires redoing the grass, should have a cost that's associated with the size of the gathering and the public event. I think like a $75 flat fee, we're ending up subsidizing private events. So I think we should look into a policy that reviews these permit fees. we've talked about this pilot application and review policy how we look at pilots there should be a standardized ways for investors and council to understand what what's coming to the table and have clear public hearing process for pilots. I think there's a lot of folks concerned about the kind of whack-a-mole approach we have for pilots, and I know there is some semblance of a process, but I think we need a formalized process, and I think we've already started that, but that is a priority of mine. Rental license agreements. Again, I'm gonna echo what Councilwoman Stewart mentioned in terms of reporting. I think we do get regular reportings on what violations exist, but it would be nice to get a report on the status of the rental license enforcement. There's also a trust fund tied to rental licenses that is dedicated trust fund. I would be curious to just learn more what policy we have for using those funds. uh the comprehensive plan for the waterfront i think it was included in the budget i'm grateful to see that i would love to see how it ties into these other things that we have going on lwrp nri the crusade creek greenway those are all important i know they kind of tied in and i know there's that's already been added to the budget so i think economic development for our city is so important giving our financial outlook picture and just want to make sure we can try to accelerate that because I think homeowners are feeling the pressure on taxes Eight, I know we have a complete streets policy. I don't know if there's any type of checklist to make sure we are implementing complete streets policies in our infrastructure projects. So I would love to make sure that it's not just an idea and that we have ways of implementing complete streets, whether it's a checklist during our infrastructure projects. Not sure what that would look like, but I want to make sure that policy comes alive. number nine i think this this is in two polar opposites one for organizations that have existing agreements i think it's taken really long to get license agreements for organizations using city land and resources and on the other side people that don't have formal agreements i think that opens us up to exposure liability exposure i think if there are people informally using our spaces, buildings, and we have exposure. We have a fiduciary responsibility to make agreements with folks. I know there's some cases of that. 10, city school and college partnerships. There's a CTE building that was built just now. I think formalizing a way we integrate with, we have two colleges in the city of Newburgh. We have a CTE building, a pipeline of kids that can work with Newburgh. And I would love to formalize through a formal resolution or MOU with these educational institutions to create a pipeline of people. I think if we post jobs, we should have our Newberg kids applying, and we should have a pipeline and a formalized way to integrate and collaborate with these institutions that are helping grow our young people. Just a couple more. And again, this is not like we have to do it in the next couple months. I think this is just overall legislative priorities for my whole tenure. Climate ready. We designated our city a climate ready and a climate smart community and we have done so many things to actually get points and we are leaving funding on the table. So I would like to accelerate designating a climate smart coordinator and report on all the things that literally allow us to get funding to keep doing more great things and i'm excited about the progress we've made but i want to make sure that we are not leaving money on the table to continue building on the stuff that we are already doing tree ordinance for years this has been on the back burner we need a permit process a clear way for people to plant trees we heard from uh uh from gretchen stevens uh the the and hudsonia they've been working on the natural resource inventory we know the importance of we've invested in the environmental justice fellowship program but there's still not a clear way of planting a tree in the city of newburgh and we have an arborist i'm glad we invested in arborist so i would love to see that finally get adopted um ways to get around in transportation i do think that it is important for us we we we we uh pass a resolution to support west shore passenger rail study we have the beacon ferry that that that is also um uncertain um i think yes we need a we need to figure out the doc but we also need to collaborate more with the state and a lot of the decisions being made in other places are affecting uh the ability of our residents to get to work to to get home to travel to go to medical appointments transportation we need to figure out ways to get around and collaborate with our state partners around transportation so how However, we can collaborate more with the state. It would be amazing Parking reform. I know we're doing a parking study. But as soon as that is over Parking is a big issue and I think we need to learn about what options I know the state we need to go through the state to do residential parking permits, but I'm looking forward to implementing whatever that parking study tells us I think we should move to implement things to mitigate parking in the city of Newburgh that is a very hot topic to two or three more and I'm done I think sound finances Sound finances is like one of these recurring issues. We do need a fund balance policy. We need debt limits. We need contingency lines. I think it would be nice to have a capital plan. I know we have a lot of infrastructure projects going on, and as a new person, trying to wrap my head around all this stuff is intense. So I think we do get reports on our maturing debt, but it would be nice to know kind of the long-term kind of capital plan for all the things we plan on doing. I know there's a new municipal facility potentially and all these things. I would love to create policies so that we make sure that we have sound financial policies. I know the last city manager had interesting ways of using enterprise funds and balancing the budget. using the vacancy factor which I think does a disservice for our council because when we get a proposed budget with an expected vacancy rate that is not telling us the right story so we're voting on it on a budget that is only on paper exists and in reality in practice it's completely different so I think we need sound financial policies to make sure that these budgets that we get are what we're striving for not figuring out a way to balance it from Peter and Bob and everyone else on the back end by the end of the year. And if we do get quarterly reports that are more detailed than they were last year, I would like to include the vacancy factor on those things. last two things i promise there is the green light legislation and the rules of order amendment that we already are passing through i think as we get a new city manager i think in the past this practice of like we have to the gate is the city manager i don't think works because if you're not in favor with the person in that office then you don't get your things on the agenda and that is a problem for me so i do think that we need a green light uh these priorities should be posted on on our website there should be a clear uh detail on the status of these and there should also be a clear way of getting on the agenda obviously we have a lot of details to work out but when we have a new city manager coming in we want to make sure our rules of order allow them to not have to choose pick favorites choose which one makes sense like we need a way to get things on the agenda that's formalized and that's clear and that is transparent so the public knows who's working on what and we know who's working on what um and then the last one is that we need an eval uh uh an annual evaluation for our city manager before he gets here that is uh appropriate for the office. I saw the evaluation report we have for our past city manager, and I think it is totally inadequate. And I do think that the city manager survey and search and hearing from the community, it was so great to hear from you guys. It was so great to hear from our department heads of what we're doing, how we can do better. We learned so much from that, so I do wanna formalize an evaluation criteria for our new city manager. Thank you.

Okay thank you we are out of time we have to move to the city council meeting.

I just want a point of clarification on what's legislative what are legislative priorities because some of the things that the councilman has mentioned are more project based so if you could just give us

that clarification particularly for our new council members they're generally items that involve a code revision or an ordinance change uh for the the next year's budget yes because i picked my own four or five priorities but i got about 300 more and can i just though because i have a lot of priorities but i thought i would pick the ones that we were working on okay so we have the list developed there'll be another so i can get my steward

I'm sorry yes we have another legislative priority meeting at September 28th at 6 p.m. we'll review these this list and then vote on the prioritization in that meeting also if I may real quick I've been the keeper of this legislative action item list this is a very old one I've updated it I can you know send it so that it's a little bit more updated thank you okay thank you we'll close this work session and move to the City Council meeting

all right a live stream is up so this is the city of Newburgh City Council meeting September 14th 2026 it is now five minutes after the hour we're going to start with a moment of silence and I'm going to ask being that September 11 was a few days ago if we can In our moment of silence, think about the families that were afflicted and harmed that very day 25 years ago. September 11th marks a tragic day in the history of the United States of America. And we shall never forget that day. So we can have a moment of silence thinking about the families, the first responders that were involved in that moment of silence. Thank you very much for that moment of silence and request. Now we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge my allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

thank you very much for that roll call please council member Martinez present council member McElmore here council member Monteverde here council member Shakur here council member Stewart here council member Zarrillo here mayor Harvey here so carried thank you very much

Next on the agenda we move to communications and under communications we go to item number 4 item number 4 we need an approval of the minutes from the City Council meeting of August the 10th 2026 so move first motion is said to by Councilman Shakur do we have a second second by Councilman McLemore roll call on the motion please

Councilmember Martinez. Aye. Councilmember McLemore. Yes. Councilmember Monteverde. Yes. Councilmember Shakur. Yes. Councilmember Stewart. Yes. Councilmember Zarrillo. Yes. Mayor Harvey.

Yes.

thank you very much um also under communications we have item number five and item number five is the city manager's update mr jason morris thank you mayor the city of newberg hosted its 37th annual international festival over labor day weekend friday september 4th through sunday september 6th at the delano hitch recreation park From delicious food and family fun, fun games, rides, and spectacular fireworks finale, it was a wonderful way to celebrate our community and close out the summer together. Thank you to everyone who helped make this weekend possible and to all of our residents, visitors who came out to celebrate with us. On Friday, September 11, the City of Newburgh hosted a Patriot Day Remembrance Ceremony for the attack that took place on September 11, 2001. The ceremony took place at the 9-11 Memorial located at the intersection of Park Place and Grand Avenue. Thank you to the City of Newburgh Fire Department for organizing this meaningful 25th anniversary ceremony, and to the Police Department for participating in supporting our community's opportunity to gather, reflect, and remember. On Saturday, September 12th, Councilman McLemore hosted a law enforcement symposium with law enforcement professionals from across Orange County to provide an opportunity for the public to engage in conversations about current events, public safety strategies, and issues impacting local neighborhoods. The panel included Council Member McLemore, Mayor Harvey, Orange County Sheriff Arteta, City of Newburgh Chief Rolla, City of Middletown Chief Iwanchu, Town of Crawford Chief Blasco, Town of Newburgh Zielberger, and New Area NAACP President Kyle Conway. The city of Newburgh's Delano Hitch Aquatic Center ended its summer season on Labor Day, Monday, September 7th. During the summer season, over 90 children and community members learned how to swim through the city's Learn to Swim program, building confidence, learning an important life skill, and making memories along the way. Thank you to our incredible aquatic staff and instructors for your hard work and dedication. And thank you to everyone who visited, participated in our programs, and made the Aquatic Center part of their summer. Moving into the fall season, registration is now open for our fall recreation programs. This fall's offerings include an after school program, a free program offering engaging elective activities and homework support. The gaming lounge, a weekend outlet to provide youth with the space to enjoy video games and connect with others and have fun. fall baseball clinics a program focused on the fundamentals of baseball such as throwing catching and hitting and many other programs on the horizon for more information and to register visit visit city of newburgh recdest.com or call the recreation department main line at 845-565-3230 The City of Newburgh, in collaboration with the Newburgh and Large City School District, is looking for community members, local organizations, and businesses to help make this year's Truck or Treat, scheduled for Wednesday, October 28th, 2026, a spectacular event for our kids. For a trunk registration, candy donation, and more information about the event, please visit cityofnewburgh.recdesk.com or call the Recreation Department main line at 845-565-3230. The City of Newburgh's Water Department has been collecting service line inventory data to identify and document the materials used in water service lines, helping the city better understand our water infrastructure. As the inventory collection continues, residents may see water department personnel throughout their neighborhoods, and in some cases, crews may need to visually inspect or access the water service line near your property and or water meter. Please know all water department staff will be carrying city-issued identification with them if they need to access your water meter or service line. from our code compliance department in the month of august the code compliance bureau issued one hundred and sixty construction permits with a construction value of roughly eight hundred seventy seven thousand dollars they completed one thousand one hundred thirty inspections of which six hundred fifty four passed they issued four hundred twenty one notices of violation 13 notices of violation were in the Broadway corridor. They sent 18 violations to court, received 334 complaints, closed 119 existing complaints, and issued 140 stop work orders. The City of Newburgh's Planning and Development Department is conducting a citywide parking study to evaluate the availability of public parking and to provide recommendations to address current and future parking needs. The project team wants to hear from residents, business owners, property owners, visitors, and other community members about their experience parking in the city. Completed surveys must be submitted through the online portal found in the notice on the city's website or by visiting the QR code on the screen by September 30th, 2026. For the latest news and announcements about the City of Newburgh, sign up for the news flash via Notify Me. Visit the City of Newburgh at cityofnewburgh-ny.gov and click on the Notify Me button towards the center of the homepage. To subscribe, you must type your email and or phone number in the public information section. Click the email and or phone icon next to the list you want to subscribe to. 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 inquiries to press at citynewberg-ny.gov. That concludes the City Manager's Update.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morris. Appreciate the City Manager's Update every meeting we have. So, I have a special request and I want, the special request is to suspend the rules in taking item number 210 out of order and I need approval on unanimous consent of the city council due to unforeseen family circumstances I have once again a request to suspend the rules to take item number 210 which is number 30 on our agenda uh out of order and i need uh an approval from the city council with unanimous consent and uh yes or no to approve uh this um and so we'll go with martinez yes or no uh yes to move it up okay uh councilman macklemore yes council member monteverde yes councilman shakur school okay councilmember stewart yes and councilman sorry yes okay so we have an approval to spend rules to take item number two ten out of order and we have unanimous consent to do so Thank you very much. So next, we need a motion for resolution number 210-2026, and that's in the street naming request for La Amistad Bakery. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

First motion is said by Councilmember Martinez. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilmember Monteverde. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmember Martinez. Discussion? Oh.

I'm sorry, a request for a discussion is granted. Council Member Martinez before the roll call.

Thank you. I really appreciate the council's support on this street naming dedication. We actually have the family here from La Amistad. We have Francisco Martinez in the audience with Rosa Martinez. Thank you for joining us. So tomorrow is a very special day. Tomorrow is the beginning of Latino Heritage Month, but also the Mexican Independence Day is also on the 16th. And this resolution is very special to me because coming from a from mexican roots being mexican-american bakery was one of the first businesses here mexican businesses here in newburgh and the way that they have transformed that block that they have been on for so many years To see them grow has been amazing. Muchísimas gracias por salir aquí, estar con nosotros hoy. Todo lo que ustedes han hecho, su negocio, ha ayudado a nuestra comunidad latina y son prueba de que And I also wanted to allow the ward rep, Councilman Zorrilla, to give a few words. I actually thought it was in ward two, but we clarified it was in ward four.

all right excellent councilman zoria felicidade francisco i i want to say congratulations it's uh in a time in our country that we are talking about latinos as if they're criminals and they are bad people and they are and i All these other stories, I think hearing stories of success right here, an NFA graduate building his business, creating opportunities for Newberg people. I think that is the example that we know as Latinos and our community knows of Latinos in Newberg. Hard work, dedication to community, commitment to helping the next generation move forward. So congratulations to you and your family. Congratulations to you and your family.

And I would like to also add to that, para la familia de Francisco, felicidades para tú y para toda la familia. Su negocio es muy importante para mí y para toda la gente en esta ciudad también. Felicidades, tu eres mi corazón para siempre. Dios te bendiga. So I also want to thank Councilmember Martinez, Councilman Zoria, and all the city council who support your business. We love your business. We love the work that you all are doing on Mill Street, which is around the corner from where I live. It's in my neighborhood. And as Councilmember Martinez mentioned that Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15th to October 15th, we are doing a potluck on October the 9th, and we do, this is the 10th annual Hispanic Heritage Month PACLA at NFA North with the P-TECH program. We've done it, this will be our 10th year, and we will be coming to visit La Amistad para la comida en Sutienda. We're coming to support your business with, as we always do, with some of the foods and some of the pastries that you all have. And once again, congratulations.

Anyone else? Last comment. Francisco is having a Mexican and Central American celebration September 19th this weekend. So if anybody wants to be in La Placita and taste La Amistad, join them September 19th from 12 to 9. Live music. Yes, I just wanted a shameless plug for Francisco.

um you want to okay excellent so we're gonna we're gonna do a motion on uh on the uh resolution and then if if it's okay with francisco and his family we'll do a quick photo and then we'll get back to the schedule program is that okay all right so roll call on the motion please aye councilmember mclemore yes

Council Member Monteverde. Council Member Shakur. Yes. Council Member Stewart. Yes. Council Member Zerillo. Yes. Mayor Harvey.

Yes.

Approved.

All right. So if I can get the family to come up and the council to come join you and we will be at your ribbon cutting and we will have a certificate of recognition for you and your family for your street naming. All right. We'll coordinate the date on that. Date and time.

Thank you.

All right. Three, two, one, cheese. There you go.

Thank you.

Testing one, two.

Say a few words. Okay. Okay, okay. Congratulations.

Congratulations. Good evening, everyone. Mayor, city council members, and friends. My name is Francisco Martinez. I came here in 1990 to build a better life. It was not easy, but I had a faith and worked hard to become my home. 1997, my wife Rosa and I opened La Amistad. We built our business while we were raising our four kids. Rosa, thank you for all your love and work. This is an honor that you are part of this. and neighbors can become part of our lives over the years we have helped people find work support young people and share food with families we're happy to give back this to the city thank you to all our workers customers and friends to help make this possible when people see la amistad on the street i hope they think family La amistad means friendship, our community, and pretty soon we're going to be 30 years in business in Newburgh. This city, my wife, me, and the family, We think the city give us a lot to us and our mission, we just become 50 years old. Our mission is to give back what the city give us. So now we're working almost full time in working with plans to give back to my community. And we love New York and this is our home. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yo solamente quiero agradecer al pueblo de Newberg que nos ha apoyado en nuestro negocio. Ahora estamos para ayudarlos a ellos en lo que se necesite y gracias a todos.

Felicidades.

All right, before we continue with our agenda, I'd be remiss not to mention we have an amazing dignitary here with us tonight. Our Assemblyman Chris Ekes is here. So let's give the Assemblyman a hand for coming out tonight. I think you're the hundred and fifth? What is it, the hundred and fifth district? Oh, the ninety-ninth district. Um, Chris Eacus represents the uh... ninety-ninth assembly district and uh... he's a former colleague of mine, uh... New Bird Free Academy for many years and uh... good friend, so we just want to acknowledge the assemblymen and say thank you for coming out. All right, so um... we'll go back to our regularly scheduled program and there are no presentations for tonight and um... the next item on our agenda is uh... the most important uh... item i would say uh... comments from the public uh regarding agenda and or non-agenda items and those non-agenda items are can be general matters of the city so we ask everyone who has a comment please come to the mic tell us your name whether or not you live in the city or not and we'll be happy to receive your public comment thank you

Jewel Martin, and tomorrow will mark seven years and six months of me being homeless. It has educated me. It has educated me to really understand how my rights continue. being violated by civil rights. And not only my civil rights, but I also saw police department rights. I'm not speaking for them. I'm not representing them. But as a resident of Newburgh, I have seen the department rights being violated. So I want to make that clear that I'm not talking as a law enforcement. I'm not talking as a fire department employee. I'm talking as a person who continues to see their rights being violated. Nobody speaks on that. But I will speak on it because my rights as a homeless person has been violated. I also want to address somebody online. His name is Russell Martin. He is my older brother. And I find it very interesting that the survey was due on his birthday, August 26. Now, I'm not going to say that you're about to hire a felon as city manager. I'm not saying that. But I find it very interesting that the survey ends on his birthday. I find it very interesting that East End Laws still have it sitting there empty. I find that interesting, okay? Very much interested. So, everybody that violated my rights, When the truth comes out about my homelessness, I'm coming after every single one of you. And I encourage the fire department and police department to do the same.

Thank you very much.

Hi, good evening. My name is Naomi Herson-Ringskog. I live in Ward 2. It's good to see you. It's been a while. Good to see you. I am one of the co-directors of the Downtown District Alliance. Downtown District Alliance has been around since 2023, hosting monthly meetings, as well as doing collaborations among businesses in downtown, as well as forging partnerships with institutions like Mount St. Mary, as well as advocating issues like sanitation transportation that can improve the quality of life of our residents our businesses and our visitors and you might wonder why I'm here today I'm appreciative of the City Council members that remember that we have an outstanding grant to study the formation of of a business improvement district I'm not going to go into the details of that but I will reiterate that we got that grant in 2024 and it's September 2026 it's almost two years since we have not done uh that we have not issued the RFP and this is a priority of the businesses it's about 100 businesses that are part of this group and they get notified of all the events and this is something that they're taking quite personally that the city council and the city administration are not prioritizing so uh we on behalf of all the members that have poured their own investments that live here or that have invested in here we really urge you again to prioritize it. Implement the RFP. Let's begin the study. Or look to your partners in Poughkeepsie who this council initiated the study, initiated the business improvement district without a time-consuming study. I'm worried that this study is going to take six or more months to complete. And that is just suffering for our small businesses that really need the foot traffic that need the coordination and the partnership to create a welcoming experience in our city. Um, this also very much ties into, um, Other things that are advocating in bringing people here and Save the Ferry Coalition has been working nonstop since the ferry was terminated by the MTA in trying to advocate that. So when you're speaking to your state elected, are you guys confused? Remember to prioritize that. It's a battle against MTA and HOCL, but bringing in tourism and allowing tourism for us to go to Beacon or to the city or recreational or mobility for workforce or education or even or not even but primarily for our commuters is so fundamental to the success of this city thank you thank you so much Naomi I'm definitely gonna meet with you on that so I can learn more

Hi, everyone. My name is Tamar. I live in Ward 1, Grand Street. I am a renter and my wife and I have lived in the city. Can you hear me? That's okay. Let me repeat that part. So I'm a renter. I have lived in Newburgh for six years. My wife and I both work in the city and work in jobs that aren't like a nine to five job. So again, we don't have a car and I'm curious if the room would humor me if anyone else who doesn't have a car would raise their hand or doesn't have access to a car. Is there anyone else who does not have access to a car? Okay, so Giselle and I and this lovely lady. So there are 30% of the city of Newburgh do not own cars and rely on public transportation. So for those of you who do have cars, I want you to imagine what it's like to ride a bicycle all the way to New Windsor to get groceries and then ride back with a huge backpack of groceries. or try to imagine what it's like to get on the shuttle bus to go to the beacon train, but the shuttle bus is late and you miss your train. That is happening all the time, every day, for people who don't have cars in Newburgh. the ferry was the best and fastest way to get across the river if you want to go shopping in Beacon, if you need to go to the city for work, etc. It would take 10 minutes to get there, but the MTA shut it down saying it was too expensive. Now, the ferry costs $2.1 million a year. We pay over $35 million in taxes to the MTA every year. So that doesn't compute, that doesn't make sense. I wanna appreciate the support that we've received from the mayor and the council members so far on the Save the Ferry campaign and everybody else in the room. I want you to speak with Governor Hochul and tell her that this is a non-negotiable for Newburgh. We need a ferry and we need it stat. And it's not acceptable that they shut the ferry down and kind of said that they would renew it and then simply canceled it completely. You've left 30% of the city without a reliable way to get across the river. And then the other thing is for the small businesses, like Naomi said, how do we expect our small businesses to receive traffic and visitors from the city if we don't offer an option to get across the river quickly? People who are coming from the city on the train are not going to ride a shuttle bus that cycles around the city. They want to just go where they're going. And the ferry ride is such a beautiful, scenic, poetic ride. And this ferry has existed for something like 250 years, right? Why would you shut something like that down that is so crucial to our community? So I urge you to save the ferry and make it a priority. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Michelle Bash, resident and business owner in the city of Newburgh. Good evening. I want to touch on two points. One is the BID, which is a business improvement district, which deals with a whole area in the first and second wards. And I also think in the fourth ward a little bit. It's all kinds of businesses, black, white, Latino, Asian, all kinds of businesses, small and larger. The bid will allow us to get grants from the state, as did Buffalo, and they redid a whole area, Poughkeepsie, Middletown. Why not us? You have the information we need to send out. The city needs to send out the RFP so we can do the study to know exactly the area and who pays for this. The landlords pay a small fee on a yearly basis, depending on the size of their buildings, to this bid. I don't know all the details, but we certainly can give them to you. On a second note, AI companies are seeing that the indiscriminate use of AI is not good. And the AI companies are asking the government to hold it down. Now what's Flock? Flock is AI. And the information that Flock is getting is going to any government entity that wants it. It goes to ICE, it goes to the FBI, it goes to anybody. So Flock is a danger. Now I was interested to see in the New York Times last week that there are mayors in Texas Mayors in Florida, totally red, they're not blue states, and also in blue states, that are asking and requiring that the flock cameras are ended because they are a danger. The information that they get can and is being manipulated. So please, please listen to the people who live in this city. They are not good. We can get cameras that are not flock cameras, that do not use AI, but this is dangerous. Thank you.

Thank you.

Cynthia Gilkyson, 11 Grand Street. So of course I'm here about Flock. I guess how I feel about it is that I'm just scared. I'm scared that something bad is going to happen with these cameras. Because they're not only tracking license plates, they're tracking where people walk. They're tracking walkers as well. It's just not a good thing. I mean, it just isn't. And I don't want to wait a couple of months to end it. I want to end it now. And the last meeting that we had about this, the majority of the members of the city council voted to end it. And it's not ended. I thought the majority wins in a democracy. I didn't understand. I was very confused. Yeah, we definitely need to get rid of these cameras now. Now.

Thank you.

Gabrielle Hill in... I don't know how to bring this down. We'll figure it out. Good evening, esteemed council. First, let me say I concur with my fellow residents who have gone before me, and we'll start with transportation. Shout out to my colleague, legislator Ramos, for spearheading the Go-Go Grandparent Initiative, which gives free rides to any resident 60 years and above within Orange County. So if you have family members in Middletown or you have a doctor's appointment in Crystal Run in Middletown or Monroe, you can take this ride at no cost to you. Okay, let me give you the phone number. The number is 845-615-3710. How do I know it works? Because I'm 60 and I gave it a try. So when you call, they will register you, take your name and your information. It's not invasive. You're not going to be giving out a lot of personal information. They just need to verify that you're 60.

So what's the age limit again?

60 and above. Okay. So... Once you call the 615-3710 number, they will register you and then they'll give you another number to schedule your ride. So please hold on to both of those numbers, okay? Sticking with transportation, item number six. the one-way street hallelujah okay but I'm just curious as to why didn't go all the way down to Washington I'm sure you have your reasons for that however at the work session you mentioned that you were going to remove one of the stop signs just so you know TAC is recommending that we install a stop sign at the corner of Anne and South Johnson going east coming down that hill people are going 45 miles per hour, don't ask me how I know, but they're speeding when they get to that hill. So we want to slow speeding down in addition to some other things that we're working on. So I just wanted to put that in there. La amistad es bueno. Estudié español cuatro años en mi escuela many, many years ago. So congratulations, my Spanglish, congratulations on your business. It is a bright spot in our community. And now that I live on this side of town, I look forward to many, many mornings of coffee and bakery, baked goods. Okay, let's see, where are we? Number 19, colored burial ground. You already know how I feel about that. Thank you. Let's keep that moving forward. We're excited about that. And I think I just need clarity on item number 26. I lost time. But item number 26, if I can get some clarity. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Dennis Grant. Worker safety deserves investment, yes. Public trust deserves protection. And taxpayers deserve the whole truth. Concerning black line safety devices, sounds promising. The SOS alerts, et cetera. I support the purpose, but did you ask about the service plan?

Everybody here knows about Netflix and Amazon Prime.

One thing that they do is the introductory price gets our attention, the renewal price gets our money. I have questions. I'll ask Wayne. Concerning Black Line's G8 pro plan includes location monitoring, integration, and outside systems. Outside systems. Who controls the data? Who can't access? Who can access it? How long is it retained? Can it be shared or used beyond worker safety? I'll ask Wayne about enforceable safeguards before we create what could become a mini flock style surveillance concern. Flock, flock, flock. Safety should build trust. It should never become an open-ended justification for monitoring people, such as in what Big Brother is. And trust matters right here in this chamber. The First Amendment protects criticism of public officials. That's you.

That's them.

Public comment rules may reasonably regulate time, relevance, and actual disruption. but they must remain viewpoint neutral. Disagreement with this council cannot become grounds for silencing a speaker. If residents are being stopped merely for naming council members while discussing their official conduct, I ask the corporate council to publicly explain the legal bias. Maintain order, don't suppress criticism. A mayor's ruling from the chair does not override the Constitution, correct? and the standard of orderly conduct must apply to the people in those chairs too. Last meeting, one city council member aggressively approached the other. If I didn't know better, it looked like he was asking for spare change. Bless his heart. Are we supposed to come here only to praise you? If so, I didn't get the memo. Community includes the neighbor who disagrees, the worker worried about video tracking, The homeowner asking where the money goes. Approval from a selected circle is not the voice of an entire city. When you present a ceremonial key to the city and he still couldn't unlock the truth about his son, justice delayed is justice denied. Oversee truth, not have truths. If you are servant leaders, you are servant leaders. Talk to the people you serve. Listen when their concerns are uncomfortable. Full truth must guide us. Have truths undermine us. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Is that better? Is that better?

Excellent.

Is that better?

Thank you. Next speaker.

Michael LeBrun, Grand Street. On process. Rule 7B4. Speakers must limit their remarks to three minutes. The city clerk shall keep a record. Rule 7B7. All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a body. Rule 7B8. Speakers shall observe, accept the rules of courtesy, decorum, dignity, and good taste. No personal or slanderous remarks shall be made. Council members of the mayor shall be treated with respect. Rule 1A of this council's Rules of Order make rulings of the presiding offer subject to appeal by motion to this council. Under Rule 1B, that motion has precedence. If I'm interrupted, I'm asking this council to make that motion. Now, the rules govern who you speak to, not whom you may speak about. No rule bars criticism of officials by name or title. Yet torrents regularly insist that no member of this council be mentioned by name. At the last meeting, he broadened the rule, no mention by title. No speaker thanking the mayor gets ruled disrespectful. A rule that is only triggered by criticism is not a rule about manner. Torrance converts the decorum rule into a content rule to restrict criticism of official conduct. Archived video over the years shows the pattern. Torrance repeatedly breaks the quorum, extending time to speakers as it suits him, gaveling speakers to silence when it does not. Recently, Torrance told the press that members of the planning board carrying out duties assigned by law are socialists and outsiders. Yet he forbids residents from attaching his name to his disrespectful conduct in this room. Torrance himself shouted, you will not call me out. That is not a request for decorum. That is a demand for a shield. This mayor has yet to apologize to the planning board. My request that the city draft comprehensive speech guidelines is still unanswered. This council must take up the rules of order at the next work session and see that they are enforced. In closing, Torrance teaches history at our high school. So he will know Ousmane Sembène, the father of African cinema. In this film, Hala, a satire of post-colonial Africa, the French vacate a chamber of commerce to African businessmen while handing them briefcases stuffed with cash. Elhadj Aboukader Baie is one of those businessmen. He robs a kinsman of clan land, has him jailed, and clears beggars from his streets because they're bad for business. The beggars in turn curse him with the hala, rendering him impotent on his wedding night. While chasing a cure, he ends up ruining himself financially. When he is called to account, he lashes out. He denounces the chamber and strikes his own daughter. After the chamber expels him, he finally agrees to the only term that lifts the holla. The beggars come to his house, and in front of his entire family, he is stripped. Each beggar then, one by one, takes his turn spitting on him repeatedly while his first wife looks on and weeps.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. I want to say I appreciate the progress that's been made on the flock resolution. It was nice on Thursday to see folks getting closer to the finish line. I'm hoping that that finish line arrives at the next council meeting after there's a synthesis of the resolutions. And I understand the fiscal considerations that Zoria has brought up. I would recommend that Newburgh file the lead of other cities that after canceling the contract, they put black plastic bags over the camera so that they cannot be used until they actually come down. I appreciate Zoria for bringing up to light the way that the contract wasn't voted on or the renewal wasn't voted on after the grant funding ended and I think that's outrageous to me and I had been looking when did the renewal come up for debate or when was it analyzed and there just wasn't as far as I could find any evidence of that. and I think that speaks to the question of a local law, and I appreciate Council Member Stewart for bringing this up. The NYCLU has some model legislation about civilian control over surveillance technologies, and I think that's maybe something to look at to see how it relates to what's being drafted. This past weekend I was talking to people about flat cameras, about public safety, and the vast majority of people didn't know what they are, what they do, when they were voted on, and had a lot of interesting ideas that what that money, that $500,000 every two years could be used for public safety, things that are evidence-based in improving people's lives and safety. And so I hope that this starts a conversation about what are the actual evidence-based interventions for public safety that can actually not compromise our privacy. Lastly, I wanted to talk about what's recently was revealed around outside access by agencies on behalf of ICE of Newburgh's flock data from the time they were installed up until January 2026. From my understanding from what's been reported and what was shared at Thursday's meeting, the police chief was aware of this as early as December, I believe he said. He started restricting access to the point in January of this year. It was restricted. So I found it interesting that this was only revealed after council members Shakur pressed for the audit logs because The police chief was here in April saying that there was no outside access, but he left out before this year it had been accessed by ICE. For a year and a half, people's lives have been put at risk because outside agencies were accessing this data on behalf of ICE. There's not even an, oh my bad, I put people at risk. It's just like, where's the accountability of that? That was a clear violation of the idea of a welcoming city. And just lastly, I would like an update on the timeline of making the audit logs public. I'm not sure if that's happened yet, but I haven't received my response for the FOIL. It's been a few months now, so at least the audit logs, people deserve to see them. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Catherine Gallagher, City of Newburgh resident and homeowner, and I can't speak as eloquently or comprehensively as the former speaker did, but I plus one everything he said and others have said about getting Flock out of Newburgh now. It's really unconscionable to me as a taxpayer that half a million dollars of this city's budget went to fund any form of surveillance that is enabling this authoritarian white supremacist nativist corporate captured administration it's just unconscionable so we need to get these cameras out stopped blocked now and we need that information made public to the city and the public generally how much has been shared We have a vulnerable population in Newburgh. We know ICE is here. And the fact that our tax dollars are assisting ICE in their raids and their operations is just really, again, unconscionable. So I press the city council to act swiftly to take maybe emergency measures to stop this. This is a national discussion, a national debate, and the fact that we're now falling behind red states, again, is something that I think is pretty shocking. We had the 25th anniversary of 9-11 on Friday. And that horrible day was commemorated. And there's also been a lot of attention to what came in the 25 years afterwards. And that is the rise of surveillance state, the rise of quote-unquote terrorism as a free pass to surveil, to other, to imprison, to deport. And we have to be on the front end of stopping this. Newburgh, unfortunately, knows the history of Islamophobia very well with the case of the Newburgh Four and how jumping to conclusions of othering really can do so much damage. So I would like to see this city council speak up, stand up, and really take action quickly. plus one on Save the Ferry and to not only bring it back but expand its service to include weekends for the good of residents and surrounding communities. And I want to just really appreciate what Congressmember Stewart did throughout the winter in keeping the Kenney Apartments on the agenda. I know that there have been a lot of positive steps taken, and hopefully next winter we won't have the just horrifying and heartbreaking testimonies that we had. But I want to hear what's happening, if the progress is continuing, or if there is something that the rest of us need to be doing to ensure that the Kenney Apartments and its residents will be safe as cold weather comes again. Thank you.

Thank you.

David Schwartz, Ward 1. Also, just want to see the end of FLOC as soon as possible, but I understand the budget issue. I really appreciate Councilman Zaria's Newberg times and learning about what he's proposed in terms of just not having it on the budget for 2027 as a way to get rid of it without Penalty to the city. I know it's a balancing act because I know we all would be happier not to have the surveillance now. And that goes for other APLR systems. I don't think we need them. We lived years and years without them. We don't need them. Only other thing I want to talk about that I learned also from Newberg Times is the one Lafayette project. It sounds like a great project, but I agree with Councilman Zuria's piece that the conditions that the developer has already agreed to should be part of the new agreement if and when it gets approved.

I'm sorry, can you state your name again?

David Schwartz.

David Schwartz, thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz. Thank you.

Hi, Ann Sullivan, Ellenville. I just want to say again thank you to Councilmember Shakur, Martinez, McLemore, and Monteverde for their support of getting rid of FLOC now, Monteverde for taking the time to go through the FLOC resolution and make the adjustments and consult with legal, et cetera. I also would like to remind everybody that this resolution is not in any way in conflict with Councilman Zaria's proposal to stop funding it. What it actually says is discontinue use now. That's not a violation of the contract unless I'm looking at corporation council, unless it is. Just stop using it now. Cover it with the plastic bags, whatever you need to do. And then it says terminate the contractual relationship consistent with the city's contractual obligations. So that, if you don't like the word termination, you wanna use the word wriggle out of the contract, you wanna use the word let corporation counsel deal with the contract, but there is nothing in the resolution that's been proposed and edited and reviewed by legal counsel, both internal and external, that you can't pass tonight to stop using flock, stop endangering the community. on to another subject one of my favorites week without driving coming up October 1st through 8th yes stopping driving is good for the environment it's good for the air quality etc but week without driving is about a chance to understand what it means to have to rely on public transportation to get around it is terrific that the county is doing go-go grandparents Right. I believe it's only five rides a month. I'm not quite sure what the number of rides is, but it's a terrific step forward. But we need a transportation system, a transit system that serves the needs of everybody in the county. And that's not what we have now. Again, thanks to Councilmember Shakur, Martinez, and Monteverdi for taking that trip a year or something ago where they realized it took four buses to get from here to Goshen. So how does anyone who's trying to work in Goshen go to the courts in Goshen, do business in Goshen, make that happen? And it wasn't free, and it wasn't $2, because you had to take two coach buses and wait in between. So I challenge the rest of you, or all of you if you want to do it again and have a fun time, to spend either a week, a day, or I'd be happy to coordinate a ride Pick a place, the Amazon warehouse you're trying to go to work. Pick somewhere else you're trying to get to and see if you can actually get there by public transit and start to understand what does that mean to someone who is blind.

Thank you.

All right, so it looks like we got two speakers standing, and Tracy is speaking as well. So we got four speakers. Anyone else? If you're able to get on the line so that we can kind of gauge our time. Okay.

Good evening.

Pastor Rosie. I didn't really plan anything, but something came up in my heart. I was driving, I believe it was in Poughkeepsie, so if I'm making a mistake, they changed the city speed limit to 15 miles an hour. And boy, would I love to see a lot of the people in Newburgh slow it down. It's really getting dangerous out there to try to cross the street. Has been for a while. Probably my fourth time to say about Flock. I felt the same way the last speaker felt. If I have a cell phone plan, I don't know if Flock is like this. I don't really know the legalities of it. But if I decide I don't want to use my cell phone anymore, I just shut it off. And I'm wondering if we can just shut off Flock and then deal with all this other stuff. Because I tried to put myself in your place where you want to help everybody, but there's been scores and scores of your constituents and I'm not, I'm an American citizen and I have nothing to hide, but I don't want to be surveilled and I don't want all my friends that are coming in Newburgh to come and see me get surveilled either. And I think there's got to be a better way, and I'm hoping that we could just shut it off and deal with all the legalities. If that's possible, I would love to see us do that. Thank you so much.

Tracy Wallace from Ward 1. i want to invite residents of vera combs to attend our tenant meeting on tuesday october 6 at the codes building on 123 grand street i encourage residents to come out learn about their housing rights ask questions and learn about resources available to tenants you know the kenny's are really important example and leadership by ward 3 tamika stewart and showing how when people come together and support each other, we can support each other with getting fair housing and we can support each other through this process. Resolution 207, donation of the ADA wheelchair. I want to thank the city council for supporting the donation of the ADA accessible wheelchair, helping ensure greater accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities in the community. I want to thank the person for donating it. This is what community is about. Somebody saw a need, somebody donated it so that everyone can enjoy the pool. I want to continue supporting the removing of the flock cameras because of concerns about privacy, surveillance, and the collection and sharing of residence data. I don't understand why they're still up. I understand contracts and other legalities were talked about they're going to get money whether they're up whether they're not just resolution to take them down and then discuss all of those other contracts it makes no sense to keep them up while weeks and weeks and weeks go by and more people are being targeted just take them down and then whether or not your contracts are there or not it's the only people that it's affecting are the people that they're surveillancing and collecting that data um so um i want to talk about 32-year pilot agreements so I support 32-year pilot agreements or developments when it creates truly affordable housing but we need to talk about what affordable means the area median income includes higher income in our surrounding communities which can result in rents our residents still cannot afford when developers receive a 32-year tax incentive the city has leverage i'm asking the council to strengthen our ordinances and require more units for low-income and extremely low-income households households that better reflect the actual incomes of the city of newburgh residents we need to change our ordinances so that it could truly mean affordable affordable can't be a buzzword and i'm using this because i did um see your video and it is true that when we say the word affordable is it really affordable and what is affordable and there's so many different kinds of affordable there's low-income housing there's affordable housing there's there's subsidized housing there's a whole lot that goes into affordable housing so i'm just asking the council to look at those ordinances and make these changes thank you

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you for recognizing me, Mayor Harvey. Good evening, council members. I am Chris Ekus, New York State Assemblymember, and that means that I represent all New York State residents. And I just want to add this, hearing from here this evening, please feel free if there are issues that should come to us to pass them on to us. You're not you know, shirking your responsibility if you tell us that this. I heard, like, talk to, you know, Governor Hochul. We have pretty good access to her and so on like that, so please forward those things to us whenever necessary. I do represent the 99th District. The 99th District, most northern part, is New Windsor, and then it goes down all the way into Rockland County. Certainly, as you must realize, a lot of the students in my New Windsor area are taught here in the Newburgh and large city school districts. And I do appreciate that. And of course, I love the fact that I was there and teaching with Mayor Harvey for all those years. But what am I doing here? Why am I here? Well, I'm the proud owner of a commercial property here in the city of Newburgh. And I spent 13 years prior to that renting here in the city of Newburgh. And in the last about four years, a little less than four years, there were two attempted robberies in my building, in the rented building and in the one I owned. And notice I used and absolutely am profound about the word attempted. because like you folks, when something is good, it needs to be recognized. It has to be recognized. And I say attempted because your city police force responded in time where I never lost one cent of product, one cent of revenue, Of course, I had some damage. That's going to happen. That's the way they're going to be caught. And it is the efficiency and proficiency of your city police force that I am here to recognize and thank. Just to let you know, it is actually my wife's business that functions in these buildings, and it is a cannabis dispensary. Unfortunately, so far, we've not been able to really reap a lot of profit out of it, but it's coming. That tax money is coming your way eventually. Okay? And just to let all the folks know that as a dispensary, my wife not only has all of the product and her revenues in a safe, but that safe has to be inside of a vault, and that vault has to be both motion and camera surveyed. So it's going to be very difficult to happen. But again, I thank very, very much the City of Newburgh Police Force for you guys, for what you've done, and everything else like that. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Assemblyman.

Good evening, Carson Carter. Good evening. I live on First Street. I'm really grateful earlier to hear in the budget work session about the Council's intent for renewed and expanded engagement with our state government on local priorities. An essential update for this renewal without relationship would be quarterly updates from NYSDOT and the state about the now nine-month-old Newburgh Beacon Shuttle. Anecdotally, in the nine months it's been operating, the bus has been a growing success. There are a ton of people on it day and night. And without our ferry, this is really an essential service. I think a lot of us believe, and you've heard tonight, that we'd be strengthened by expanding our options. We'd love to see the ferry return. But as our council, as our local agents, you really should be a part of making these essential transit plans with the state. To that end, it unfortunately seems like the Newburgh landing project is something still held up with the state and probably a number of years away. So we really need to make an interim plan that we can have today. Whether that's an adaptation of our existing infrastructure, the first street pier is an excellent piece of local infrastructure that's at the heart of the city, access-wise, to accommodate passenger boats, both for commuters and tourists who are coming here to our businesses to do things like hopefully engage with our business improvement district that hopefully will come. We should also be examining the use of our public space on the waterfront, access at places like People's Park. I think this year has been a real education that we can't rely on private owners of land at our waterfront. Unfortunately, most of our waterfront isn't publicly owned. But we do have an incredible city parcel down there at the landing and at People's Park. And transit is an essential public service. And I hope the council will look into how those public lands can provide better access going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Carter. all right so that's gonna conclude and I'm I'm really really excited because to hear from my colleagues because there was some amazing comments made tonight so we'll go to comments from the City Council we ask everyone to stay to please listen to those responses and we're gonna start with Councilmember Martinez

Thank you Mayor Harvey and thank you everyone who stayed to hear our comments. One of the things that I wanted to mention was sometimes things happen in the city of Newburgh and they bring these negative stereotypes that we've tried really, really hard to get rid of. They bring them to light. But I want to focus on the positivity and one of the things that I wanted to bring up was robbery that happened at the cheesecake spot on Liberty Street next to Audrey Carey Park I actually live right in front of that park and when I found out that the business owners there were affected by this action I went over I spoke with them you know, they were still trying to be positive. And I just want to say that I support the businesses here in the city of Newburgh, specifically the ones that took a risk to come into our neighborhoods, help revitalize blocks that were abandoned. That building that the cheesecake business is in, was abandoned for years i used to play in that park and you know there it was um there was a lot of vandalism and now there's three successful businesses in there and i showed some support i went and spoke with them and really like a little bit of kindness goes a long way and just to remind people not to fall into those negative stereotypes our city while we're not we're um you know there's still a lot of work that we are trying to do and accomplish um we're not in a place where we were before a decade ago not even five years ago and we're going to continue to grow and we're going to continue to work with the downtown business alliance we're going to continue to work with people who just want to make our city better um i also wanted to thank our legislator miss gabrielle hill who came and shared an update on the transportation opportunities for orange county residents i definitely understand the struggle of not having reliable transportation as someone who is part of the working class you know my family and i unfortunately we have to share one car meaning that i do not have access to a car because my dad has to use it for work and I have to figure it out. While I support our local cab businesses, it's not realistic for everyone, for our city residents, specifically those who are part of the working class to afford to pay for transportation. We have to continue fighting for transportation opportunities, both to Goshen and across the river. so just two seconds please I just want to thank everybody again who came out also I'm against flock and ice here in the city of Newburgh I'll continue my comments later thank you

Thank you very much. Next, we'll hear from Councilman McLemore.

I have so much to say, Mayor, so I'll need about 10 minutes at it. But first of all, I want to say to my family that we are still in prayer and we will continue the memory of my cousin, Linda Mayor Grayling, who passed away on 9-11 in the attack. Also, this weekend, I supported Newberg Tools, which is a great organization. Also, the Community Family and Friends Day on William Street, which some of the council sponsored. And also, those who attended the Law Enforcement Symposium. that was impactful and informational and we plan on doing another one as well. And thank you to the chief as well for helping to organize and put that together. So thank you once again for those, the community and also the chiefs and the sheriffs from Orange County who attended and Mayor as well and Kyle Conway who was on the panel. Don't forget October 6th at 7 p.m. 123 Grand Street. That will be the Varick Peterson's tenant meeting hosted by Tracy Wallace as well as Councilwoman Martinez and myself. We will be there and this is important that we hear from Our residents, once again, this is something that I believe that we shouldn't silence the voices of our tenants and to hear what they have to say and what is going on in their complexes is critical and important. The same is what's happening in the Mullins and also in, I was over at Lake Street today, people were hitting me up for certain situations over there and we actually resolved those issues. And the same thing that's happening with the Mullins and also the Kennys. It takes all of our resources. This is not a one man show. It has never been a one-man show. It shouldn't be a one-man show that takes the entire council and putting all of our resources together, whether we have to call on the Attorney General or not or whoever, whatever resources that we have. We shouldn't have to, but if we have to, that's what we need to do to make sure that we get our basic needs satisfied. Also, there's a senior dinner night that is coming up on September 22nd at High Point Apartments. we go around especially me we go around every year feeding the seniors and we're going to look into programs to two seconds look into programs to expand that with the with the county so I'm excited about that and hopefully that'll be something that we can utilize in the city of Newburgh and and i'm for the uh downtown district alliance we need to get that rfp out i i said that before um so make sure we do that sorry thank you councilman macklemore excellent uh next we hear from council member monteverde

Thank you. And thank you everybody who came out tonight. Lots of good information. Great to hear from you. What's concerning you? You know, I know that flock is an ongoing issue. We are, as you know, we're trying to work it out so that we can get out of it. And that is coming and it will be soon, I hope. So I do like the idea of once we do away with FLOC and we no longer fund it, putting the black trash bags over it. I know that there are other municipalities that are doing different things so that it cannot continue to track our vehicles and track us as we're walking around. So again, we're working on that. We hear you. We know that this is a priority. It is a priority for the council. Lots of good things going on in the city as well. I attended the tool shed event as well. Great. group of people Zach and and his volunteers that are putting it together you know I just wished back in 2002 when I first moved here and I was renovating my house that we had something available this is going to be fantastic since we have all these historic homes and people are working on them to upgrade them and So I encourage you to go by Chamber Street and see it. It's not quite done yet. They're still working on it. They still have to put the siding on it, and then I believe that there's going to be a whole process in place to borrow the tools. So it's a wonderful thing. A couple of things that I want to talk about as well. There is a bulk pickup coming up on 930 September 30th. I know that people are always interested on the bulk pickups and yes, I agree the bid grant We've been talking about it forever. It's done. I It just needs to go out and I am pushing for it. I asked the mayor that he also prioritize this and do whatever he can to get the bed out at this point because whatever we can do as a council, to help our small businesses survive because i know that it is extremely difficult right now and talking to some of the businesses that i visit you know foot traffic is very low it's been low and you know whatever again this council can do to help push this along i'm all for it um also i want to talk about the codes in our you know uh housing and tenant uh associations you know i think that councilwoman stewart started this organizing um and mobilizing the tenants unfortunately over at the born kennys and it was uh you know we've been hearing about this going on for many years it's unfortunate that it came to that and you know you have to go back and you have to look at where did we fail we did fail this city failed the kenny and also the housing authority the mullins apartments um and the varick homes and it's it's on us and we have to do better we need to do better and so whatever we can do i think that before you all came to the council meeting we had a discussion about our legislative priority list and the codes department that's one of the things that's on that you know we have to do better we have to report we have to follow up we have to do these inspections otherwise we're going to continue to have these deplorable conditions that our constituents our community members have to live in so it is not okay and you know there are many groups now that are forming that are talking about doing the tenant associations Do it you have power right you come before the council and demand that we do whatever we possibly can To make your living conditions better. Thank you for coming up.

Thank you. Thanks.

We hear from councilman Shakur Yes, thank you for coming out tonight Congratulations one more time. I would like to know when the date is so I can detain So transportation I made that a legislative priority tonight on one of my legislative priorities for the ferry, not just for the ferry, but maybe since you stated it, I will add that to also be looking to how we can expand our transportation capabilities for our community. So thank you. The flock resolution. I brought the flock resolution to the city three months ago. And then Councilman McLemore added on with me and he proposed a law, some type of legislation to pass a law. he proposed that while we were working on it and then we came up with the third part to sit down with the police chief afterwards how we can make sure our city is safe and what ways we can do it and one of the things i would ask for was community policing because we can have a camera to and the camera will it will um take pictures of what happened but if you have police patrol in your community they will possibly if um a camera might see a shooting but a cop will stop a shooting if they're there they will stop somebody breaking in some place at their areas that we know something is going on and when you know people in your community you have you talk to them and you're more likely to when the situations come up with these people you'll be able to talk to them besides other actions so we've been working on that it's a three-point plan we worked on since the resolution we wanted the resolution passed then we said we talked about the legislation So it's been three months, so we'll see how long it takes and hopefully nothing will happen in between. And I'd like to thank our legislator for her transportation thing that she's doing. I see she's not here. And also the burial ground resolution that we talked about. But thanks, everybody, for coming out. And this is how we do our work by listening to you. Because I work with them. I work with our department heads. But I serve you. This is who I answer to, the community and the people here. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilman Shakur. Next, we hear from Councilmember Stewart.

Thank you. Thank you all for staying. I always encourage everyone to stay to hear the resolutions because if you want to know anything about what's going on in the city, where the money is going, you listen to the resolutions. The comments are great. The public comments are great. Our response is great. But if you are tracking and want to pay attention to where the money is going, you listen to the resolutions. with that said I wanted to just make some remarks on what was talked about before us today the bid I do know that everyone is waiting for that RFP and I do believe we were waiting for our head of the planning department to return and I do know that that is a priority on her list to get the bid at the RFP out so hopefully we will see that soon and we can follow up with the planning department and the city manager but we were waiting for her to return and She is back now, so we will move forward with that process. Save the ferry is important. Someone said that riding the ferry earlier, riding the ferry was like a trip, you know, very poetic. That was me riding the ferry every day across the river, no phone, no nothing, just scenery and just me and the water and the boat. I am sad that the ferry is gone because I utilize the ferry every day as a commuter going to the city to work. So hopefully the the heroes, the superheroes of the Save the Ferry campaign. We can all work together to force Governor Hochul to put some monies back into that. And like Mr. Iker said, tap all of these partners. I know you guys have done a whole ton of a lot of work in terms of organizing around that wherever we can get in to fit in. I'm waiting for my sign and we'll have that up. But wherever whatever we can do to kind of put some force or muscle behind it, please let us know what we can do as a council as a whole. I also wanted to speak on something that one of our constituents brought up, which is decorum and responding to that. I want to let people know that respect is paramount. It is a two-way street and it is something that we cannot ignore. But I want every one of us that are elected officials to understand and know that every resident has an inalienable right to criticize their elected official if they believe that their elected official is not doing what they believe is up to snuff. So you have a right to and you should, especially in this chamber or whatever, criticism is expected. It is a part of the game and no resident should not be muted or silenced for criticizing their elected officials. That is a First Amendment right and we need to make sure it happens. Just one more thing is we need that strategic vision retreat because that will answer a lot of questions about priority and what the idea is uh of the council is for the entire city without that we will continue to have questions about where we are what we want to do where we're going and where is this money coming from um corbin thank you before you flock was on nobody's lips or nobody's mind and i want to say a special shout out to you for organizing staying steadfast and not backing down for any reason you are the reason why people us and everybody is talking about flock and i want to thank you wholeheartedly for that don't back down and that's it thank you so much council member stewart next we hear from councilman zoria

thank you everyone for coming out uh i want to thank all the organizations that uh created an amazing experience at creek fest we have so many environmental organizations working in different facets to protect our land water parks etc and i just wanted to shout them out The natural resource inventory presentation it was cut off at the last work session But hopefully we will adopt that a way to to catalog all the resources that we have in Newburgh is super exciting Economic development. I do think we have to find ways to support small business and All this stuff ties in together. Sales tax revenue, services, quality of life, needs investment. These things need engines of growth. We cannot sustain our city on grants and the goodwill of other people. We need to find ways to generate our own income, expand our growth because nobody is coming to save us. It's not going to be a federal grant. It's not going to be a state grant. It's going to be us developing strategic, sustainable growth initiatives and save the ferry. I think we've spent a lot of time talking about parking. This is a city and I think a lot of people forget that there's people that don't have cars. So aside from parking, how are we helping the bikers stay safe? How are we helping pedestrians stay safe? How are we helping people get to work? if you can't get to your job you can't have that job then you can't afford housing then it's a trickle-down effect and all this stuff is connected and they're hard issues but we need to tackle them together it can't be piecemeal like i feel We've been doing it in the past. As far as pedestrian safety, I think DPW is doing a great job on Broadway. We should reimagine what Broadway looks like in the future. How can we stop having businesses just shuttered? What types of support do small business need? I'm glad we hired someone for economic development. I hope they're engaging businesses like Francisco on Mill Street, the Downtown Initiative. There's many businesses that have clear things that they can see to improve, and we need to support them. And even if we have to lower our speed limit citywide to 25 miles per hour, I think there's something we consider. Other cities are doing it. There's no reason people should be going 50 miles per hour down any one of our streets. We're a small city. Flock, again. This is a democracy, and I think there's people that have very strong views, and there's people that have timelines, and we all have to agree, and I think unanimously, we all agree, if you've actually listened to the meetings, that we're going to get rid of fraud. It's the process how we do it. it's very easy to come here to the microphone and say just pass that just pass that when we're having lively discussions very lively sometimes about things so i want to ensure that democracy is working here flock is going to be gone but we need to think about the taxpayer the people that support the city and all of us because it's a our fiduciary responsibility but we all are in the same agreement we do not want to be tracked or surveilled and we all want to protect our community I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Zaria. I want to also thank everyone for coming out and especially those that had the courage to come up and speak publicly about the things that are very important to them as they are important to us. I think there was a missed opportunity on Saturday for everyone speaking passionately about flock. councilman Macklemore held a police symposium and flock came up and we had police chiefs from various different municipalities of the Mid-Hudson Valley and they gave a perspective on flock and surveillance that's very similar to how people feel about having guard rails, making sure outside entities, especially the federal entities, that should not have access. But human trafficking is a very real thing. Women being trafficked is a very real thing, not only in our country, but in our backyard, in our community. If we look at the data on that, please keep that in context as well. Some of the investigative work that Police Chief Rolla articulated at the police symposium spoke directly to how the license plate reader systems have aided in some very significant uh... crime issues even uh... some of the biggest we talked about uh... people uh... attempting to break into his business uh... some of that investigative work was not only did police department responding but also being able to track those individuals uh... who attempted to uh... break in and steal uh... a few years back there was a uh... hispanic woman who i was very very good friends with because she was a co-worker in the new bergen large city school district she was a teacher and she had some domestic violence matters and issues and unfortunately we didn't have a license plate reader lpr system and the different municipalities new windsor the city of newberg and the town of newberg couldn't track the boyfriend who was eventually convicted of the murder of this woman who was a former teacher and they still to this day couldn't find her body. um and um so when we look at surveillance i think it's important to know none of us want to be surveilled none of us we are going to get rid of flock as councilman zoria mentioned in a very responsible way but please keep into context that the license plate reader system has helped our police department solve murders solve homicides have solved various different crimes that have happened within our city and the young lady that was never found I think if we had that LPR system, I think she would still be alive today. And that's not to say that surveillance isn't something I support, but it's to say that please keep all these matters in context, especially with the human trafficking and the things that are going on currently in our city and surrounding areas.

i got more to say about other matters but we'll get to that toward the end of the meeting so next we go to the city manager's report thank you mayor ordinance number 2-2026 designation of south johnson street between ann street and broadway as a one street one-way street northbound

Thank you yes, we need a motion for city ordinance number 2. That's 2026. So move first motion to set the by Councilman shakur to have a second. Second by Councilman Macklemore roll call on a motion, please.

Council members Martinez I Macklemore yes. I'm the better day. So core yes.

Stewart yes Zarrillo yes Mayor Harvey yes approved ordinance number 3-2026 chapter 288-66 update stop intersections do we have a motion for city ordinance number 3-2026 first motion to set up the council ministry core do we have a second

second by councilman Macklemore roll call into motion please council members Martinez aye Macklemore Monteverde Shakur yes Stewart yes Zarrillo yes Mayor Harvey yes approved resolution number 188-2026 contract with ACA environmental for asbestos abatement at the wastewater treatment plant

We have a motion for resolution number 1, 8, 8, that's 2026. So move. First motion is by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilman Zoria. Roll call on the motion, please.

Council Members Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 189-2026, award of bid number 11.26 to Mac Group LLC.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 189-2026? So moved. First motion is settled by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerillo? Yes. Mayor Harvey?

Yes.

Approved.

resolution number 190-2026 award of bid number 6.26 general construction contract with d.a collins construction company inc do i have a motion for resolution number 190-2026 first motion accepted by council member monteverde do we have a second

Second. Seconded by Councilman Shakur. Roll call on a motion please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 191-2026, award of bid number 6.26, plumbing contract with TM Brennan Service, Inc.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 191, 2026? First motion accepted by Councilmember Monteverde. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilman McLemore. We'll call on a motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Aye. Monteverde? Aye. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerilla? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number one 92 dash 2026 award of bid number 6 that 2, 6, HVA contract with DJ heating and air conditioning Inc. Do I have a motion for resolution number one, 9, 2, that's 2026.

Oh, first motion is set to that council member of the Verde. Do we have a second second about Councilman Macklemore roll call on the motion, please.

Council members Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerilla? Yes. Mayor Harvey?

Yes.

Approved.

resolution number 193-2026 bond resolution c3-7332-11-03 phase 4 ltcp newberg combined sewer control facility do i have a motion for resolution number 193-2026

So moved. First motion is accepted by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerilla?

Yes.

Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 194-2026, legal shred renewal agreement.

We have a motion for resolution number one, nine, four, that's 2026. So moved. First motion is set up by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on a motion.

Councilmembers Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Aye. Monteverde. Aye. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zerilla. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 195-2026, Auctions International Agreement for 2026 through 2028.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 191-2026? So moved. First motion is settled by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second?

seconded by councilman Macklemore roll call on the motion please council members Martinez aye Macklemore yes Ponte Verde yes Shakur yes Stewart yes Zarella yes Mayor Harvey yes approved resolution number 196-2026 Zayo installing a firewall and integrating DPW storage garage do we have a motion for resolution number 196-2026

First motion is set up by Councilman McLemore. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Zoria. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerilla? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 197-2026, ICC Community Development Laser Fiche 12 Upgrade.

Do I have a motion for resolution number one nine seven dash twenty twenty six. Yes. First motion is by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on the motion please.

Councilmembers Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zerula. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 198-2026, purchase of 252 Liberty Street.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 198-2026? So moved in discussion. First motion is said by Councilman Shakur. We have a second? Second. Second by Councilman McLemore. Discussion granted to Councilman Shakur.

Well, basically, he said he couldn't be here tonight, but he's watching us on TV. He just called. He said he's watching, so I just wanted to make sure he knows we're watching and he knows that he's supposed to be here.

Yeah, he texted me as well. Anyone else? I'm excited about the possibility here. If no one has another comment, roll call on this motion.

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

Yes.

Stewart? Yes. Zerilla?

Yes.

Mayor Harvey? Yes.

resolution number 199-2026 newberg colored burial ground seeker lead agency in declaring the action an unlisted coordinated review we have a motion for resolution number 199-2026 first motion is accepted by councilman mclemore do we have a second second second by council member monteverde uh discussion granted to councilman mclemore

So I wanted to say that this is something that is positive. I'm glad we're moving forward with this. And the committee, thank you for being patient with us. And I'm glad this is progressing forward. And that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Anyone else? Comments? I have a quick comment on this I want to thank our council members and I'm not counting eggs before they hatch but I just want to thank the council members for joining the committee and we had a couple variations of the committee because some of the original committee members have transitioned and passed over now ancestors and this is something that was really really really long time in the work in the work since I remember 2006 2007 when I was a member of the art and cultural commission and So I'm super super excited about the possibilities of moving this thing forward and Mr. Morris and Miss Kelson and DPW everyone involved It really takes a collective effort to get this thing moving forward. So I'm really excited and is going to really beautify our park uh once we break ground and um this memorial is uh constructed so without further ado um roll call on the motion please council members martinez aye mclemore yes ponte verde yes stewart yes yes mayor harvey yes approved

All right. That's going to be nice. Resolution number 200-2026, 82 Clinton Street, partial release of restrictive covenants.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 200-2026? So moved. First motion accepted by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Seconded by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on a motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 201-2026, 367 First Street, Satisfaction of Mortgage.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 201-2026? So moved. First motion is accepted by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilman Zoria. We'll call on a motion please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur?

Yes.

Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 202-2026, 367 First Street, Release of Restrictive Covenants.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 202-2026? First motion accepted by Councilmember Monteverde. Do we have a second?

Second.

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

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zerillo? Yes. Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 203-2026, 161 North Miller Street, release of restrictive covenants.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 203-2026? So moved. First motion is set by Councilman Zoria. Do we have a second?

Second.

seconded by council member stewart the discussion okay discussion granted to councilman shakur yes i knew um this gentleman didn't he have a wife and kids um i was trying to figure out why there was um because i'm reading now again is it's uh

We're releasing the deed covenants that are in the instrument. Right. That's how the instrument reads. So if the wife and if there is a spouse or a child or some other person in the family, if they weren't on the deed, they're not going to be listed in the resolution. Got you.

All right.

Thank you. Right. And I believe I know this gentleman from a long time ago, but anyone else? If not, roll call on the motion, please.

Council members Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zerilla. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 204-2026, 397 Grand Street, release of restrictive covenants.

We have a motion for resolution number 2, 0, 4, that's 2026. So move. First motion is said by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Zerillo. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Cruz.

Resolution number 205-2026, Mainline Commercial Pools, City of Newburgh Aquatic Center, 2026-2027 Winterization Contract.

We have a motion for resolution number 205 that's 2026. First motion is set by Councilman Macklemore. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Monteverde. Roll call on the motion please.

Councilmembers Martinez. Aye. Macklemore. Yes. Monteverde. Yes. Shakur. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Avila. Yes. Mayor Harvey. Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 206-2026, Black Line Safety Monitoring and Service Agreement.

Do we have a motion for resolution number 206-2026?

So moved.

First motion accepted by Council Member Stewart. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Monteverdi. Discussion granted to Council Member Stewart and Macklemore and Monteverdi.

this a question was asked about black line safety monitoring service before we enter this agreement this was discussed at our work session on Thursday at length in regards to what it would be used for the technology that is being used and it is really essentially a push-button technology and push-button technology is like when it you know how the commercial where I fall I fell I've fallen and I can't get up that commercial. It's push button alarm. So it's only activated if it's pushed and there is a sensor on it that if you have a fall or something, it can sense that because it's body worn. then it is activated. Someone is contacted an emergency service and that emergency service is connected to our fire and they will go to the person and it's only used for when someone is working alone and in a department.

Councilman Macklemore?

No, Councilwoman Stewart beat me to it once again. I feel like the family feud. I'm just a little late pushing the button, so she did it. God bless. And if Wayne wants to explain it a little bit more or anything, I think she did it eloquently. But if you want to explain or put anything on it, any sauce on it, that's good. But other than that, she explained it all.

Okay, Councilman Zoria.

I would also like to add, I think it's a valid concern to question technology and I think the evolution we've had as a council with technology that FLOC started this conversation and what the resolution that hopefully we discuss at next council is how we evaluate technology going forward. where data gets shared, so I think it was a valid concern in this case. I think the safety of our workers and the cost of having to respond to someone getting hurt or not knowing, and those scary stories that are real stories, it's important to also invest in safety. But I think this goes to show that people are paying attention, and I think the evolution of where we've come of assessing technology is the conversation that I think we should be having, so thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else? Council Member Martinez?

yes I also just wanted to add that one of the main concerns that I have is you know to make sure that our staff is fully equipped to well number one to have all the safety equipment that they need and I just want to thank mr. Vandenberg for bringing this up to our attention he takes very good care of his staff and considering that One of the members actually saved the life of another staff member in his department. You know, God forbid something would have happened if that person were to be by themselves. So this is really just to increase safety amongst the staff. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilman Shakur.

Yes, I'd like to thank Wayne, too, because Wayne does a lot. He does a lot, and he's what we expect of our department. He exhibits that every day.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilman Shakur. Anyone else? OK, Monteverde.

Safety first. Thank you, Wayne, for bringing this to our attention and for keeping your staff safe.

Yeah, I might as well had something I want to I want to thank everyone that spoke on this Wayne as well. And this particularly Councilman so the by saying what he said regarding questioning technology, figuring out the process in terms of having guardrails whenever new technologies are introduced so that we can properly vet those new technologies and you know decide collectively whether the new technology is harmful or whether the new technologies for safety so yeah I think that's a that's a great point that was made and yeah you know we are a democracy and hearing the public speak passionately about these TECHNOLOGIES AND SURVEILLANCE AND THEIR CONCERNS. IT DEFINITELY HAS OPEN EYES FOR MANY OF US. SO ANYWAY, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, ROLL CALL ON THE MOTION, PLEASE.

COUNCIL MEMBERS MARTINEZ. AYE. MCLEMORE. YES. MONTE VERDE. YES. SCHAKOR. YES. STEWART.

YES.

ZARILLA. YES. MAYOR HARVEY. YES. APPROVED.

Resolution number 207 dash 2026 donation of 88 wheelchair.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 207 as 2026? So moved. Motion by Councilman McLemore. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Monteverde. Discussion granted to Councilman McLemore.

I just want to say thank you to the person who donated the ADA wheelchair. I think it's important that we have these tools and things to help those who need them, and so thank you for your thoughtful donation, and I wanted to make sure that that was said.

Thank you very much, Councilman McLemore. Any other comments? If not, roll call on a motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 208-2026, DCGS Law Enforcement Technology Grant, 2026-2027.

Okay, we're definitely going to have a discussion on this. But do I have a motion for resolution number 208-2026. So moved. First motion accepted by Councilman McElmore. Do we have a second? second seconded by councilman shakur we're going to definitely open this up for discussion because it's a technology grant and we want to make sure the public and the council and everyone uh understands the uh intricacies or the details of this councilman macklemore

So I believe the chief gave a he spoke about this on last Thursday. I believe this is for the drones. And what else was it for chief? The drone and the technology drone. The light tower, the drones and light tower. So this is advanced technology on the drones and also light towers, especially those that, you know, when we have significant incidents in the areas, the light towers are there to light up the area. which was used in the mullins and used on lander street in different areas uh in our um in our uh city uh the light towers are used as a deterrent uh as well uh it lights up uh the area and so i think that's uh something important that we uh that we have and it's critical for the public to know exactly what that is and then the drone I believe they they they have some advanced technology as far as with that as well anyone else yes councilmember Martinez

yes i just wanted to add that um at the work session we also discussed some points that i know council members and the public were interested in regarding the use of that information and this specific grant does not allow any applicants to use this information to use this technology for civil immigration enforcement purposes So that is something that was important to share and that no data or information generated by this technology shall be used for civil immigration enforcement purposes.

Councilman Julia, thank you. Councilmember Martinez.

I was just going to echo that, so thank you, Councilmember Martinez.

Thank you, sir. Councilwoman Stewart.

Yes, thank you. So this is also just kind of underscoring the need for the Surveillance Technology and Reporting Act that we'll work on for legislative priority so that everyone knows that there will be a process and protocol that Every piece of legislation or resolution in regards to technology will go through and the public will be aware and they will have an opportunity to get information and give feedback on any technology that the council adopts moving forward.

Thank you for that, Council Member Stewart. Yes, Councilman Zaria.

Just one last comment. I think the flock did come in through this funding, and I think it wasn't renewed explicitly, but we do have budget hearings, and it was on the budget, and we did vote on the budget. So I think I just wanted to add that maybe we did not vote on the renewal explicitly, but it was in the budget, and the police department has included it in the budget, and I just wanted to add that because there's different stories out there.

thank you for that point of clarification is really important that the narrative is correct with facts and I do appreciate everyone that has spoken to this particularly council member Stewart who made the recommendation with councilman Macklemore about codifying legislation making sure that that legislation that we're working on and as a city ordinance will do the proper create the proper parameters and guardrails around all of our technology, not only flock, but also any type of surveillance technology that we have moving forward. So if there's no other comments, then we'll go ahead and roll call on a motion, please.

Council Members Martinez. Aye. McLemore. Yes. Shakur.

Yes.

Stewart.

yes zarilla yes mayor harvey yes approved resolution number 209-2026 nomination of the scarlet oak tree at 123 grand street to the new york state big tree registry we have a motion for resolution number 209 as 2026. so moved

First motion accepted by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Zaria. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Zarella? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 211-2026.

authorizing a settlement of in rem property for 453 robinson avenue do we have a motion for resolution number two one one dash twenty twenty six so we'll move first motion accepted by council missouri do we have a second second second by councilman shakur roll call on a motion please council members martinez aye mclemore

yes monteverde yes shakur yes stewart yes zerola yes mayor harvey yes approved resolution number 212-2026 declaring a fire department ladder truck as surplus and settling a claim with michael big junior inc

We have a motion for resolution number 2, 1, 2, that's 2026. So moved. First motion is said by Councilman Shakur. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilman McLemore. Roll call on the motion, please.

Councilmembers Martinez? Aye. McLemore? Yes. Monteverde? Yes. Shakur? Yes. Stewart?

Yes.

Zerrilla? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

Resolution number 213-2026, authorizing fire apparatus litigation.

Do I have a motion for resolution number 213-2026? So moved. First motion is said by Councilman McLemore. Second. Seconded by Councilman Zoria. And discussion. Okay, discussion granted to Councilman Zoria.

I just wanted to thank Council Member Stewart for identifying this potential opportunity for us to get some money back on the class action lawsuit, I believe. So I just wanted to thank her for keeping the radar up for this opportunity.

All right. Any other comments? Can you explain exactly what it is and what's happening as far as with this litigation?

It was a class action lawsuit and we purchased

So there are allegations that the limited number of manufacturers of fire apparatus may have artificially inflated and overcharged municipalities who purchased those apparatus. So several lawsuits have been filed. There are motions to consolidate into a class of plaintiffs. As we did with the water litigation, a council resolution is necessary to authorize the beginning of this type of litigation. And we will proceed if you approve it. And that's all I can say at this time.

Thank you. I think it's important for the public to know exactly what's going on as far as with the litigation is concerned. And thank you, Chief, for bringing it forward as well.

Anyone else? I also want to say to Councilwoman Stewart, you got me on this one. I didn't see this one coming, and I totally did not know that this was happening. I don't know your sources, but thank you for bringing it forward because this is fire chief. Thank you for... yeah i didn't know this was this was a shock to me at the work session but it's cool it's cool it's cool it was a great day so anyway without further ado uh i want to thank you all for that um roll call on the motion please council members martinez aye mclemore yes monteverde yes stewart yes yes mayor harvey yes moving on to old business okay

There's a resolution on the table, resolution number 177-2026, body worn camera contract renewal with Axon Enterprise Inc.

Excellent, so do we have a motion under old business for resolution number 177-2026?

This motion, so we talked about this at the work session, this motion is on the table. there if the council wants to take the resolution off the table you need to do that first you don't have to okay um we also talked about whether or not this resolution is something that the council should approve or not so

So do I have a motion to take resolution number 177-2026 off the table?

So moved.

First motion is said by Councilman McElmore. Do we have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilman Zoria. So there's a motion to take off resolution number 177-2026. Roll call on the removal from this resolution from the table. Roll call.

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

No.

Stewart? Yes. Zerilla? Yes. Mayor Harvey? Yes. Approved.

All right. Mr. Morris, does that conclude your... No, now it's off the table.

Now it's in front of you again. So the question is, so now it's on the table as if any other resolution, as all the other resolutions you voted tonight. So my recommendation is one of two things. you uh consider a motion to approve just like you normally would but in this case we recommend that you vote in the negative as opposed to the affirmative or you can postpone it indefinitely which means it's postponed for infinity so do i have a motion for resolution number 177 that's 2026.

First most of the second in discussion, OK first most of the said that by Councilman Macklemore second by Councilman Zuniga and discussion discussion granted.

Yeah, I want to thank chief roller because he was thinking how can we save money on this and propose a different proposal that saves us a 100 plus $1000. So I think I plead that everyone votes no and we save the hundred plus thousand dollars on this and address it at the next session.

Any other comments? Councilman McElmore?

I also thank Chief Rolla. He's taken a lot of heat, especially in these last couple of months. And to see that you're being steadfast in your fiduciary responsibilities, I appreciate what you've done. And thank you once again.

with that being said i want to encourage all of the department heads to uh use this example uh where there is a where we're in a position where we can cut costs please uh do so and follow the example that chief roller has uh set with this because it is going to save us money and we do have a fiduciary responsibility to our taxpayers without that well any further said most roll call on the motion council members Martinez nay McLemore negative Monteverde upstairs Shakur yes Stewart no zerilla no mayor harvey no it has passed or has been voted down it's been the motions defeated defeated all right all right all right that concludes the city manager's report all right so they didn't know what they would they didn't know what they thought was that concludes the city manager's report and um except for the old business i want to congratulate the city council we actually agreed on every resolution prior to the old business resolution so even though there's heavy debate among us we can't agree on on many things so and i i appreciate that that's to be noted for the history books all right anyway um new business uh does anyone have any new business items that the city manager would consider along with the executive team for the next work session we'll start with council member Mondoverdi and then we'll go with councilman McLemore and anyone else new business new business well actually this probably I'll wait to old business I think this is actually the towing policy the winter is coming and I know we had discussions about it and we

I think we're very interested in looking at the policy and doing some updating because it was a horrific experience last winter with towing and the predatory fees there.

excellent yes so I I know there was a discussion as far as with that um especially uh last year um when this all when this all occurred uh I I think they did a presentation on that but once again I agree with Councilwoman monteverde that we should look at these companies as well that are doing the towing and how it's predatory upon our residents. So I agree with her on that. Can I go to mine?

Yes. Okay.

we're going to do new or old business so we're going to we're going to do both of them either new or old so let's do it that way so i'll do i'll do the new uh once again uh during our legislative priority um council councilman um shakur and i on our three phase um process. We do have the surveillance technology oversight transparency privacy protection and public accountability. Law and that is with the corporate Council so we want to start looking at that as well so that's something that Council mention core has done as well. I do know that, as new, it was brought up, I believe, by Pastor Rosie that Mayor Flowers did that. They went all over with the city speed limit, and maybe that's something that we should look into, and I would love to see how we can do it or what it takes. I don't know what it takes. I know what it takes. Okay.

You have to do a study, okay? It was a state. law that was enacted that allowed uh certain municipalities who can regulate their speed limits cities being one of them to lower the speed limit from 30 to 25. it wasn't 15. it was not 15 it was not 15 no it was 25 and but it does require that the municipality conduct a study before you can lower that speed limit so if that's something you're interested in then my recommendation would be to uh in your budget uh process to work in money to pay for that study

Thank you. And I just want to quickly speak to that and then we'll go to other council members for new or old items. In my opinion, just by my years on city council, because we've set up speed zones and traps and you know and things like that to deter the high speed driving throughout the city is really an enforcement matter in my opinion because you can set the speed limit to 25 you can set it to 10 you can set it to 15. reckless drivers are going to be reckless regardless Even in our school zones, because we have school zone speed limits that are 15 and they still do it. I think it's more of an enforcement matter, traffic enforcement, as opposed to it being, you know, and I think some of our council members talked about emotional decisions to do things that are more ceremonial and as opposed to being really effective. But that's just my take on that we can do the study we can decrease the speed limit anyway. But I think that's more of an enforcement matter but Councilmember Monteverde, you had some.

Wait, can I? You had one more?

Yeah, I just wanted to say I agree. Enforcement does, you know, is critical. But I don't think there's any harm in doing a study just to see exactly, you know, what's needed and where we can go from there. So I agree.

Thank you, Councilman McLemore. Councilmember Monteverde.

new item I'd like to push to get the one Lafayette pilot on the next agenda I just got the email that they've updated it I know that a lot of several council members have been working going back and forth with them the developers and I'm hoping this time they got it right so I'd like to I know that they're under the gun in terms of their funding and it's pretty tight timeline so council member Macklemore and I have been in constant communication with them and we're hoping that we can get this resolved and get it onto the agenda.

I WANT TO AGREE WITH THAT BECAUSE I'VE BEEN IN DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEVELOPERS I DEFINITELY SAW COUNCIL MEMBER STEWART'S VIDEO ON SOCIAL MEDIA SOMEONE SENT IT TO ME AND I DEFINITELY SAW SOME OF THE COMMENTS IN THE POSTING FROM COUNCILMAN ZURIYA AND ALL OF THAT HAS BEEN TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WITH RESPECT AND I THINK THAT WITH DUE DILIGENCE AND WITH coordination and with our city manager and our city attorneys. The community benefits will always be a priority, especially when we're given pilots tax pilots to developers and I just want to remind everyone for the record that when we do affordable housing, the priority is to create affordable housing for residents that have been priced out and and many of them are residents have already been priced out of our city and I do want to make a distinction because missus Tracy Wallace mention something please know and understand that there's a difference between low income housing AND AFFORDABLE. THERE IS A VERY, VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. AND SO A LOT OF TIMES PEOPLE GET CONFUSED WITH THAT. AND MS. KELSON CAN SPEAK TO THIS. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT AMIs, THE AVERAGE MEDIAN INCOME, WHICH ARE THOSE 30%, 40%, 60, 80, SOMETIMES THOSE AMIs GO ALL THE WAY UP TO 110%. WHEN WE LOOK AT AMIs, THEY NEVER use the city local city municipal AMIs and that's a state statute if I'm not mistaken when we say that average median income is done by the county and I don't think that that's something that we can change am I correct Mrs. Kelson legally

There are regulations that apply across the state, but what the city has done in the past is negotiated in some other projects. Not necessarily this one, but in other projects where the city is where the city is transferring the property that will become the housing, we've negotiated a range of incomes, a range of units to cover a range of incomes so that it's not just all units within the 60 to 110 or 80 to 110 percent x number of units are going to be at a range below that where the city's defined what very low income means and then another batch of units y units is going to be in the mid range and that's We've defined that self-defined that as low income and then another set of of Units is in that 80 to 110 AMI so it depends on the genesis of the project um and it depends on how you negotiate and and so that it's negotiable um there are some projects that are going to be all very low income but that's a different type of project so yeah affordability has become a term of art um it's hud driven um Those regulations, they apply by zip code. The city of Newburgh doesn't have its own zip code. It shares a zip code with the town. That affects what the median income is. that's why that's why the income kids the the eligibility income can skew a little bit higher than what you might find in the city of Newburgh but we share the zip code but like in some in certain projects the city has tried to address that income creep by negotiating a particular number of units to be below though to be reserved for incomes below those levels so that you are trying to make units available for those who are are are not or below that level but again it's it's it's been project specific

Councilman Sucor yes so what she said is basically when these companies come in here and they ask for this we ask for that and we come to do and we come to a meeting but we have to understand when they ask for something okay but we're asking for something too

absolutely um so i definitely oh council i definitely support council member monteverde's request to get this on the next agenda uh council member stewart you have something you want to ask okay so this speaks to the ami conversation um and what what i mentioned about

like this bait and switch that happened. 30% AMI for some apartments was in the IDA proposal, but when it got to us, that is no longer there. So that is one of the provisions that need to be put back at the 30%. That's right.

also want to say to council member stewart's point uh and also uh all of the different council members whatever that i whatever those idea i think was councilman zuria that mentioned it uh online whatever those terms and conditions were for the idea they definitely have to be in the in the pilot agreement. At a minimum at a minimum if not if not other and so those things we have discussed with legal so hopefully and the updated iteration of that they will be in there. Councilman Macklemore.

I also want to say our taxpayers deserve transparency, accountability, and the strongest possible agreement when it comes to the development in our city and so I do agree that certain things needed to be it needed to mirror what was previously agreed upon and I believe I have not spoken to the other council members in regard to what their concerns were But I believe Councilwoman Monteverde is going to look and make sure we're all going to do our due diligence to make sure so that we can advance in this project. There's no weak links. There's no deals being made. Nobody on this council is getting money from any developer that I know of. Well, I'll talk about me. I'm not getting anything. I can't account for everybody, but I believe I'm not getting anything. And so I'm doing what's best and responsible and what's great for, good for the people that I perceive. Councilman Zarrillo had mentioned the word democracy. there's no weak links in us voting to what we perceive is uh the best thing for our residents it is a democracy and so therefore uh we vote the way we vote and there should be no bullying or fear-mongering uh as far as how we vote and so um i think that that's uh need to be said and um i agree that it should be uh um in our next session thank you

um all right i want to quickly move to um penrose am i am i saying that correctly uh born in kenny um i know someone had mentioned earlier um that i don't think the person is here anymore about the winners coming around the corner And I know we were right. We got to get updates in that next work session because we're coming to a quick ending of September, October, November, December. October can be cold or warm. Right. Last couple of years, it's been really cold and we don't want to. WE DON'T WANT TO RUN INTO THE SAME ISSUES WITH HOT WATER AND HEAT FOR THE KENNY APARTMENTS. NOW MY UNDERSTANDING IS We need updates because we don't know if Penrose has made the full acquisition of Born and Kenny. That's number one. Number two, I know there was some things going on with folks that needed to pay back rent. I was going to say that. IT WAS SOME THINGS ABOUT CREDITS THAT THE ATTORNEY GENERAL HAD MENTIONED. SO WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHERE THAT STANDS, IF BORN AND KENNY LLC STILL OWNS OR IF PIN ROSE HAS MADE THE FULL ACQUISITION AND WHEN THEY'RE GOING TO START THEIR REDEVELOPMENT.

I'm so I can just answer some of what I know just 2 separate things one the acquisition has not happened as of yet there in the final stages not sure when that will happen they have to Actually acquire the property outright which there are a couple of hurdles that they're trying to overcome So hopefully within this next probably by the end of this month. They'll know if like one of their last hurdles are They are able to overcome this last hurdle so that they can access this last round of funding from the state the other issue is separate because There are several cases for the city that have been in court. All of those cases have not been adjudicated as of yet. Some of them have been. And what's happening is, is that the attorney general gave three and a half months credit for rent, the city cases will also maybe give additional credit for some residents. So again, once those cases have been adjudicated, those residents will know each of them have an attorney, they are being represented at the case. And I know that there was some rumors or some mistruths that were out there about Some people not showing up for their court cases when they were supposed to be there and that was an eviction court. That's not true. These are cases that the tenants brought against the born and Kenny owners, not that the born and Kenny owners bought against the tenants for the purpose of eviction. And what's happening now is once that happens, they will know if they get additional three above the three and a half months rent that the attorney gave. And there was some miscommunication because when we showed up to court on the 19th, the judge did say. that they did not have to return on the September 2nd. And when September 2nd came around for some trials to start, some of the residents were being looked for, and we were like, the judge told them not to come back because it was so many times they were coming back, taking off of work. So it was miscommunication about should some of the residents have been there on that specific date. But that was cleared up, and, you know, those cases are still, some of the cases are ongoing and settlements are happening.

thank you for that update because the timeline in terms because we know if Penrose doesn't make the full acquisition of the two properties then they're not going to start the redevelopment and if they don't start the redevelopment we're going to run into these cold months winter months and that heat and hot water may possibly I'm only saying possibly because I know there was some work done On the on the plumbing. Right.

So there was recently a water shut off, I think maybe three weeks, three or four weeks ago, because in anticipation for the winter months to fix this boiler or bring some parts in for the boiler because it had been ordered previously. So hopefully it will hold. But, you know, it's always going to stand that if we need to get a temporary boiler and we'll bring that boiler in and

build on it later thank you yes councilman macklemore um newberg housing authority they have two vacancies um want to look into um filling those uh vacancies please

Excellent. Yep.

All right, if there's no more new or old one quick thing, okay I know we have to thank you Jason for your service the last six five point something months I think October 1st is the deadline to to extend your interim We appreciate the time and juggling all this. I will want to let the public know that we finalized the job description for the candidate. We worked really hard and it's going to be posted very soon. We thank everyone for the feedback that helped develop that job description and we're so excited to make it an open process and involve the community. And hopefully you will meet the finalists in a community session and get to meet them before we pick. So I just wanted to bring that up and I think September 20th is a six month deadline for this extension.

Thank you, Councilman Zoodi. I got Macklemore and then I got two from Monteverde.

Two more things, that's it. I already said the bid, right? Grant for the bid, business district, the RFP. I'm going to put that out there. Also, Newburgh Illuminated. I want to keep our minds on that and moving that forward for next year. Newburgh Illuminated.

Excellent. Monteverde?

okay old business um i'd like to get an update on where we are with the ev charging stations i know that the last thing i was told was that the specs were done um i don't know where we are with that today and then the other thing is uh an update on the four-way stops at at stop signs at southlander and south williams south williams right You know, I was wondering if we can get a date on when those will be installed. And then the DRI, if we can have a conversation on that, are we applying for that this coming year? Thanks.

Okay, if that is it then we'll conclude. Oh yeah, what's that old or new.

Yeah, I just have one for old business and that is the rules of order. Resolution green light.

Anyone else if not we'll move on to final comments from the city. Council will start with councilmember Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor Harvey. I just wanted to continue my comments from earlier regarding flock. I, again, will continue to support getting rid of flock in our city. I think that the data breach, the lack of privacy, the mass surveillance will actually do harm to our residents. in the long run and I my biggest concern is just keeping our residents safe and honestly with everything happening in this country right now especially people just feeling very unsafe with ice around feel free to reach out if you are interested in just being part of our Our Newberg Watch group, we do a lot of volunteer work with Indivisible Newberg. We continue to support our residents, our neighbors, regardless of their immigration status. They're still our constituents, whether they can vote for us or not. Anybody who lives here in the city of Newberg deserves to live deserves to live in a safe city and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. And I look forward to also working with some of the tenants. Thank you to Councilman McElmore for putting together that housing event in October with the Varick Homes and Ms. Wallace. I look forward to talking with some of the tenants there and hopefully we can continue creating more opportunities for tenants to learn their rights, pair them up with legal assistance if needed, and continue to empower people to know their rights. Thank you.

All right, thank you very much. Next we hear final comments from Councilman McLemore.

Thank you again for everyone who came out and spoke up. I'm really passionate about our senior community. I do have a lot that I deal with as far as seniors are concerned. We will be at, once again, the High Point Apartments on September 22nd, and the council is welcome. I haven't seen you guys at any of my events yet, but you are welcome to come. No shade. Just opening it up to each and every one of you. because I believe that if we all collaborate and we all come together there will be some type of unity that is displayed so thank you once again and those who have shown up thank you once again because you you continue to support just not my events but from the events of the city once again the senior is the senior is I'm passionate about There are some rumors going around about different things and people trying to stop us from feeding the seniors and things of that nature. It is deplorable and degrading to know that some people would rather push their personal agendas than to see the contributions that are being done in this city. This city is doing a fantastic job as far as with the recreation department and other things that are going on in the city with the youth and also with our seniors. So I want to encourage those who are doing the great work and doing uh different programs uh to continue to do what you have to do and to uh push this city forward thank you so much um because it's you that highlight the city and um and continue to progress different things and activities within our city Also, once again, October 6th. Thank you, Councilwoman Martinez, for mentioning it. I'll mention it one more time. October 6th at 7 p.m. at 123 Grand Street, the Varick-Peterson tenants meeting. Please make sure that you're there, okay? And I think that is it for right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman McElmore. Next, we hear from Council Member Monteverde.

Thank you. Very short and sweet. Have a good night. Thanks for coming out. It was great to hear everybody's comments. I feel like we have a lot of work to do, and that's what I'm here for. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Monteverdi. Next, we'll hear from Councilman Shakur. Thank you for coming out. Good night. Thank you very much, Councilman Shakur. Next, we'll hear from Councilmember Stewart.

Thank you. Just in keeping with what I have considered to be normalized, tonight there was over $45 million moved in the city, a lot of which was spent on infrastructure, engineering in the city to ensure that our city is running smoothly. And the things sometimes that you don't see is actually feeding those things underneath the surface. So I just want to make sure everyone understands what it means to pay attention to those resolutions. The other thing is Senior Link Day, we have a second annual Senior Link Day that is happening on September 30th, and that is going to be at the activity center. Last year it was really well attended. This year we're doing the same thing again. We bring all of the resources to residents and seniors seniors and vets in the city where they're able to get food distribution, connection to transportation, case management, mental health services. There will be some screenings done, cancer screening, and other things that will be done there at the rec center. So that is 930. Sorry, September 30th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Lunch will be served and breakfast will be served as well. If any senior needs transportation, we have a line of volunteers that have already volunteered to pick seniors up and bring them to the activity center. So if you'd like to volunteer, please let me know or you can contact Tammy Hollins and she will assist you as well. And that's it. Good night.

thank you very much councilwoman stewart uh... makes we hear from councilman zodiac thank you everyone for coming out uh... uh... i think one of uh... it's my first budget season and i'm excited uh... to learn more and also want to advise people of like the situation that were in i think a lot of people you know were uh... i don't really understand the financial picture our city is in it's a little overly optimistic i think our last executive was a little bit overly optimistic in his trajectory of our finances if you go back to february and you see our multi-year financial plan the audit came in in december and we also had that meeting in july or june and we are essentially been spending money from our savings account to cover our expenses on the city and i think we overstated how much our general fund was going to be in december and this was a projection from december 2025 and the order from 2025 was off by three million dollars and that to me is concerning State aid was projected to be $14 million. It actually came in six million and projects 14 million every year. We've averaged six for the last five years. So we'll be spending down from our savings account at an accelerated rate. So the multi-year financial plan was not accurate from our guru Excel executive that we had. So that is concerning to me and I go into this budget season knowing the importance of sustainability of our city we just got out of uh last august of state-run um oversight and i think the the practices that we were doing you know vacancy rate taking from enterprise funds with no cost allocation all those things helped us get a cushion but also made our city operate at a artificially low capacity for staff so i actually want to thank all the staff that have actually make our city operate day to day because it has been on your backs that we've balanced the budget it has been on your backs that we've managed to make sure we are all living in the best conditions possible with the capacity we have as a city and I want to make sure that during this budget season we remember that and I want to thank the city staff for making this all happen so I just wanted to be clear my concern I did start a free publication it's not charging it's called Newberg times where we share I've been I've been I've been underwhelmed by the reporting that we have and the stories that take hold in our city and i think that we need straight talk to our residents and learn more context because little blurbs and the storylines that people try to make up to push their causes it's concerning because a lot of the times it's based on a bias so my hope is to try to share as much information as possible so you all know what at least my perspective is on what's happening here I am excited for this budget season I'm excited to work together with everyone to have our city flourish but I'm also concerned so thank you all for coming Thank you very much Councilman Zaria I definitely do not agree with the statement that the financial

that we've been borrowing from our savings account to make ends meet with our budget I don't agree with that we have a very strong unrestricted fund balance and I will state for the record when I spoke to the mayor of Mount Vernon they don't have a fund balance when I speak to the mayor in Poughkeepsie they don't have a fund balance and in fact There's several cities between Westchester and the Mid-Hudson Valley that don't, they have to borrow money in order to finish their fiscal year in the fourth quarter. Mount Vernon doesn't even have a bond rating. We went from a BAA2 bond rating to an A1 rating. That is a fact. according to Moody's Investor Services. Mount Vernon doesn't have a bond rating, and I don't believe Poughkeepsie has a bond rating, and there are several other municipalities that fit our demographic as an urban city, a small urban city that don't have bond ratings, and you can check that for a fact. The last thing I want to say, people that were so passionately speaking about saving the ferry, I DON'T BELIEVE THE FERRY IS COMING BACK. THE FERRY WAS RUN AND OPERATED BY THE METRO NORTH ORGANIZATION. AND ACCORDING TO THEIR DATA, WHEN I SPEAK TO THE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, uh commissioners up in albany they said there's no way newberg uh ferry is coming back i'm the first one that when we went and rallied to bring the newberg ferry back i love the ferry in fact we i was advocating for it to be um to add weekend services not just for commuters but for leisure tourism and entertainment where we can go back and forth the beacon and visit our sister city and visit their restaurants etc etc so I do want to say that It doesn't look like we are going to get that ferry back because it's the MTA that ran it when I was in Jersey City. They have it down in Jersey City, but it's very well, the ridership number and data is very, very different from ours. So they told me they're never bringing it back. So I need the same people that want the ferry back to help us get the DEC to issue our permits because we are at a 98% design. Mr. Morris and I have been working very diligently with the Department of Environmental Conservation, our state assembly representatives, our state senators to get the permits so we can start building our, reconstructing our Newberg Landing Dock. That is the only way we're going to be able to have our own ferry. We're going to create our own ferry, we're going to build it, the dock, so that we can have our water taxis, we can have our own ferry, we don't have to depend on the MTA for nothing. And once we build that dock that's already at 98% design, we just need the state government to stop politicizing stop holding up our permits so we can get to work and put this stuff out the bid so construction can work because it's political it is strictly political and I'm gonna say it the DEC is holding up our our our permits and if we can get the same passion and the people behind the save the dock BEHIND PETITIONING THE DEC TO RELEASE OUR PERMITS, WE CAN BUILD OUR OWN DOCK WITHIN A YEAR AND WE CAN HAVE OUR OWN FERRY. AND THE LAST THING I WANT TO SAY IS FOR THE RECORD, ORANGE COUNTY CONTROLS OUR TRANSPORTATION. And they are in partnership with us for the ferry. We got $4 million and we need more money to build that dock. Once that dock is built, we have the deep water ports. We not only can have a ferry, we can have cruise ships come in here and dock at our ferry. And we can create water taxis. We can have know water sports and different things and fishing and all kind of things if you look at our design so we need the people to support a petition to the dec to release our release our permits and that's all i have to say on that thank you very much for coming out tonight meeting adjourned