Town Council - Regular Meeting

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Welcome everybody to the Right Town Council meeting of May 15, 2025. Please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for all. Please remain standing. Heavenly Father, bless this assemblage. Grant us the wisdom to make every decision fairminded in the best interest for all its residents. Amen. Please call the role. Council person Jill Axelrod. Present. Council person Randy Sier. Present. Council person Pam Jaffy. Present. Council person. Oh my goodness. I was going to call you Frank. Thomas Nardy, his father, and supervisor Gary Zookerman. Present. Present. Um, first item of business is adopting the minutes from April 17th. If no corrections or additions, may I have a motion and a second? Some move. All in favor? I. Uh, our first item tonight is a presentation from Mark Pellegrini, Eagle Scout candidate. Mark, the floor is yours. Welcome. Don't be nervous. Hi, thank you for having me. Um, so basically I'm just going to tell you a little bit about my Eagle Scout project and why it's important to me. Um, so every year, uh, me and my troop would go down to Greenman Union Cemetery, uh, around Memorial Day and we would do a flag replacement, but we'd only get around 200 flags and we would never really even cross the brook. So there was tons and tons of veterans that were not getting flags and we would be doing the same section over and over. when it really was like this, it was really more

like this. So, my plan was to figure out um where all the veterans were, locate them, and try to find out a way to make sure we're not just doing the same thing over and over each year. So, first I had to collect um all the names. With over 29,000 people buried at Greenwood Union Cemetery, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I first started down by Ry uh town Ry City Hall. Um, I started by taking pictures of the names on that wall of all the Ry veterans and I would go around to Portchester Rybrook and Harrison and do the same thing as well at their veteran memorials. I got a small list from Greenwood Union Cemetery, but it was outdated and there was a lot of people who were not put there as a veteran because their family did not say they were a veteran. Um, Where am I? Okay, here I am. So, once I had my names, um I had thousands and thousands of veterans names. Now, I had to find out who was buried in G Union Cemetery. Um and I had to find out who was still alive or who passed. Um so I would go checking off names like if they're alive or if they passed or if they're Greenman Union Cemetery or if they're somewhere else. Um, and it was really important to find that they were somewhere else because there is a lot of different cemeteries and some were buried in Groomman Union Cemetery and some were buried in like Portchester and some were buried far away in like Germany. Um, so one by one I re researched each name. Um, I was surprised to find out how young some of them were. Um, I was shocked to read an article about three young soldiers who were shot and killed in their tent by their fourth tentmate. Um, and how so many were

buried at Greenman Union cemetery and some were far away. Um, where are my car? Um, I quickly realized that a lot of the names in my original veterans list were not buried at Greenwood Union Cemetery. This is the one I got from Rye. Um, and we're not all local residents. So, some have lived in New York City and other lives other areas of Westchester. Some came from different parts of New York State. And same some came from different parts of the country. But it doesn't matter because they all have one thing in common and it's they served our it's that they served our country and they were all veterans. My goal was to find as many as I could and I hopefully found all of them that were buried at Green Union Cemetery. So, by list by list, I researched through each name um uh of each of our local vets buried over at Westchester, whether it be at St. Mary's and Portchester um or all around the place. Okay. So, I then found over 2,000 Greenwood Union Cemetery, which is a lot and lot of people. Now, the next thing I had to do was take my master list of names and go through each and every map at Greenwood Union Cemetery and highlight each and every name so they would be able to be easily located by the volunteers um by their neighborhoods. Um, some of the neighborhoods are Beachmont, there's Aacre, there's Raman, all different kinds of um neighborhoods or the sections and they all have different plots. They're all orientated very weird, but I figured it out and um I created a spreadsheet um which had

over the had all the neighborhoods at Greeman Union Cemetery. Um, I sorted each veteran by neighborhoods and their plot number. Um, this way for people who are going to help me volunteer and place the flags, they could start by the lowest number and then count their way up and find the next person and the next person and the next person. I recently put out stakes by the starting points, if you will. Um, so when they arrive, they'll meet be met with their instructors. Their instructors will explain it a little bit more. Um, I also made tons and tons of extra copies. So, in the folders, it'll have all their sections that they need to do. Um, yeah. And I have a master list, and I'm making a a couple upper uh couple other um master lists, one for uh American Legion and one for Groomman Union Cemetery. So like I said the system works by uh so the book is meant for Greenwood Union. So when we do the flag replacement next year we can start at say a acre do A and if we have extra flags we can do B as well. Then we take it put it right at the bottom. So the next one will be up. So we'll be constantly rotating throughout the cemetery. So everyone will get new flags each year. Yeah. Um, and we're going to start in alphabetical order. A, Acre, uh, Anglemont to B, Brookside, Beachmont, so on, so on, so on. Um, and each year try to get as many as we can do until we run out of flags. Then take them all, put them at the bottom, and rotate. Um depending on the amount of flags we have each year, uh it would take a couple years to get back to se to

section A, but we will be able to honor all the veterans and make sure nobody is left out, nobody is lost. So, my main project, the biggest part of the project now is this Saturday I'm h I'm hosting at the Greenwood Union Cemetery a mass flag replacement. I've collected over 2,000 flags. I got a grant from the fire department and they gave me some to they gave me money to buy more flags. I also had donations of flags and we're gonna go on Saturday and with a couple of volunteers that I have from the school from Ry moms all over the place um residents, friends, family, American Legion as well. We're going to put all the flags on all the veterans graves. Yeah, that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mark. That is a very impressive project. Thank you. Very complicated. Can obviously see how much work that you've put into this and to get so many people involved is terrific. And congratulations to your parents. Very very nicely done, mother. And um by the I see you taking pictures. This this is all being photographed. So, I'm sure you can get the the official video of it as well. So, thank you very very much. I just want to say congratulations. Um, it makes me a little emotional because if I do the math right, about 56 or 57 years ago, I did an Eagle Scout

project and it is your project uh dwarfs what I did in terms of the effort and uh it's incredibly impressive and uh you will remember this the rest of your life. It's something that you will always be proud of. Congratulations. Thanks so much. The scope of what you did was awesome. I mean, the amount of work, like you said, to remember and never forget 2,000 veterans who did so much for this country and somewhere they're seeing that you did so much for them. So, as a daughter and sister veteran, I thank you. I think we all thank you. This project is going to reach a lot of hearts. So amazing work. Thank you so much. You can I was involved with scouting as assistant scout master for many years and I I believe it's 21 merit badges you had to get to up to this point, isn't it? I believe it's more now. It's more now a couple extra. A lot easier than you. I should have brought my sash. I have almost 50 now, right? Yeah, I have around 50 merit. Yeah, because back in the day it used to be 21 merit badges just to get to get up to where you are now. And if it's more, that's all very impressive because it's a lot of work and you put a lot of time and effort into what you're doing and I congratulate you for that. Thank you. I I just want to tackle of course all of those sentiments. You really should feel proud of yourself and proud of your self selflessness in doing a huge undertaking that will benefit so many people. It's it touches my heart. I mean, it's beautiful and it's really heartening to see young people who care about veterans and um you know, take their time. I am sure as a young person, you have so much to do and I can't imagine the amount of time and care you had to put into this. Um so again, we're all grateful. It's incredibly impressive and thank you so much. Best of luck to you with

everything. Thank you so much. Thank you again. So, if there are people who want to volunteer on Saturday, what time and where do they go? I have a couple flyers actually. I'll pull one out real quick. Um, these I put all around my school. Um, it says it has a little QR code for the signup genius. Um, it's one hour time slots, but you can sign up for more. Um, it's 1 hour. Uh, it's from 1 to 5. You can pick one to two or like one to three, whichever you can do. If anybody would like to volunteer, we always do need a little bit more volunteers. And the QR code for it is right on here. Okay. I don't I don't know if that's going to show up on the screen, but hold it up for a minute and then um please drop it drop off a flyer with Ruby on your way and we'll make sure to if we can help you get the word out, we certainly will do that. Thank you so much. Can I say something? Sure. Of course. On behalf of the town of Right, um we're grateful that you researched the Belmont section of the cemetery where the town provided graves for veterans that could not afford burial place uh places and also we have nicks as well. So, uh, thank you for identifying the veterans veterans that are, uh, placed there and, uh, now they'll have a flag on their grave as well. Thank you. Hope that's because hope knows everything. When in doubt, hope play a vital role. You know, I I thought I knew every piece of property in the town of Ryan. I This is all new to me. That section that

you're doing, this is something I didn't know about. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. You can hand them to me. We could maybe put it on our website or text mygov stuff like that. What time are you starting? The last little group will go out at any time. That's great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Very much appreciated. Nice to see. Thank you so much. And did you say where where they could find you at at Greenwood Union at the So going into Greenwood Union, there's a there's a main entrance. Um you're just going to go past the main entrance. There's going to be one that says like do not enter. Go past that one. There's another road right there. It's in front of what's the road called again? Glendale. Glendale. It's across from Glendel. There's a lot more parking that way. So we're going in through there. Okay. There'll be there'll be signs. Yeah, there'll be signs. We'll probably put a scout out there as well so you can see. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh next uh presentation is from the sustainability committee about our community cleanup event. Brian, you're up. Brian, you're up. Brian, sorry. need to volunteer more. No, unfortunately I can't make it on uh on Friday this Saturday, but uh No, I was just saying um you know, the Portchester Library, we have a big uh bookshelf

dedicated to local history. So, I was thinking, you know, a copy of his work might be a good fit there. That'd be great. Yeah. There you go. Okay. All right. So, yes, uh we're almost two weeks out from our 2025 spring cleanup. Um continue. We had four sites this time around. Uh downtown Portchester, which is a mainstay for our spring cleanup. Uh this time partnering with the city of Ry, they did the Ry Nature Center and then for Rybrook and Ry, also our main stays of the Anthony J. Pilo Community Center and along the Marin River. So, we had 16 sponsors this time around and a little over 40 volunteers. It's hard to be exactly sure because we didn't get photos from one of the sites, but um we got a decent amount of trash off of the roads of Portchester. Um Council Person Jeffy, I believe you can attest to how much was taken from uh Reinneck. I mean, I was with a few down and it was just amazing that by the river some of the oddities you would find. So I mean there was just pizza boxes thrown into the river and I was just like what are people doing? Yeah. But I would say we we got about probably not as much as the other sites because it's a contained

space, but there had to be at least like eight bags of garbage taken away. Yeah. And like I said, some odd objects. pizza boxes weren't the oddest of the objects, but I yeah, I don't want to go into what the oddest objects we found in Portchester were, but um yeah, so in Portchester, we had 16 volunteers. There's a picture of all of us there. Um we were lucky enough to get a few members of the board of trustees to come out. Um we had uh sponsorships from the Capitol Theater and from the Colony Grill as we have in the past couple of years. Uh so we always appreciate uh you know the the help that they provide us and them for being active in our community. Um, we cleaned up a large area of downtown Portchester, ranging from a block uh I was going to say south, but a block uh east of the uh library down to the waterfront and then south past uh the clay art center toward village hall and north up to the bridge that connects us with connects us with Byum. So, we uh you know, we all covered a pretty large area. Um the city of Rye, like I mentioned earlier, they cleaned up the Rye Nature Center and uh they planted uh annual flowers there and similar. So, thank you very much to Tracy Stora for running that site. And then for Ry and Rybrook, uh our two smaller sites that we always try to get people to. Um clearly my estimate of bags of garbage taken was very low. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Um but yeah, so Rinneck is great. The clean up along the Marin River is very important because it drains out into this the uh Long Island Sound and at the planting that goes on at the community center I know is very appreciated by the people who go there

regularly. So for Reinneck, we had Christy Young in charge and for Ry Brook, we had Greg Rivera. So, thank you very much to both of you. And um yes, that last picture had Hope and Ruby, did it? Oh, there you are. I didn't know who it was. There you go. That's great. That's great. Um yeah, so similarly to last year, uh we started our recruitment push pretty early and we, you know, ramped it up as we got closer to the day of. Um in Portchester in particular, we got help from the Capitol Theater to recruit some people and they incentivized their uh their participants. I'll say um I said a special thanks to Trusty Nal uh sorry Naguari in Portchester uh because she was able to bring along a a group of high schoolers who were very happy to get some community service hours and uh as Supervisor Zuckerman mentioned last time about the weather. I couldn't guarantee it, but it did hold out for us, which it it was it was a little shaky for a while there. But, um, we had a beautiful day as you can see from this photo right here. Um, and then as for, you know, our problems, you know, we didn't get as many signups as last spring, which I view as a disappointment. And outside of the the volunteers that Trustee Nullari was able to bring along with her, um, you know, we're not getting too many teenagers involved, which is, you know, they're they're the most able to get into small places to pick up garbage. So, it's nice to have them along, and it's good to get people involved early about, you know,

with caring about the community. Um, and then as far as looking forward, this is a picture from last year just because I love it so much. Um, I think we're going to have to think about ways to further incentivize people to participate. And, uh, just as an appeal to anybody who's watching this, uh, please come to our fall cleanup. Uh, you know, we need everybody's help that we can get. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian. Do you have a date already? We have one, but um I'll be back to uh to bother everybody with it toward the end of the summer. They do and I I reach out to them, but yeah, I was just thinking people who are predisposed to help. Yeah. And it's interesting because a big reason we started this was that parents are reaching out saying our kids need community service hours. Right. So then we mobilized you the community around that thinking this would be a great service for everyone. Right. So I think a brainstorming session you know. Yeah. I think part of it could be that you know I remember when I had to do community service back in high school and I didn't go to the local schools but I had to do like 40 hours. So if it's just two hours twice a year you know it's not that much. So maybe expanding it Did you go reach out to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts? Yes. Scouts now say because they have to do their community service too for certain badges and stuff and classes as well. Yeah, I reached out um nobody did basically is what I'm getting. But um yeah, so we have another topic of conversation here. Just one comment. I want to say I was really impressed with something you did

which is we pulled away from doing Crawford as a site because Crawford always pulls away from Reck and the other places and I love that you had where I'm needed most and you had a ton of people sign up that you assigned the day before to where they were needed most. So I thought that was a really positive and good change. Thank you. And it showed that people do want to help. and can be directed. Yeah. And I think um one of the good things about that is, you know, you give people the um you know, the feeling of being a hero, you know, like, you know, put up the bad signal and I'll go to uh the spot that needs me most. But um yeah, so next up, next event, we've got Eco Fest on June 8th right here at Crawford Park. So it's going to be a great big fair. We've got lots of table part tableling partners uh lined up. Um we're going to have uh all sorts of different like one or two time in the day events. So it's a good day to come along and stick around. It's going to be from 10:00 a.m. to 4 pm. And we have things as varied as uh seed bombs from the Clay Arts Center to a uh a hybrid bus from the county that people can, you know, take a look at and hear some more about. So, I think it'll be a lot of fun and I hope that we'll see you there. Did you think Yes, I did. I'm I'm putting it in my calendar right now. Yeah. So, I'll say it again. June 8th, which is Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 400 pm. And that's right here at Crawford Park on the Great Lawn. Thank you for your work on that. I know it's been substantial.

Well, happy to help. It starts at 10, right? Yep. Mhm. And then we can regroup next week and I can dive in with you. Okay. Great. Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much. Thank you. [Music] Um, comments on non-aggenda items. Does anybody have a comment on a non-aggenda item? Uh, anybody on Facebook? No. Okay. Uh, moving on to resolutions. First resolution is to award a contract to conduct repairs to the Crawford Park Picnic Pavilion. Um Deb, you want to tell us what this is about, please? Yes. Uh this has been a capital project that has been discussed for a number of years. Um it's in the uh this year's capital budget as well. Um the uh muchloved uh picnic pavilion floors need a redo. Um there is there I actually um Ruby, can you help us with a picture or two? Thank you. Uh so we have um uh it's it's absolutely imperative that we address the um kitchen floor immediately but the bathroom floor also is in need of repairs as is the main picnic pavilion and the pavers area around the uh the building. So we uh put it out to bid. We have three quotes as per our procurement policy and uh the lowest responsible bidder is MTS which is a uh contractor with whom uh the town of Ry has worked on multiple occasions. So we know that they're that they absolutely deliver what they say they're going to do on time on budget. So that's my recommendation.

Uh it's in the it's in the uh attachment. Let me see. Yeah. Yeah. The specifications are epoxy. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm looking for. It's going to be an epoxy floor because that's going to be that'll last a lot longer. Okay. The epoxy. Any other any other comments or questions? This is, as Debbie mentioned, this was we've been talking about doing this for a couple of years, putting it in the capital budget, and um we're finally getting to do it, and uh you know, maintenance is really important. It's obviously not in the condition of New York airport, but we want to keep ahead of it. And uh and so we are. May I have a motion and a second, please? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Call the rope. Council person. Yes. Council person. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Nardy. Yes. Supervisor. Yes. Next resolution is for the town to enter into contracts with two companies. Dot Designing and ASUS. apparel for the procurement of uniforms and clothing for our staff. Debbie, why do we have two? We have two uh because um in doing we had a a highly detailed RFP item by item and uh there were uh two companies that had the best prices. So, some items are from are going to be ordered from one of

the companies, some from the other depending upon who offers us the best price. And um uh several of the references that we checked um had to in case one couldn't come through. I've had that experience in the past with firms that that that won the RFP and then couldn't deliver. So, now we have options. Great. Questions, comments? Motion in a second, please. So moved. A second. Call the RO. Council person Axelrod. Yes. Council person Cellar. Council person Jaffy. Yep. Council person Arty. Yes. Supervisor. Yes. And we have two tax cases. One, first one is 40 432 West William in Portchester. Uh, good evening. I'm just going to pull up the uh the refund analysis. Second, thank you Charlie for doing that, by the way. Um, yeah, the first one is a relatively small taxer case. the um the refund to on West William Street, the refunds to the school, the town is minimal. The village is the total refund is $1,900. The school refund is about $3,900. And the school's been apprised of this. We've discussed this um over multiple meetings and I've alerted the the district that uh that this case would be on as as well as the next one.

Any questions or comments? Motion a second, please. I'll make the motion. Second. Council person Axel. Yes. Council person Sier. Yes. Council person Jackie. Yep. Council person. Yes. Supervisor. Yes. The next case is um I have to call the case. Oh, I'm sorry. So, the supervisor I called the role. I called I called the for who I was. Okay. Our next our next our our next item is a tax case for 17-25 North Main Street in Portchester. three. This is a this is a completely commercial building. Uh and the refunds here are a little bit larger. Uh the school refund is about $33,000 and the village refund is about $15,000. There have been multiple years um negotiated to be discontinued as well. So we believe we've reached a very good settlement on this uh notwithstanding the size the relative size of these refunds relative to the the prior case but yeah this this covers a fiveyear period. Yeah uh only one of which is requiring a refund the 2020 the old all the others have been uh discontinued. That's correct. I would recommend uh approval of the settlement. And as Jeff says, we we go over all of these as our uh periodic taxert conferences with all the villages and school districts and they are well aware of the this the situation before we get to this point. So questions or comments? Motion in a second, please. So moved. Second.

Hold the roll. Council person Axarat. Yes. Council person Sar. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Nardy. Yes. And Supervisor Zuckerberg. Yes. Um, next is a resolution to change the regular monthly meeting date from June 19th to June 12th. Simple reason is June 19th is a holiday. Officially Junth the offices will be closed. So the motion is the uh solution is to change it to June the 12th. I have a motion moved second. Say if there are any questions motion in a second. All in favor? I um that completes our resolutions reports. Do we have any reports today? Crawford Park. I know that Candy is not here this evening.