City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome. This is the Newburgh City Council, September 21st, 2026. I call this meeting to order. Could we have a roll call, please?

Would you all please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, we are going to start out with the public comments. These are going to be the general public comments. There are four. You will get three minutes. And I understand we have a more audible alarm now so that you will know when you're done so that I hopefully don't have to interrupt you. The first person is Dave Brown.

Next, we have Shelley Kolb. Hi, Shelley. Welcome.

Thank you, Shelly. Next, we have Mike Gunn. Hey, Mike, welcome.

Thanks, Mike. I guess we're trying to keep it jovial. Penny Rader. Welcome, Penny. Good to see you.

Thank you, Penny. Rachel, who was I supposed to... I had to leave quickly. Andrew, thank you. Andrew Schwab, you're next. Welcome. I understand you have to go to work soon.

Thank you. Next, we have Ed Friedenberg. Welcome, Ed.

Thank you, and thank you for your service. Casey Banks. Hi, Casey. Welcome.

Thank you, Casey. Carla Vegas. Vargas. Vargas.

Thank you. Next, we have Markel. Markel, sorry. Welcome. Welcome.

Thank you. Next is Elaine Koskela. Welcome, Elaine.

Excuse me just a minute. Folks, I hear people back there talking, and if I can hear you from up here, then the people around you have to listen to you too. Please give her your attention, or if you have to, go ahead and leave the room.

Thank you. That is quite an effective sound effect over there, Rachel. Um, last but not least on this subject is Mike Gunn. Welcome again, Mike.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you, everybody. By the way, Vietnam veterans... I was very young. I was just slightly about five years too young to be a Vietnam veteran, but I was in the military right after that. I have always been ashamed of the way this country treated our Vietnam veterans. So, sir, once again, thank you for your service. All right. Next item on the agenda is our proclamation. I'm sorry. That is well. Gil Monroe, or Gil Monoz, and Dr. Martin Peters. Please come on up. I have to sit down and read it to the microphone. You better take a seat. It's not short. Okay. Okay. This is a proc

All right. Peggy caught me. I was trying not to deal with the resolution. So back to the flagpole situation. Who would like to start?

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Let's open it up for discussion.

So... The late minute or last minute changes are not without precedent. For the entire four-year council before this, the minutes were posted on Friday evening, period. No counselor ever had that time to do their homework. That's not the case here. That was one of the first rules that this council changed was that we're going to follow our guidelines and do that. That doesn't mean that from time to time we do have supplemental items that get added to the budget. There's nothing wrong with that. I was out of town when this agenda was set. I didn't get back until Friday, so that's when this deal

So we have a motion and a second on the table. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Did you vote? Oh, thank you. All right. The motion passes. Thank you, Peggy. Will, you get to follow that.

I have a couple questions. You talked about the housing needs analysis. Does that...

Just so you know, Rachel's having a little more difficulty. She thought they had it, looks like. All right, everybody, welcome back. And our continued business is the exemption to competitive bidding for the wastewater treatment plant upgrades. Thank you.

So... For the benefit of the people in the audience, and please correct me if anything that I say is not absolutely right, we have been directed by the state to increase the capacity of our wastewater treatment plant. The reason that your water bills are higher than what you like is because these are where the reserves come from to do this project. Now, if I understand correctly, we have just about enough money in reserve that we are not going to have to raise the rates, and we're also not going to have to bond any of the debt. We are going to be able to write a check for the entire debt. Is t

Now, beyond that, next is coming our water treatment plant, which is also very old and in need of upsizing and updating. We're going to do well, but there's a very good possibility that we're going to end up with some small bond when that project happens. We're probably looking, what, four or five, six years down the road before we go with that.

Would anybody like to make a motion? Robin? Jane? Hold on just a second.

It has been moved and seconded to approve Resolution 2026-4044. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda, we've all been waiting for the River Street Ad Hoc Committee presentation.

All right. Looks like we have some more public comments on this measure. Two of them, to be exact. Jim Talt is one, so we'll make you wait till last. And Rene Rodriguez.

I agree. I believe Councillor Tergesen had that as part of your presentation, that the ad hoc committee is going to remain and that they're going to be used as consultants. And, you know, there's not a lot more needs to be said because now it's up to the engineers to see what fits on the properties. Then we'll take a look at it again before we begin to do construction.

Well, I'd just like to restate what got us here. Staff was going to move forward, and we, the council, didn't feel like we had had significant enough public engagement. So we created the Ad Hoc Committee for this purpose. So I feel perfectly... Mr. Mayor? Yes.

The microphone, am I? Ah, housing planning assistance grant.

You're looking for authorization to seek that grant.

Moved and seconded. to move forward or ask the city manager to move forward. Is there any further discussion?

Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. All right. That's it. The only thing left is adjournment. So this meeting...

Honestly, the bypass is going to run right through the LCD. You know that. The LCD is going to take a look at it.

Yeah, but it's only within that black outline.

So we have 2 issues one is too. Let them move forward with the timeline but we want to make a motion.

I moved and seconded that we approve the The timeline, is there any more discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Now, do we want to direct the staff to go ahead and pursue the legislative action?

All right. We moved in second to direct staff to pursue the legislative option. Is there any further discussion? I would like to say that this is going to be an interesting experiment because DLCD would never approve this action outside of this particular. So it'll be interesting to see if they do. That's the end of my commentary. Is everybody else ready to vote? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. Thank you, James. So the last is the report on the vacation rentals.

Who's, no, no, the staff report first and a public comment. They got to know what they're yelling at you about.

Well, if you don't mind, step aside. We have one public comment, Robert. Welcome, Robert. Good to see you.

Thank you for not making us hear the buzzer.

Yes. Are we discussing the property that keeps putting the pool table or whatever in the garage?

I'll go a step further and say staff should come back to us with recommendations as to how we can massage that rule so that we You know, we don't want, just because somebody complains doesn't mean there's a violation, right? Come back to us with some recommendations as to how we can solve that problem and be fair.

So let's talk about density. Mr. Mayor, I think Scott has a... I'm sorry?

If I could comment on that, during the Ad Hoc Committee, we did have that information from several cities that we were known to have these. the information was really not that useful because all of the cities dealt with it differently. And truly what is the judge of success? You know, when you're looking at it, when you look at your neighborhood, you have a much different idea of what success would be than somebody that didn't live in your neighborhood. I think it's appropriate to look at your neighborhood because it is one of the more dense ones. Uh, and also the North part of, of downtown, u

I like simple solutions. I mean, if I could make the decision, I would probably say no more than two per block.

Well, whatever size locker, they vary a little bit in town too, and they're about 300 feet in Jerry's area. But that, I mean, I like simple.

I think we've given enough information for today. I'd say the meeting is adjourned.