City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's the City of Newburgh City Council work session for June 4th, 2026. The time is 6.06 p.m. First item on the agenda is an announcement at Monday night's City Council meeting. The City Council will recognize several NFA students who participated in a Young Women's Leadership Summit. Moving on to the engineering items, item number two is a contract with WSP for additional construction inspection services in connection with the ongoing Broadway pedestrian and traffic signal improvement project. This contract is funded through an existing federally local agreement between the city and New York State DOT. The project funds will be split 80% through grant, 20% local match, which is coming from the CHIPS funds. Any questions on item two? Council Member Monteverde. Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. So I have a couple of questions about the work that's being done. And I know this is towards the pedestrian and traffic signal. But the other improvements that are going to be happening on Broadway other than this, right? Is there any way to include bike lanes?

At this time, no, but we could do a study to see what would involve the implementation of bike lanes. Most likely, probably a shared lane between vehicles and bike lanes.

I thought I'd just put it out there. Thank you.

mayor yeah i just want to remind council member uh mondoverty and all the other council members that um the broadway streetscape project was something that the previous administration and council had agreed on and um Mr. Morris when he became interim and we looked at those emergency street paving items that we wanted to do I know we agreed that you would suspend the milling and paving of Broadway and you all would complete those ADA compliant curb and curb ramps along the Broadway corridor but the milling and paving is going to be suspended so that the milling and paving for those emergency streets that we identified would would commence am I correct you are correct mayor okay we will be repaving Broadway in 2027 we'll be repaving Broadway in 2027 so when we go into budget hearings we'll be able to address that and get that done next year Right and that gives us time to consider bike lanes and all that kind of stuff since we're going to put that off with the milling and paving portion of the Broadway streetscape project we'll be able to possibly include some bike lanes and things like that so it gives us a little time. Am I correct?

It does give us time. Yeah. Any additional questions?

Okay.

Moving on to item number three. This is similar to the previous item, same project, same contractor, WSP, and this is for additional construction inspection services on the same project, the Broadway corridor. This is split between two contracts because the funding for the Broadway project is split between two different agreements between the city and DOT. and there is the same 80% grant, 20% local match split, 20% local matches coming from the CHIPS funds, so there's no expense to the city. There's no questions, I'll move on to item four. Item four is another contract with WSP for scheduling services. This is for the same Broadway pedestrian traffic signal project. This is for construction scheduling services to assist the city to dispute change orders with the contractor on this project. Funding for these services are coming from the city's allocation of CHIPS funds. If there's no questions, we'll move on to item five. Item 5 is award of a contract for the July 4th fireworks display to July Forever Fireworks Inc. in the amount of $25,000.

When I went over it, it had that May 1st was part of the deadline. So that's passed. So is there an amendment that has to be made?

Yeah, so thanks for bringing that up. This was pointed out to city staff by Councilmember Zaria. Item number two in the information that was in your packets, this item is updated. And item number two, the date in item number two has changed from May 1st to July 15th. Okay. So there is an updated contract in your current packets with the corrected date. And this display will take place on July 4th with a rain date of July 5th. There's no additional questions. We'll move on to item six. Item six is a resolution declaring several vehicles from the police department and the Department of Public Works as surplus so they can be auctioned. There is a list of vehicles in your packets with a description of each vehicle to be auctioned. Any questions on this item? Okay, moving on to item seven, we'll hear from the IT director on an update for the street cameras.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. So I have an update which is similar to the update I gave a couple of weeks ago. Total cameras, I print one for myself, but others were supposed to be here, other copies of it. Total cameras, 129. Of those, 108 of them are working, and 21 of them are not working. 129, yeah. 21 not working, yeah, yeah. Are not, yeah. question what's the issue with the 21 that are not working oh constantly all kinds of different issues um some of them are just broken on repairable some of them it's a network issue i had prepared a report for todd the previous city manager that outlined what was going on, but it's difficult to diagnose some of them when the network itself on the street needs to be repaired. And that's costly, that's fiber, it wasn't budgeted for this year. But we're propping and patching and doing the best we can to keep them working. At any one point in time, we'll get a few more working, and then the next day they may break again, things like that. So to get the actual diagnosis of each one, I'll have to get a bucket truck and go out there on a specific day to give you an answer.

Okay, I think that would be helpful because if the 21 that are not working requires some either maintenance or we need to get rid of them and order new ones, that will be a part of what you propose.

Yeah, 19 of them are irreparable.

So 19 of the 21 are irreparable. You don't need the three or network or need a diagnosis. Okay.

Council Member Monteverde.

Thank you. So will you include this in your budget? Yes. Because in September, to replace the ones, right?

Yes, yes. I've done all the vendor background work and all that kind of stuff. I have the figures. Of course, they're more than 90 days now, so I'll have to redo them. But yes, I will include them.

Great, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

council member or mayor thank you thank you um so this is really good news to me uh because i've been kind of following this for a number of years and we the last time i went into the pd to look at them i think we were somewhere between 65 to 70 that were working so 129 108 is a really is good so it's an improvement from the last time I went in and I want to encourage all the council members if they have time to coordinate with Chief Rolla and Mr. Morris to go into PD so that they'll know especially if it's in their ward which ones are and which ones are working because there are some of the chief can identify some of our hot spots in terms of where crime often happens in our enough for 4 wards and then we can start to prioritize as was said when we get to these budget hearings in september there was a grant from the i believe it was department of criminal justice services dcjs to purchase 30 or 35 have those been purchased and are those online no they have not been purchased i'm not sure if the grant is still there or not i'll have to consult with the police department yeah it was a tech grant from Department of Criminal Justice Services I believe it was DCJS and it was because that was something I was getting updated on with Mr. Vinnie on a consistent basis of when we're gonna purchase those because we had gotten the grant money and I don't believe there was even a match and if it wasn't the Department of Criminal Justice Services it could have been the federal government and grant it was one of the two to add 30 new digital cameras with 360 degree rotation on those cameras to add to what we already had so if we could follow up on that I would love to know where where that is and what we need to do city manager to go and and again, thank you because I definitely has been overdue for me to come and visit and see you know what what streets and what cameras are working which ones aren't so like I said, I would like to encourage my colleagues work with Jason Morris our city manager and our police chief on going to the PD station and going to look for themselves councilmember Martinez

I just had a quick question about the system or software that we use for the cameras. I know that a lot of people have been coming out to speak about Flock in particular, but when it comes to Flock, we're talking about the license plate readers.

so if you could just explain the difference between that and what the what software we're using for yeah the cameras that I am referring to are not the flock cameras those are totally different and this system is partially fiber partially on copper and partially on a wireless radio signal. If I may say so, it was not, well, it was a design for, I guess it served its purpose, but the entire street network itself needs to be revised, the network on the street, and that will be the first task. I do have an interim solution that can be done very, very quickly. I presented that to the prior city manager. And if it takes however long to do the actual network, that interim solution can work for the time being. I mean, it's not cheap, but it works. So it's totally different from flock. It's just raw cameras just looking at footage. It has no software to recognize like plates or gunshots or anything like that.

Councilmember McLemore.

Councilmember Martinez took my question but at the same time it's still surveillance and I think that the community from what I'm understanding even though it's it it's flock you're still saying that you know we're not then we're not trying to because of the type of community yeah which I think that this is something that we've been working on or excuse me not we but Mayor Harvey has been comprehensive camera review and and things like that which you know I think it's it could be used as a tool and a resource, you know, that would benefit us if crime does happen in certain areas. So I wanted to make sure that it that is clear that there's a distinction or the delineation between what we have and FLOC itself.

Yeah, it's totally different. Different network and everything, totally different. and my last question is is that how many i know we have a hundred and twenty nine cameras a hundred and eight are working twenty one i'm at one hundred and eighty are working twenty one are not working on the street cameras do we don't have the majority of these cameras are in the building in ninety one so the rest of them are street cameras thirty eight i had also discovered some more cameras that see when i came on this position there wasn't any records or any documentation of the camera system or what we had so i had to go and discover that and sad to say i discovered some that i can't even log into so i presented all that to the prior city manager and it's not my place to say when we can hit the ground running or Just give me the resources, I can get it done.

So out of the 129, 38 are street cameras?

Yes.

How many of those street cameras don't work?

I have the figures here.

Sorry, I'm not trying to put you on the spot.

No, no, you're not. I have the figures. I've done this so many times. 22 are working and 16 are not working.

Yeah. That's a big No.

The chunk is not working yet. And most of the ones that are not working are irreparable councilmember.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead. I'll let other people speak. I'll come back around. Go ahead. Councilmember Shakur.

Yes, I just wanted to know specifically, if there was a camera on South William and William Street,

I don't have the locations in front of me. I can get that information for you. Absolutely, just tomorrow I can get it for you.

Councillor Stewart.

Yes. So my question is about the cameras that are irreparable. Is there something in our contract that will allow us to kind of send them back, get a discount, or do you have to purchase new cameras all out at full price?

I got you. I can dig into the contract. I don't have the contract in front of me. Those cameras were there for decades. I'm sure we have the contract as a city somewhere. We can find it. But even if we do, I'm sure those cameras are so old. Working in IT all my life, I don't think they'll be able to return them. We'll be able to return them. they may just be absolutely yeah and i did contact the vendors and we went through the best ones and selected so we have the figures it's just to get the approval to put them in

And you also mentioned that you submitted an interim solution to the previous city manager. Can you expand on that a little bit? What does that look like?

So we have, I think I mentioned the last day I was here, I don't like to have one circuit in any kind of system that we're running because if that circuit fails, we're down. So I changed the whole network for the computers and I want to do the same thing for the cameras. So what I proposed to him is right now it's too expensive and it's going to take too long to do the entire network in the street. So what we investigated was using like a cell phone on the camera, a SIM card. So it'll get a cell phone signal and it can work like that. We've tested that. The city of Newburgh has a lot of dead spots, cell phone spots, but we have tested this at specific varied camera locations and it works well. So the idea is to put that in place as an interim solution, which would be very, very quickly. When we install the network thereafter, that will become the primary solution, and the cell phone will be the secondary fallover situation.

Okay, and you mentioned that it's still expensive. What is the ballpark figure like?

I can't remember, Council Member. I can get that for you tomorrow.

Or if we can see what that proposal looks like.

Yeah, I have it. I did this so many times, but it's been some time since I revisited it.

Council Member Shakur? Yes. Is it possible I can get a list of where the cameras are working and where they're not working? Absolutely.

Thank you. I have it on a spreadsheet for you.

Okay.

Need to write those things down. Yeah.

Council Member McLemore. So if 38 are street cameras, what are the rest of the cameras?

all over the buildings we have cameras in the buildings here in city hall inside yeah but not facing none of the cameras like on top of buildings no no yeah we have a well those are street cameras we have a couple of them on top of the buildings like down the street here but um no most of them are on poles okay electric poles

So that's our camera at social service building. Yeah, on top. One up there on the building.

So it can face Broadway as well as the large parking lot on the other side. Okay. Behind on this side is a large parking lot there.

Because one time I was told the county, they had that camera, because I tried to foil it. That's our camera. But that's our camera.

That's our camera. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions on street cameras?

Is it possible, who's watching the cameras?

The police department monitor it daily.

You don't have anything to do with monitoring? I do.

Okay.

If there's no additional questions, we'll move on. Thank you, Mr. Mohamed.

You're welcome.

Next, item number eight, we'll hear from the water superintendent.

good evening uh item number eight is a contract with solitude lake management for the stocking of fish at lockwood basin other known as masterson park councilmember monteverde thank you so um wayne are we stalking any other lakes like oh sorry crystal lake or machado's lake My responsibility is just Masterson. I did have a conversation with the city manager. So we put this on this year. My goal is as long as you guys are good with it and the city manager is good with it, I'd like to reach out to the Orange County. Orange County does annual stocking and see if we can get on their list that they would add our ponds to those lists that they would pay for and stock our bodies of water for us.

That would be great. Somebody was asking me about that if we had stocked Crystal Lake in particular. So thank you.

You're welcome. Council Member McLemore.

No, I just wanted to say to Wayne, you're doing a fantastic job as far as with Masterson Park and not only just Masterson Park, but going around to all of the parks. I know you guys are doing that initiative, the Blitz. Team effort. Yeah. And so with DPW and the water department and all the departments that are involved, you guys are doing a great job. And so I did get a phone call about the restocking the fish, and I'm glad that this is on here today. So thank you. Thank you once again. You're welcome. Councilmember Stewart.

This is very interesting. Can you tell me what the stocking looks like? Like, what happens?

Yeah, so we have to get a permit from DEC, which we applied for back in late winter. We received our permit from DEC, so they give us a permit to put a certain type of fish in the lake, which we are going to be putting largemouth bass and some feeder fish, because there is a largemouth bass population in there and we're just trying to keep them growing. And we're gonna be putting 50, I think it's eight to 10 inch largemouth bass, so they're good size. And we're making that into a really great fishing area for children so that folks can bring up their children and go up there and catch fish, that's the goal.

Okay. Can we get some video of what it looks like restocking? I think that would be helpful.

The manager has asked me to let him know when we're going to stock, and you're all welcome to come up and help us stock.

Any additional questions on this item? All right. Thank you.

Wayne and it's catching and what is it catch and release? All right, so I want to make sure they know that it's catch and release put put put it back Item number not we'll hear from the director of planning and development

Good evening. Item number nine is to schedule a public hearing for the fiscal year 2025 Community Development Block Grant, CAPER, which is the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. The CAPER is the retrospective report that we do, so it's the one after the end of the year that we submit to HUD.

Any questions?

when are we gonna get the report Oh the consultant said they would have it tomorrow so hopefully that was the deadline I don't have it we're not voting on this on Monday okay schedule a public hearing if the public doesn't know what they're supposed to be commenting on understood okay Thank You Ellie thank you item number 10 we'll hear from the director again on an update on the parking study

so there was a request about the parking study that was issued at the beginning of the year I just want to talk about first of all what we've done and then also the outcomes that we're looking at so the city put out an RFP we've selected a consultant Desmond and SLR and at this point they have been really in data collection so some of the data that they've collected is a list of all of the parking variances so that's when the Zoning Board of Appeals gives a variance for parking going back five years so a collection of that projects that have been approved by the planning board for the last five years and how much parking is associated with each of those and that includes a review of what we call major projects with the planning board so anything probably you know over about ten units they're studying those particularly and they have more details on that they've reviewed event permits and pulled out the largest events for the years 2025 looking at how traffic's impacted there they've looked at parking enforcement both tickets and revenue I'm sorry Ali what did you say the event permit time frame was 2025. Thank you. They've looked at parking enforcement's revenue and citation counts for the year 2025. So that's tickets that were issued and then tickets that were paid. They've reviewed parking enforcement administrative practices and done parking inventories of the municipal lots which were detailed on the RFP. So again, that's to date. And then going forward, they have site visits scheduled in July. So they'll do additional studies where they'll actually do counts of parking lots and parking areas. And we also are scheduling stakeholder meetings. The stakeholder meetings are as follows. The hospital area, so those are a mix of residents and hospital that live in the potential resident zone there. The downtown business alliance meeting and that'll focus on parking minimums There will be a developer meeting that'll be focused on Something that we're looking at called parking in lieu fees So then rather than a variance all the time that's issued a variance basically says you have you just we we want waive the need for parking instead a developer would have to pay into a fund in substitution for that parking and that fund would be structured different ways but in some communities pays for improvements to our parking lots or it could pay for buses or something like that so that would be set up there will be a meeting of municipal staff with key municipal staff and then they will be doing a public Q&A during the TAC that that's a Transportation Advisory Committee meeting that meets during that time in July when they're here I just have one more. So just a reminder of the outcomes of what we're looking at here. The main and I guess the primary reason to start this study was to examine the hospital area and see if it meets the state's criteria to be able to have the resident parking area. We are also, though, looking at these zoning variances to try to make sure that we don't have large projects going through that have substantial parking impacts in the neighborhood. And then we're also hearing concerns from business owners about paid parking and developments, too. So those were the three main takeaways there.

Mayor Harvey. Thank you, Ali, for that because this is an ongoing concern not only with the residents and our constituents but also with some of the council members as it relates to new development. We know there's a lot of new development. in the pipeline, if you will, between the Kearney project, also with the Andrew Shriver's project on Liberty, that's a really big one, and that Liberty Street business corridor at 1 Lafayette. And then there is some renovations and slight redevelopment that's going to happen at the Bourne and Kinney. And then at some point, William Street with Safe Harbors. So there's a lot of, and then there's one, I know there's one at the Hurricanes. I don't know where they are. so my question is where are they in their uh development because the parking and even the the roadway at the broadway uh 17k corridor is a is a yeah so where are they are there are they done the land use boards they're at the planning this is the one at hurricane grill yes yes they they're at the planning board okay so they haven't gotten yep they're at their final stages of the planning okay and then my other question regarding the parking study because we know this comes up particularly during the winter months when we have you know alternate parking so for snow emergencies and things like that so are there any considerations with the parking study for inclement weather and those snow emergencies. Can you speak to that a little bit?

So there's none at this time that wasn't in the contract. I will say that we do like this consultant, so if there are additional things as this project goes on, you can think about that during the budget season, and we can potentially add at the next year to their contract.

Yeah, because one of the things that was a really, really big issue during the inclement weather, snow emergencies, was the St. Luke's parking, because I know that's one of the regions That big parking lot, they closed it off to the residents, and they did not allow residents during those snow emergencies. And I know it's privately owned. I know the hospital is a 501c3. sort of parking yeah inter inter municipal agreement with this particular entity when there are snow emergencies and we should be able to negotiate with that that board and or the power structure at st. Luke's because it's public safety this parking study will at least get us the answers to that so I've heard other other feedback that it's closed during different times we'll at least get those numbers and have that for you

Council Member Monteverde.

Thank you. So I have a lot to say about parking. Since I was on planning for over 15 years, I wanted to believe we should do away with parking minimums. We are an urban city at this point, and there's a lot of development in the pipeline. So what we have to do is focus on many other things, like good transportation, bike lanes, so that people feel safe riding their bikes throughout the city, which they don't right now because we don't have those. So I'm hopeful that with this parking study, because I continue, even today I got, no, it was yesterday I got a call from the developers down at the river, you know, regarding the parking meters down at the river and how they feel like that is impacting their businesses, the pizza shop. In fact, they're parking more where the pizza shop created parking right there on River Road and not at the meters to avoid paying for them. You know, I thought when we did the whole parking study for the meters throughout the entire city, you know, okay, that's the answer. This is going to bring in, we need that revenue. This is going to help save the day, right? So that the burden isn't on the taxpayers. But again, I hope that with this parking study this time, we get answers and they have recommendations, you know, so that when there is a snowstorm, you know, this is what we do with our municipal lots. And that's what I always tell folks. Go park in the N Street lot. You might have to walk, have somebody pick you up, but that parking is available. You know, I even heard that SUNY had opened up their garage to some of the people as well. Yeah. which is great. SUNY is a great partner in the city. St. Luke's, I was on planning when they were building that parking garage and I remember them saying that people on that street can at times park there and they would allow that. And I guess that has changed, right? So, you know, and I know that they're going to be looking at events in the city, like the rodeo. You know, the rodeo brings a lot of people into the city. That's been a problem with the parking. They're all over the place. And it's great that, you know, they can bring that many folks into the city of Newburgh. So I hope that, and I want to look at that study, again, because I hope that there are recommendations. I thought this also was gonna include handicap, right?

I did skip that, yes. So they will be looking at ADA on street ADA, so not in parking lots, on street ADA. They'll be giving both recommendations on a plan for us to roll those out over a period of time, and then we'll give a standard design It's very specific on how it needs to have the ramp onto the sidewalk from that spot You can't just stripe any spot on the street and call it that so yes both right and I did get some complaints about that So again, you know, I went to the TAC and that is a fantastic committee.

They have it Together they know what they're talking about. They do their research. So, you know, I'm hoping that they can also make some recommendations and

well and there's one more thing that I wanted to touch on but I'll come back Thank You Ellie mayor Harvey councilmember Monteverde reminded me of something because when we talk about the businesses down at the waterfront excuse me I think we probably, hopefully in that study, get signage for the municipal lots. We need big, it's almost like a marketing campaign that's needed because people honestly don't, no matter how many times you tell them or even direct them to our city website, they don't know where the municipal parking lots are. They know about the Anne Street. Everyone seems to really know about the Anne Street between Anne and Washington. but when it comes to the one that we have on Grand near the library when it comes to especially the ones on the waterfront and there's an interesting humanistic element to the thing at the waterfront people would rather Be front row. I call it front row, meaning like park right outside of the restaurant where somehow they can see their car if they're dining and eating, as opposed to walking up that slight little hill to those three big, huge. municipal city parking lots on the i guess that would be the west side of the csx train tracks we have those big lots and and people would rather be front row and park right on front street as opposed to parking in those lots so i think that's the signage thing and i think that um all the municipal lots should be um identified with with city of newberg signage municipal lot free municipal lot or whatever because they don't realize that they have so many other options and you might only have to take 10 or 20 steps and i always tell our residents especially if they have roots in new york city i always compare it to new york city and then they go we're not new york city i'm like i know we're not new york city we're urban city a walkable city small way smaller than the boroughs but when you when you've had time and family and friends in new york city you know you might have to walk a couple blocks if you want street parking you know you're going to have to feed a meter if you're in the manhattan downtown business district or even in soho or whatever And you also know that if you don't want to deal with the meters, you don't want to get towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard or to the West Side Highway. And that happened to me twice. And that was like a $1,200 endeavor for being towed to Brooklyn Navy Yard. Yeah, it cost me $1,200 to get my car. And it was the same day. And had it been another day, it would have cost me even more. So I've had those experiences in New York City. and when I think I go you know if you go to the Bronx where my wife was born and raised whenever we go especially during the holidays you can't find parking for three four maybe five blocks and there aren't even any parking lots or parking decks in the Bronx like they are in Manhattan or in Brooklyn so one of the other things we might want to think about is potentially creating parking decks that are municipal owned that take up air space like New York City has done instead of land space and if we can identify because some of those municipal lots that we have we can build up They're city-owned lots, right? Like the one on Grand Street. Who's to say we can't build the structure if we get the funding, the federal funding or grant funding, to build a multi-level parking deck over the cement parking lot? So instead of getting, let's say, I don't know, 70 cars on the Grand Street municipal lot, we can quadruple that if we invest some monies in building a parking deck. And the same thing at the waterfront. I think there are potentials once we get the study done for some other options.

Council Member Stewart.

Thank you. Just a couple of questions, Ali. The Hurricane Grill, do you know when the next planning board meeting is for that?

It's the second Tuesday, so third Tuesday.

They're on for that.

They are on for the next meeting, yes. Second Tuesday. Third Tuesday. Third Tuesday.

Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Third Tuesday. That's a big headache for a lot of people. The other thing is, do we know, based off of the meters in the different areas, do we know how much revenue we've received from the various zones?

Yeah. It was sent to the consultant, so I have it not here, but yes.

Okay. Are we able to see it? We'll get you the data. The data. Okay.

Do you know, do you want the 2025 data?

Because this is for, this is for which year, for 2025? What we received was 2025. Yeah, that's fine. zone fees that's 2025 okay um that's what I was wanted to know because I was following that this had been implemented and it had been done so I just wanted to see was it you know worthwhile how much money the city actually got from it and you know how that funds could be used The other thing is, Ward 3, the rodeo area, are we able to put any of the study into that area over there?

They are looking at the event permits and studying that.

Specifically for that area?

large events which I'm guessing the majority of the large events are the rodeos so yes they are looking at that in general how that impacts their tasks though with looking at street parking I know that that also the rodeo tends to fill any space I don't think that they'll be looking at the all of the private lots and everything that's filled up it's it's they're looking at street parking okay how long does this take for this study we expect by the end of the year will

because it's been a huge problem yes there will not be changes this year so we can get some answers or an idea of you know what can be done or how we can move forward it's a real headache for people thank you any additional questions okay moving on to item 11 we'll hear from ms church on an update on the hillside development boa

thank you so the boa was completed several years ago and we have been applying for grants to do them the primary next step so stepping back a little bit because I know some of you were not on the board at that time it's a very wonderful comprehensive report it is on the planning website under current initiatives current planning initiatives I think is the tab And if you scroll to the end, there are the recommendations again The primary recommendation is to prepare a comprehensive hillside neighborhood master plan We have to this date applied For a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant. Thank you to council member Macklemore. We did not receive that And we also applied last year during the consolidated funding application for funding for a master plan We did not receive that we will plan to apply again this year and then also you know another option is always to to budget some of those funds I will say that that planning projects cost more money than you think they should it's not the writing of the report as much but we in planning believe that there should be robust public outreach and having staff both consultant staff and and my staff you know 15 20 public meetings cost that's where the costs go up you have a lot of people kind of facilitating and planning those so we would look at a good chunk of money too and that's why we've really been trying to rely on grants so again you know there's we will continue the grant route but I could also put money in my budget this year if this council wanted something to happen faster councilmember Shakur

being a member of that board one of the questions i asked also being a member of a person who has impacted my family i wanted to know if i could get a lawyer and the people who have been impacted get a lawyer i want a lawyer to know what's going on because we're talking about reparations we're talking about what we have or what we don't have but we never had a lawyer right So that's still my question. As an impacted person, can we get lawyers?

Individuals can hire lawyers anytime they want. The City A Fund money will not be an appropriate source of money to pay for a lawyer to represent a person on their individual interests.

Any additional questions? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Church. Moving on to item 12, this is a flock update. So at the previous city council meeting, the council asked for some specific options with numbers and timelines on what we could do with the flock cameras. So in your packets, there are two specific options for the city council to potentially choose from if they wish to take action. And we'll hear from the police chief on these two options.

good evening so I heard from the community I heard from the council I tried to put all that together and really as I see it there's there's kind of only two options each option has considerations so I'll just kind of tear through it the first option is to just terminate the flock contract immediately some considerations with that option. Termination may have consequences with DCJS. The law enforcement tech grant was the funding for the LPRs. It was a one-time investment and in the actual grant application it does say there's an expectation that the agency would institutionalize the project after grant funds ended. Another thing is DCJS grant funding paid for the flock project from August 6, 2024 through December 31, 2025. Canceling the project may negatively affect future DCJS funding. The City of Newburgh entered into a two-year flock renewal beginning January 1, 2026 using city funds. Terminating the contract immediately may result in the loss of approximately $414,041 in city funds. If the city wants a different LPR vendor, funds would likely not be available until 2028 because the 2026 and 2027 funding would be lost under the flock contract. New vendors may be hesitant to contract with the city due to the early termination of the flock contract. If the city does contract with a new LPR vendor, Installation would likely take approximately 16 to 24 months from the date of that executed contract, just due to licensing agreements with Central Hudson and Verizon. We are still dealing with that with Flock. All the cameras are not installed at this time. Termination would result in a notable loss of the law enforcement proficiency in crime prevention and criminal investigations. However, community concerns about flock surveillance, tracking, and data sharing issues would be mitigated. The second option really out of the two is to keep the flock contract through the end of December 31st, 2027, which is the end of the contract. Considerations for this option would be we would most likely satisfy the DCJS expectation regarding institutionalization of the project. City would receive services for the approximately $414,000 of the City Fund. City would satisfy its contractual obligations with FLOC. The City could begin exploring new vendors in Quarter 3 of 27 for implementation in 28 without contract, DCJS, or funding consequences. There would be no loss in the law enforcement proficiency related to crime prevention investigations. However, community concerns regarding flock surveillance, tracking, data sharing issues would likely remain while the LPRs are still in place. um and just i hear the council a lot the council likes creative thinking solution based towards problems if the council chooses option one not much creative solution needed if you want to look into option two i came up with some things just kind of spitball and that may help mitigate some of the concerns i'm certainly open to exploring more options some of these need to be fleshed out a little bit more i don't have full details in my mind yet but just as simple as right on the police department website or even a separate tab under the police department post the fair and welcoming city res resolution 4626 make it super easy for the public to find and see post the police department general order in the same location that shows the police department policy built after that resolution draft and implement a another police department lpr general order establishing further safeguards we can or i can provide the council with documentation showing that no outside agency can access view or search our city of newberg lprs and the last one again i want to build out but it can be done some kind of police department uh flock transparency page that we can post on the police department website maybe all this could be under a flock tab or an lpr tab i don't necessarily know what it looks like but again just trying to think you know present something

questions or comments councilmember shakur yes but since the malcolm burke's incident there was an incident on south william street yesterday where a young man was tased and his arm was almost broken by state police officers and city officers again in our city our city has looked there's no more community police and there's no police walking the community has lost They have lost, they're not filling the police department now. And so the community, it's not about the technology, it's about our police department now. Right now, our community policing is bad. It's at an all-time low right now. There are so many people, there's people Like I said, want to put complaints in and stuff, but right now, it's just bad right now. And like I said, since the Malcolm Burke incident, since that incident that happened yesterday that was videotaped, which, like I said, these officers and some of our officers are out of control. And the community right now don't have no, they don't have no, um, They're not filling the police department. And I'm not filling it. So right now, I want this resolution to go forward. Y'all can vote for it or against it, but it needs to go so the community can see where we stand.

Mayor Irving.

Thank you, Chief Rolla, for especially outlining the two options and coming up with some solution-based options and what could do to help mitigate the community concerns because I'm really interested in continuing that dialogue. Also, I did see Facebook about the incident that happened yesterday that Council Minister Kaur is referring to. I think we got an email, and I'm not sure, Mr. Morris, if they're the two same incidents. Because one was on Hasbro? There were two separate incidents. One was Hasbro? What street was that on, Councilman? Okay, so definitely want to get an update and a briefing on those two incidents and what took place because I'm very much interested in that. We know that it's not quite summer yet it's spring and we know the trends in terms of what happens in our community when the weather gets warm um especially with the um with the um dirt bikes and then also with um police and community uh relationships and and sometimes as councilman shakur's Alluding to with the distrust, right? So I know we have some of the movie night stuff coming up where the PD feeds the community. There's also something that I mentioned to Mr. Morris happening at the end of the month because I work very closely with Isabel Rojas and George and Nate Lasek with the YAP program, Youth Advocacy Program, building bridges and stuff like that. So at the end of June, on the 27th, there's an anti-gun violence activity happening at the armory. And I want to have some ongoing dialogue with you, Chief Rolla, Mr. Morris, and also the council members on how our city police officers may be involved and possibly participate in that activity with feeding the community and doing some other things that hopefully can get our police officers out there the community feeding the community touching hands with people and working on on that police community relationship that we built up over the years that I've been on City Council I do know that councilman Shakur has a really great point with regard to where the community and what the community feels I know he is correct I've gotten some of those calls I've had some of those conversations as well The last thing I want to say, and maybe Michelle Kelsen can help us with it. I know we had put some votes in for the PCRAB. Have they started meeting? Where's PCRAB in terms of their meetings? Because I know they should have a quorum at this point. And where are we with PCRAB?

So they have been meeting regularly. They met in March, April, and May. We did not have a quorum last night in June. There was a member who was out of town, and there was a member who became ill. So they did not meet last night. But it's still only five members. We're still looking for two more people to – we still need two more members. It's a seven-member commission, and we're not garnering interest in additional people serving on that board.

okay thank you for that update because that's helpful because if we can recommend or get two more members on there so they can consistently have a quorum so they can continue to meet and how often do they meet again and what what night so that council can know for the record the board meets once a month once a month currently they meet on the first Wednesday of each month at 6 30 p.m. thank you

Councilmember Shakur. Yes. So since the George Floyd incident, the things we have put in place in this department, there has been no enforcement. Like the Right to Know Act, the community policing where they were walking up and down the street. I got five or six videos in my phone right now. Now all you see is the police pulling up and jumping out four or five cars deep. No more walking through the community. It's basically, they're just prowling on the community now. So that's the problem right now and like I said, people call me but they don't know their ward representatives because this happened in the third ward, this happened in the second ward, things are going on but nobody doesn't know their ward representative and they're calling me. I guess you're getting the calls, too, but where are the ward representatives that, because they go out when there's a time to vote and knock on people's, why are they checking on their communities after the fact, after they get in office? That's one of the things going on in the community now. Councilmember Stewart.

Thank you. I'd like to remind all of the council at large that when they encounter someone who doesn't know their ward rep because they probably don't out of the 28,000 people, they should inform them of who their ward rep is and give their contact information as a part of their responsibility. Chief Rolla, one of the things that I wanted to ask you was about this website that you plan to, that you're thinking about. That seems like a good idea because to me that is transparency. And I want to point out that we all we we're getting calls about every a lot of stuff i was talking to you on saturday and i'm sorry we exchanged emails about someone um from the community who called and was talking about speeding um after we left the council meeting the last time someone else asked about the speeding and running the red lights and what their suggestion is as residents is can we get speed cameras? And I said, well, you know, you just spoke out against that technology. And they were like, huh? I said, you spoke out about Flock. Flock is absolutely a disastrous organization, a company, but the technology is a license plate reader. So this is just educating people on how similar the technology is, what it is used for, and how it is used, and not just about flock itself. Flock, once again, is disastrous. And we've seen all of the documentation, we've seen all the reports from the ACLU, all of the different cities that have gotten rid of it, but we also know that some of those cities have gotten some things in place because they still want the technology. Got an email from someone who talked about South Street, how they're speeding up South Street from Ward 3, who happened to know who her rep was, which was great because she found out one way or the other. And Chief Rolla explained to her that it's really hard. And I explained that absent of a speed camera, it is tough to kind of manage speeding on that area. But once again, that is technology. People are asking for that kind of technology to be able to track, enforce, and deter people from speeding, running red lights, and possibly hitting somebody in the city. these options i think are great this is something that we have to make a tough decision on and we have to figure out what um option we are going to consider uh how we can balance listening and hearing the public's concerns and versus what we need for public safety so thank you for this in-depth um these options this is helpful dear hervey

Thank you Councilmember Stewart, I agree with all the elements that you point out regarding this very difficult decision. Also, in terms of, Chief Rola, the foot patrols. where are we with foot patrols because i know um again to speak to council minister core's point um one of the things that you and your leadership and um did in the police department was making sure that um there was foot patrol especially up and down broadway during the warm weather months And I know you have a bike unit. Can you kind of speak us through or walk us through where you are as the police chief with foot patrols at this point in time with the warm weather months and your bike unit? If you still have it, I'm not sure.

Sure, we still have the bicycle unit. We saw people retiring or we saw a lot of younger officers get promoted. So we're in a transition period, so we don't have mass exodus anymore. So now a lot of the officers that we invested certain trainings in and they had the ability and time to do these things have now been promoted to different levels and more responsibilities and varying responsibilities. We actually just sent several other officers for the summer to a bicycle school. They actually just graduated that. We have our Broadway individuals that walk. We actually just made a big effort to get more involved in the school district with different events that they're having. We've been going to the Friday Night Lights. We just went to the graduation that was at Mount St. Mary College. um and we're just trying to get we're going to the library on the weekends on friday nights as well we just went to the armory on saturday and walked through and interacted with all the youth there as well as we're doing a we set it up for july because we know the summer is busy we basically do a patrol wide schedule shift change so we rebalance out all the shifts based on data because summer call volume is different than winter call volume in the afternoons in the midnight shifts and that will allow more officers on the street to get them on their you know out of their cars and walking around and interacting with the community so all those are kind of in place and in progress and they kind of go into ebb and flows as staffing moves around we got to retrain or get people to schools and stuff but we're setting up nicely for the summer

Councilmember Shakur.

Yes, that sounds good. And maybe the city council people should walk with you and find out what's going on in the community. Because right now, like I said, there's no trust with the department right now on the streets. coming through. Yesterday, that thing on William Street almost turned into a riot. That's why I was telling people to stay back 10 feet and stuff, because right now, people don't trust this. And they're coming and they jump. Right now, there's no more community walking. They're the jump out boys again. They're just jumping out on people. That's the only time you see the police when they're jumping out now.

Just for clarity, too, yesterday on William Street was not a City of Newburgh incident. I don't even know what the arrest or...

I was there. I was there, and there was two of our officers were initially at the car on the passenger side. Our officers. That's why I stopped, and that's why I pulled over, because our officers were there, and they were the ones trying to pull this young man out of the car. Look at the videos. That's the... You keep on trying to make these incidents seem like they're nothing, but they're something, and like I said, it's going to end up real violent, and somebody's going to get killed. because these officers are out of control. And I'm out there every day. I've got the videos on my camera, like I said. I'm waiting to get them to Mr. Macklemore to show him, to let his case go forward. Because this is crazy, the last two or three weeks, what I have seen in this city and what I have recorded.

Council Member McLemore. So, thank you for the two options that we should consider. I also wanted to put on your radar, I know this is not FLOC, but there's another program which we use as well, Vigilon. I think it's Vigilon by Motorola. and uh a vigilante or something like that i i have to i have to get the correct name again um but it's by motorola and it's the same same thing like lprs um so that could be another company that we uh look into if um flock is you know if we considering what the two options um if we're gonna break the contract or or not uh breach the contract or not um Other than that, this is something that we can really consider, we can think about, ponder on. It's not to mitigate anything that the community is asking for, but at least you're coming up with something that we can consider, especially due to it being funded by DCJS. We want to make sure that we maintain our relationship with our community, but also maintain a relationship with DCJS as well. And the $414,000 is something that we would have to pay back to DCJS?

That's just a city fund for the flock contract renewal.

Okay.

The DCJS money was spent from August 24 through December 31, 25. Okay. Okay.

So once again, it's a lot to think about, especially when it comes to breaking contracts. But I know, once again, that's not to mitigate anything as far as what the community has come up and said. it is showing true transparency I feel on your part uh to try to come up with different options that we can that we can consider so um this is something that I think that the the council should um look at and um you know basically put consider Mayor Harvey

So thank you again, Chief. I want to let us help you. You know, I know I'm available to do some foot patrol. I'm available to you know, I can Burn a little bit on the grill, you know, help you guys cook, you know, some some hamburgers and we've done that before. I remember we were on South Street a few years ago and we fed the community with hamburgers, hot dogs. We had I don't know if you remember that we were on South Street. It was a few summers ago, and I got a few pictures of that. And so let us help you. I'm really very keen in on what Councilman Shakur is articulating because he is out there. And I think his objective, and he has a lot of passion with it, I think his objective is our objective is that we don't want any tensions to escalate to where anyone's hurt, whether it be our residents and or our men and women in uniform. So I think we are, I know I'm available. I'm sure our council members are available. If there are opportunities where we can get out there and grill or cook, help you all. And like I said, I know there's several movie nights coming up. I know there's a big event at the Army and Councilwoman Stewart's Third Ward on June 27th. Isabel Rojas, I'll connect her with Isabel, with you. You already know Isabel, but just I'll send you all the flyer. Yeah, July 11th, anti-violence event on Chamber. No, not yet. oh yeah he's doing he moved it to um broadway where the uh mid broadway yeah mid broadway site is so any of those opportunities i'm gonna share with council i'll share with the you know the team so that we can get out there and we can um be a presence just as your officers are in in a way where it's not about an arrest or you know and just being communal and I think that's a wonderful opportunity the other thing I want to mention because I ran into the superintendent last night we were at the P-TECH had a graduation celebration that I was attending kind of mostly in the capacity as mayor because they asked me to be the keynote and briefly she said that she's excited about some of the open communication with the executive staff in the school district I know we used to have an SRO in the schools the high school particularly which is a school resource officer it used to be the city police sro now it's the county which their deputies no problem i would love to see if there's any opportunities where under mr morris's leadership that we can you know have conversations with the superintendent about city of police sro and or any other activities she i was made aware of the um friday night lights um some of the school board members have talked about that the superintendent she was everyone was excited about you all being uh and participating in friday night lights um so if there are any opportunities like that please let us know we would love to participate be in attendance Like I said, I got my jumpsuit on today. I'll put my other jumpsuit on and I'll walk the streets with you guys with some friendly foot patrol. I'm sure some of the council members, I do have a bike, but I won't do that. I won't go that far. But I love your bike patrol unit. Those guys, they're great. I've seen them several summers prior in spring. But, yeah, whatever we can do, we want to help you. We want to be out there with you. And I appreciate all your efforts. Thank you.

Any additional? Councillor McLemore. Yes. Also, once again, we're about bridging the gap between the community and the police department and law enforcement. I think that's something that's really important. We don't want to be divided in our community. And I think that you've worked really, really hard on bridging that gap and bringing us all together. I know what Councilman Shakur is saying he's saying it passionately you know he's standing up for the community but I also know that you've been working pretty really really hard to make sure that things are coming together and so it's not to discount your efforts at all and I don't want you to walk away from the day is thinking that this is an attack on you because it's not an attack on you nor the police department but We're trying to figure out how we can come together and make sure that we bridge that gap and reconcile that relationship between law enforcement and the community. So I just wanted to make sure that you know that we stand with you, we stand with our police department, and we're going to make sure that we do everything that we can to bridge that gap, to bring us together, to mend anything that is broken. So any efforts that all of the council can do, please let us know how we can help so that we can be there to assist our police department and also our community as well. We want to bring us together and you know something that I'm working on as well, but we want to bring us together so that way they see that we're not a divided community. The police department can be trusted. Our ranking officers can be trusted. When someone has a problem, they can come to the police department with their representative, their ward rep, and we somehow reconcile that or find solutions because it's not about always talking about the problem. If we have a problem, let's find a solution as well to that problem. I don't want you to walk away thinking that, you know, it's an attack, but it's actually just some enlightenment on current issues that are going on. And so, you know, we just want you to know that we are definitely trying to bridge that gap and we want to work together.

Council Member Stewart.

Thank you. Councilman McLemore mentioned the alternatives. There are three. Motoroda Vigilant, you're correct, is one of them. Axion, Axon is one, and the other is Recor. Those are the ones that if other municipalities have terminated with flock, they're going to one of those alternatives to use as an LPR. So just wanted to give you that Axon.

Councilmember Shakur.

Yes, this is not an attack on the office or the police. But when I came to you, when you first got in here, I told you, I'm not going to mess with the kids. I'm coming to see you. You're in charge. And so after the Malcolm Birx incident, when that happened, I went to... And I asked how to call the police station and find out what happened. They told me our police wasn't involved. But now they are involved. You just tried to say your police wasn't involved yesterday. I was there personally. Your police weren't involved. So now you're telling me I'm calling you and asking you stuff and you're telling me and I'm seeing it. So either they're lying to you or you're lying to me. That's how I got to look at it. Because two or three incidents, you told me the police wasn't involved, and I know they were. I got recordings of it. So right now, I'm not going after your police, because I'm out there every day with them. But I told you, if I have problems, I'm coming after you. Because you're the one in charge. You're the one that's got to make sure your police are doing the job. Because if not, you're the one that comes back on you. I'm not going to mess with the kids. I'm coming after the parents. If I have a problem with my neighbor, the kids, I'm not messing with the kids. I'm coming to see the parents. And that's why I'm talking to you like this, because we had this conversation. And two or three times I've asked you, and we said, yes, our officers were involved, because I was there. I've seen it. So this is on you. I'm not going after your officers. I'm coming after you, because you're the one in charge.

okay there's no additional questions or comments we'll let the council take these options back to consider them move on to item number three appointments for the Human Rights Commission and number three is the Human Rights Commission has three vacancy it's four vacancies for a seven member commission so you can discuss those applications now or you can defer them to executive session

Can I have a question? Can you just say, just for the record, Michelle, what the Human Rights Commission actually does for those who may be wanting to get information?

So the Human Rights Commission is established by ordinance to support support uh... fair and equal human rights across the city they do have some ability to take complaints uh... they have the ability to do some enforcement mechanism uh... it is another place that people can go if they uh... feel that their basic human rights have uh... been abused or violated uh... right now they're uh... focused on promoting uh... awareness of human rights and human rights uh... uh... concepts in the community. One of the things that they're trying to complete for this year, which they were unable to do last year, we just put out an announcement for the Human Rights Hero. So they're soliciting applications for people in the community to nominate somebody who is an advocate and a supporter of human rights in the community that they can feature and show in a symposium. But again, we are looking to make sure that that commission is fully staffed so it can fulfill its mission and functions.

Thank you. And they investigate or they look at stuff from the actual residents?

They do have the authority to do that. They have not to date undertaken that kind of investigative process. They just haven't had the capacity. But they do have the ability to hear complaints. They have the ability to facilitate and to make decisions. But right now, again, without a full complement of members, they're at a disadvantage.

And they do just for city residents or is it for staff?

They're focused on the city as a community. But their jurisdiction is limited. There is an Orange County Human Rights Commission that would cover similar concepts for the entire county. There's also the State Division of Human Rights, which also is an investigatory mechanism to facilitate the hearing of complaints. So there's a lot of different avenues for that subject matter to be looked at.

That's it. Thank you.

Council Member Monteverde.

So we can pick up to four tonight. Is that what you're saying? There are four vacancies?

Yes, so you have, it's a seven-member commission. Two members have an additional two years to serve on their term. One existing member has a term that expires this month who has asked to be, who has submitted an application for reappointment. So, and then there are three additional spaces that are not filled in any way, shape, or form. Okay?

Thank you.

Any additional questions? Yes, Ms. Rivers. Is she in charge of that board or whatever? Because she's up this month, right? Or June. She's up for real.

Ms. Rivers is the one who is a current member of the commission. Her term expires next week. She is requesting a reappointment, and she has been one of the more active members since she's been appointed.

Thank you. any additional questions okay moving on to item number 14 discussion item city manager search city council has received the rfps they're in the process of scoring them if there's any general questions we could discuss them now or if there's specific questions we could talk about them in executive session councilmember stewart do we have a can we do a deadline of when we need to get our feedback back to you so that it's not just left open So I would love to have a decision by the July meeting, so we could put a resolution on that. But tonight will be the last chance we'll have to discuss the proposals as a group.

Thank you.

Any additional questions on this item? City manager search? Okay. Item 15, discussion on the city council retreat. So city council has a draft RFP. I've received some comments back. Any need to discuss this further? The city council retreat RFP?

Discuss an executive session?

Yeah. Yeah. OK. Councilmember Shakur?

Is the mandatory retreat? I mean, is it mandatory? It's not mandatory, no. Oh, OK. Thank you.

Okay, I'll need a motion to go into executive session.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Any opposed? Okay.