Town Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody to the right council meeting of March 19th. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the stands one nationy and justice for all. Please remain standing. Oh Lord, bless this assemblage. Grant us the wisdom to make every decision fairminded in the best interest for all his residents. Amen. Please call the roles. Council person Deborah Freriedman.

She's here. Council person Emma Jaffy here. Council person Randy Sier here. Council person Thomas Nardy here. And supervisor Gary Serman here. Um first have we acquired a new property? I don't know that. What did he say? That's lovely. Singing it. Would you would you would you like to talk about that or would you like to get on to the meeting and get home tonight? Your choice.

Just be a brief. I was just wondering why we put that up. Maybe you had another property acquisition in mind. I think it's just the homepage. Okay. uh adoption of minutes of the meeting held February the 19th, 2026. If there are no objections, additions, may I have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. All in favor? I.

Um we have on the agenda tonight a public hearing under the New York uh eminent domain procedure law regarding the uh Otter Creek Bridge. uh our attorney uh for the purpose stand tartalia will tell us what this is all about. First of all, let me open the meeting first. Open the public hearing. I have a motion to open the public hearing. I make the motion. Second. All in favor? I public hearing is open.

Uh Mr. supervisor and town board. This is a um a resolution that was on tonight um to uh conduct a public hearing in connection with the uh eminent domain procedure law for purposes of acquiring property necessary uh to uh construct or reconstruct the uh bridge across the outer creek. Uh the the town had negotiated for a very long time with the Westchester Land Trust to purchase the small pieces that were necessary to reposition the direction of the bridge and basically had a a deal worked out. had an appraisal done, had an appraised value determined, and um and then the town engaged me to uh complete the negotiation and to uh conclude the transaction and acquire the property. So, we prepared a contract and and started a negotiation. And the negotiation, for whatever reasons, became far more complicated um than we ever thought imaginable in connection with these two tiny little pieces of property that are worth about $1,500. um because of the interaction and necessity of the involvement of New York State DOT um and because there are grants which the supervisor can explain much better than I um or Debbie in connection with this construction of this bridge. We started running out of time and as much as we we we tried in good faith to continue to negotiate with the Westchester Land Trust, we weren't making any progress. So, we had to report to DOT um what was going on. And one of the things that was required in order to um

keep the the grant money available was was was control was land control. And we couldn't demonstrate to them that we own the property. In fact, we couldn't even demonstrate to them that we had a contract to purchase the property. So we started the um we started the procedure for acquisition through condemnation. Um this is the first step of that procedure. This public hearing is for purposes of determining public purpose. So there's two components under the EDPL when when um um a condemning authority acquires property. The first you must establish public purpose and the other is then to establish the price. Um so um just days ago literally we were finally able to finalize the contract and to get the signature of the Westchester land trust on the contract. We sent it to our engineers, we sent it to New York State DO um DOT and I suggested to the supervisor that since we had already prepared this and advertised it that perhaps what we should do since we're not closed yet, we're in contract. we're not closed yet. Just to be on the safe side and not to have to go through this process again if for some reason we we can't close that you open the public hearing tonight and then adjourn it. Um and um and and if necessary then you can reconvene. you can continue the public hearing on renotice um finish getting comments with regard to public purpose um or objections to the public purpose and then take the property through condemnation. We don't think you're going to need to do that. You know, we've we finally have think satisfied all of the um uh requests and desires of the Westchester Land Trust and um we do

have a contract. So that's that that's kind of why this is on the agenda tonight. This is Yeah, this was kind of oursel and suspenders, huh? Yeah. In case in case we didn't get the contract, as Dan said, we just got the contract back this week. And I I checked, we started this process with the Westchester Land Trust last April. So it's a year. No, I know. for a piece of property that's a couple of hundred square feet and appraised value of about $1,600. This was the final motivating factor to get the the contract signed. Trust me. Yeah. Because if we if we do that, there been anything, right?

Well, not only that, but there are four pieces of property involved. Two were acquiring. Two were getting a a um temporary construction easement over. So, um, when I when I prepared the notice here for condemnation, I included all four pieces. So, they actually have more to lose here, um, if they don't end up closing um, than if they close pursuant to the contract, which I'm confident they will and uh, we can move forward.

It's basically like with the Hillside Avenue bridge where we had a temporary take piece of land and then they got it back when we were finished. That's exactly what is negotiated in the contract on. So there's one of the exhibits to the contract which took a lot of negotiation was was the temporary construction easement because they they were concerned about restoration and and what kind of grass are we going to plant after? You know, I mean it it it really went on and on much longer than we had any any thought that it might. No, I'd rather see them get their money than us taking the property. But I know you I know it's been a while working with them. Yeah. And it's not about the money. Trust me. I know. I know.

It's about a lot of other issues. Signs. Are we gonna have a sign? Are we You know, there's a there's a They wanted They wanted to when it's finished to have a a handicapped accessible parking space, which is not within our control. It's in the control of the village of Marin. And we said we would use our best efforts to work with the village of Maric to establish that space because they want people to be able to be at the bridge and see the scenic view. So I mean there's a lot a lot of small steps.

They want to send they want to send people to inspect the construction as it's occurring. You know they want it it just it Yeah. And it went on and then they wanted internal people as well and we had to negotiate what they were going to get paid to come and do the inspections. I mean it was it was becoming unmanageable. The state already sends their inspectors over. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, anybody else have any questions? So we have a contract now and what's the timing on that? When do we expect it to be concluded? At this point,

there's there's a um there's a title issue. There is there is a property owner that they acquired title through um that has in their opinion some rights of first refusal. Um, they want to be able to at least have a conversation with this property owner to get them to wave their supposed right of first refusal to this piece, which we don't really care about because if we need to take it, if we need to foreclo if we need to condemn that property right, we'll do that, too. And we told them, it's not our problem, it's your problem. But they want to be able to maintain goodwill with this property owner. So they're still in the process of having communications with them. So it may take another 30 60 days to close this, but you know um we anticipate that it's going to close.

1600 or 2000. Do you remember what it was in the contract? I thought it was 1600. Yeah, I thought it was or that's about what it is in the it's it's the appraised value that is okay. So it's a fixed value based on the appraised value. That's what's set in the contract. Thank you. But that isn't the num, you know, the the real number is pay the inspector, do we going to put up a sign? Are we, you know, it's it's all this other stuff they wanted. So anyway, that's where we are. Okay. So, uh, Mr. Supervisor, I I I think you should ask the public if anybody has any comments with regard to I was just going to do that.

Do we have any comments from the public on this issue? I don't know if we have any comments on Facebook. No, somebody's checking Facebook. I'm checking Facebook and there are no comments here. Okay. Um I'd like a motion to adjourn the public hearing to our next meeting which is scheduled for April the 16th. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. This public hearing is adjourned to April the 16, 2026.

Um,

uh, our next item is a resolution to consider hiring Joel Dictor.

Resolution to resolution to hire Joel Dictor LLC as special counsel to represent participating Westchester municipalities in monitoring the Con Edison rate settlement. As many of you are aware, um the town of Rye along with virtually every community in the county of Westchester uh entered into an agreement uh a an agreement amongst ourselves to authorize Joel Dictor to fight the Con Edison rate increase and to procure a settlement that would be favorable to the uh residents and municipalities of Westchester and that was accomplished. However, we need uh to monitor the settlement and that's what this resolution is about. Um to hire Mr. predictor at a cost of all of $1,250 per participating municipality per year. So, uh that is a very reasonable legal expense

to protect our interests. Any questions? No. May I have a motion and a second, please? So moved. Second. I hope call the role, please. Council person Freriedman. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Sier. Yes. Council person Nardy. Yes. And supervisor. Yes. This is the next resolution is authorizing the town clerk. the town clerk to submit an uh an application uh to the uh Department of State local government whatever it is

management LGRMif grant right to provide shelving and cabinets for the storage of vital records and active and inactive government records and that application is due April 1st and requires the ascent of the governing body for the clerk to submit this application. There are no other no other questions. There haven't Are there are there other qu are there questions? Are there other questions? Are there any question right now? But

we're running out of space and we want we're we have an opportunity to apply for this grant for good shelving and cabinets and so we have to have it in by April 1st. No match resolution. There's no match. Okay, that's great. Okay, motion and a second, please. I'll make the motion. Second. All in favor? I Thank you. You're welcome. That was an easy one, right? Spend it. Well,

our next item is a tax case for 141 South Region Street. Charlie or uh Jeff, either want want to handle this. This is in Portchester on South Region Street. This is the Florist uh shop, Portchester Florest. Um the uh council for the Portchester School District has been informed of this. No feedback. The refunds are very minor. It was what Right. So I would recommend seven. If not, may I have a motion and a second? Some move. Second.

All in favor? I um a resolution to Oh, this is a big one.

For the town council toward a contract to replace the Rytown Park bath house retaining wall to the lowest responsible bidder, Tony Cassell, Inc., not to exceed $383,000. Actually this resolution, same resolution has been already approved uh last Tuesday by the Rytown Park Commission. Um the work obviously is being done at Ry Town Park, but the uh the award the we have gotten an award each for $250,000 each from the assembly through assembly manus and through the state senate through Senator Shelley Mayer to cover the cost. Uh the bids actually came in under the grant amount which is very surprising. We expect there may be some extras,

but uh this is a very very very good uh award and uh the town council will hopefully follow the the uh it's just actually it's the exact same resolution that was passed by the park commission. So So any questions? Yes. So we got $250,000 toward this project in grant money and the park commission got 250. So in total 500 No, it's 500,000 for the project. 250,000 each for the project.

So we have received $500,000 or expect to receive $500,000 in grant money toward the project. And the estimated total cost of the project is 383,000. So out of pocket, we are not paying anything for this. Correct. Thank you. That's good. Unless something unforeseen happens, it would be very expensive unforeseen. If you have 120 something,

we do know, for example, we do know that after construction, the shower area at Ry Town Park, um, some of the walls need to be replaced, the low walls, the the two foot high walls. And there is an issue with the plumbing be that we're trying to work out because the showers are our um waste water and we have park water from the rain in the open shower which is storm water and as they say the two shall never mix. So we're working with the rise city building department to come up with a proper legal solution that may cost us a little bit of extra money

but we wouldn't go ahead and do work that then would have to be ripped up to redo. Absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. So, any other questions? No. Those are good questions. Um, motion in a second, please. I make the motion. Second. Um, please call the role. Council person Freriedman. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Sier. Yes. Council person Nardy. Yes. And supervisor.

Yes. resolution to adopt the amendment between the town of Ry and AI engineering for the town of Ry's green resiliency grant project. This is the um $8.1 million grant for Ry Town Park. The grant was awarded to the town of Ry again. Um, and as part of the contract with the Environmental Facilities Corporation of the State of New York, um, the um engineer has to exceed to certain terms set forth by the uh, EFC and we had a contract that we entered into earlier in in December and that has to be amended to take into account the requirements of the EFC which are set forth uh in the in the resolution and it has to do mostly with hiring uh women and minority workers and and establishing goals. Um I hope body's read through it. It's only 15 or 20 pages long. So, um, are there any questions?

I hear no questions. I have a motion and a second. So, moved. Second. Please call the role. Council Person Freriedman. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Sar. Yes. Council person Arty. Yes. And supervisors are coming. Yes. Thank you all very much. Um Debbie, um I have to sign this contract at the appropriate time and put it in the package. All will have the package that includes this and the and the two resolutions, the original resolution and this resolution. Okay. reports. Do we have a Crawford Park report?

You don't have to. It's okay. I have nothing to say. Okay, it's loaded. She's coming. Oh, then we'll the director of parks and and director of parks and facilities. Hi, how are you? Hold it. We have to fit. I want to hear you say no. I have no report. I have nothing new to report. Candy, that's not you. I'm talking to Dick. Oh, I was by proxy story. Oh, okay. Good. All right, Candy, you're on.

Okay. So, I have um for from January to February for Crawford Park, I have as the gross and wave um this year for gross it's 4 5 840. It's a little higher from last year and the waved fees from uh this year it's a little lower from last year. So we have uh for this year 1,720 waved um for events. We have less events this year compared to last year. So we have 40 events this year compared to last year.

And this is year to date. This is for 20. This is through February. Yes. Right. All winter long winter.

And this is the breakdown for private events. For residents, we have it broke down by Portchester Bro and Rne. And then we also have resident. Then we have for municipalities we also have a breakdown for residents with Portchester Ry and Rack also for municipalities for non-resident also. We've currently had two public events and then we have the programs fiddle heads chess council for the arts and the choir which should be here in like 40 minutes or so

so we can hear them as we leave. Correct. And then they're very good by the way. They're really good. Um we also have our last concert. I'm sorry. This weekend we have a concert for the Westchester, which is this Sunday at 2 o'clock. And then the last concert that we'll have for the winter session is on May 3rd. Thank you, Candy. You're welcome. You break even on these concerts? I don't think so.

So, it cost us more than the ticket sales. Just a little bit. Yeah, it's close. for the winter concerts and the summer concerts. No, we don't we don't charge for the summer concerts. We do charge for the winter concerts and whether we break even or not has something to do with how many tickets are sold. It's pretty close. That's all.

Basically, Debbie, um, we do a lot of these things just for the benefit of the residents because they enjoy it. We hope we come close to breaking even. You know, it's it's interesting because with the philarmonic, mostly the the hall is filled. people come to those concerts and uh obviously we have to pay for that. A lot of the summer concerts are free. It's usually very affordable. 30 to $35 for a

for Phil ticket. Yeah. So, it's a nice service to the community and it's good to see the community I want to say coming more and more year-over-year. Still waiting for Tommy's friends to give us some rock concerts in the name. You want to get I'll get you a rock band. No problem. I a couple of them if you like. As long as you could fill the hall. Some got good spot wings. All right. I Who I going to give I give to to Debbie or I give to Candy? The numbers. Candy. All right. I got two bands right in mind. I'll I'll I'll let her know. All right.

Just a little bit about she's already got the summer. It could be for next year. That's fine. Welcome for next year. It's not an issue. Same with the board.

I'll give you a contact number for a band. They got a good following. We're cheaper than the capital. That's fine. That's all right. every year. That's fine. Next year's fine. Listen, we're less expensive than the capital. That's for sure.

All right. Financial reports. This one. Okay. So, took a little bit of a different approach this month. Um everything in this schedule represents penalty interest and every lean against these properties. Okay. Last month when we did the schedule for the this tax receivable summary, we only had the principal balance on the schedule. this month. Um I basically have here everything that's due against those categories which includes all leans, you know, the original interim amount, any leans after that and any penalty and interest. So we're looking at these numbers. This is actually what's in our financial statements. Okay. So any questions on that? No, I I I see we have um you've broken them down into years. Year 2024, we have one that is in court,

right? And schedule C for 2025. Uh Jeff has filed the petitions on those. Those are and served and filed. Okay. So again, you know, the biggest difference properties I see one one property doesn't the one on uh Leonard Street and that's a different schedule. Schedule D is the ones that are upcoming. Yes. So which is Yeah, but they paid after the fact. Yes, they did. Okay. So they'll come off. Which point is that letter? In March. March.

Only $474, right? that'll come off in March because as February was still outstanding. So, the bottom line is that um yeah, we we move I'm sorry, Gary, go ahead. Yeah, on on uh on 56 Leonard Street, it's just a the property location is not put in for Portchester. There's just a blank there. So, fix that when you get a chance. Who is that? On 56th Leonard Street. Is that Do we know who that is? sign in here. 5600 is what location? It's in Portchester. It's in Portchester. Portchester. Okay. Sorry. Portchester. Okay. Yep. Yeah. It's just got a blank space in it. I see it. So,

we have one Ryberrook property and two Mearic properties. Yes. And the reason why 56 Leonard is a nonhomestead because it's a four family, right? and we put in a category per Jeff property type. Okay. That Carly gave me. So, um, anyway, any other comments? No, I like this chart much better. It's It takes away a lot of the other stuff that we don't really need to see.

Yeah. And it actually ties into our financial statements. Okay. The other schedule didn't. That's the good news. Okay. But again, this month, 15 properties went in REM or or foreclosure. So, um the timing on that moved up a little bit. It we moved it up this year and we we were able to move up properties to INREM in February versus normally in July. So, um those 15 properties, that was the case for those 15 properties which make up the $889,000. Those are in REM now. I believe. Did we file judgments on those? Did we do anything with those yet? The newest ones. Yeah, the newest ones. No.

So, we haven't done anything.

Okay. But it's a big number as you can see. And the biggest culprit is 109 and 111 South Rich Street, Valente Corporation. So, to me, it's a big number. I mean, when we talk about and let's go to the total leans outstanding number. Okay. or let's go to so those are total leans outstanding then there's some other 2025 properties behind before below that but the real number that's important to look at I think is I lost it

let's go back to the phil harmonic What are you looking for, John? I'm looking for the the financial page. Yeah, I want the first page. Go down. There you go. There you go. So,

everybody's comfortable with the fact that we have more in REM because we moved up $889,000. But what's really key here also is if you look at the sub the subtotal prior years of lean receivables of 2.472,473,000 that money we've paid out. We're obligated to pay that money out to municipalities even though we haven't collected it. Right? So it's incumbent upon us to get that money and that's a big number. When we talk about what we have in reserve, that's a piece of it. We haven't received it. So, if we had that, we'd be in really, really good shape as far as cash goes. Doesn't mean to say we're not in good shape, but we'd be a heck of a lot better if we had that 2.473 million in house. Again, we're obligated. We don't collect it. We're obligated to pay it out to municipalities.

And that's a big number to me. I mean, two 2.4 million, that's that's pretty big. Okay, any other questions on that schedule? No. Okay. And if we go down, have the have the receiver send out notices

and there's some current school taxes due um which is the next schedule which is 2 518 million 2,518,000. So that's another issue that we have to collect that. Now if we don't collect it, okay, we're obligated to pay that out, but we're two months away from that. Okay. So, as you can see, the trend is we're owed a lot of money and it could increase over the next couple of months where we have to pay out more. All right, everybody. Good. We're good. All right. Thank you, John. Thank you.

Well, Jeff, from what you've seen, is it trending? Is this a material difference than it's been in prior last couple of years?

But again, let's not forget that that money we put into this month, that's six months ahead versus last year. Okay. Last year, we would have put the property if the same rules were in place, we would have put that until July has moved up six months. So it wouldn't be showing up in the number yet, right? So the numbers are higher because we've actually shortened the time period. So that's the difference right now in the numbers.

Basically, basically what you're looking at is a difference between tax collectibles. In other words, if somebody doesn't pay their town tax of $300, that's a receivable, but it doesn't have any legal effect except that they have to pay interest on it. When it gets to the point of a year, then it goes into a lean. Then after uh 18 months additional, it goes in rent. nor under the old law it would we would be talking about INRAM properties in July. Instead, we're talking about them now. That has nothing to do with somebody who owes, you know, one year's taxes, one year's school taxes or, you know, or or has missed one county tax payment or something like that.

So, when you talk in Ren, you're really talking legal terms rather than accounting terms. The money is the money where wherever it is, if if they owe $100 or they owe $100,000, they still owe that money and we still collect 98% of all the the taxes. But what John is pointing out is that we've moved up the INREM table. There are some communities, towns, you may have read about it in the newspaper, that haven't done inrem proceedings in many years, you know, and and they're owed millions and millions of dollars that they're not going to get because Some of them the taxes do are more than the property is worth. But in the town of we've taken a proactive stand to when the time limits are up, we start filing and you know Jeff is as the you know attorney in charge of that um we'll ultimately send out legal letters and that's when people pay. As I said, two years a we only have one case remaining from two years ago in RIP and last year we have 10 and now we're we have more coming. So, uh basically we're we're on top of it.

I think Ry's question was was whether I see more volume, right? I don't see more volume per class here about the same. And Jeff, you start getting involved once it goes into REM. You don't get involved when it's free in sometimes. Okay. Because it depend depends on perhaps to keep it from getting to that point. Property and it's on the cusp. I'll start to get involved. Okay. We try to save some legal fees because when Jeff gets involved, then we have to start to pay legal fees. when Carla sends the notices out. They're free letters. They're free letters.

They're free letters. I recall some discussion of that. You know, the supervisor last campaign. That's correct. And your comment was, "Why am I charging so little?" Exactly. I I thought your rate, and I'll say it again, was extraordinarily low and very reasonable for for a lawyer of your competence and skill. That's like fine. cologne that should be sniffed but never swallowed. Thank you. Oh my god. I like that one. There are way too many layers in this room. All right. On that note, on that note, Carla receivers report. Carla

submitted it. Do you have anything other? Yes, I do.

Um, hi Carla Ple, receiver taxes. Just want to go over a couple of things. County, town, and town bills will be going out the beginning of April. They will also be online the beginning of April. It is preferred to please go online. The mail is not dependable at all. We've experienced it a lot this last tax cycle. Um, we're always there to guide anyone who needs help to pay online. Uh, it's safe, it's easy, it's secure. We have proof that it's secure. Um, and it's not expensive at all. To do an e checkek is a $150. A stamp is about I don't know 80 cent at this point,

right? It's gone up in July, I think. Um, the other thing I just want to talk about is penalties. And I just want to make it clear to residents that when a tax bill is late, penalties automatically happen and will acrue. It's nothing to do with the town arai. It's a New York state law that we have to follow and all tax officers follow. I just want them to be aware of that so they can when they come in they don't think it's something that we're intentionally doing to them. Basically, thank you. And I'll reiterate that.

Okay. Penalties are assessed according to state law. That has nothing to do with the town receiver or the town staff. They cannot by law tell you your penalty is waved or we're going to reduce it. It's not like you're dealing with, you know, a collection agency collecting a uh a debt on a credit card. Right. That's it. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, Carla. I just want to reiterate, please, if if you are paying taxes not through your your bank rather than mailing it in, rather than writing a check, go online, pay it online. It's it's all it's in terms of time and effort. It's less expensive than putting a stamp on it and going to the post office.

Well, especially if they're wait if they're going to wait till closer to the end of the month. The chance of us getting that through the mail in a timely fashion is not going to happen. I have just a story. I have a friend who was going on vacation and mentioned to me that he put his tax check in the mail and it came late. And I said to him for me I said I said to him I said you really need to pay if you're going to do that pay online. Yeah.

He actually I think he stopped it and put it in the dropbox which is another alternative but that takes more effort but pay online costs a dollar if your tax bill is $10,000 unlike a credit card charge. It's not a percentage. It's a flat $150 fee. Yes, it's worth it for the convenience. Um it gets credited immediately. You get your receipt immediately. You have proof of payment and and it's done, right? So, we really urge everybody to who doesn't pay their tax through a financial institution to please use the system, right? Somebody had a question.

I just wanted to bring up a point that we had communication with a constituent about um the process paying online and I understand that it is safe and secure, but the question was can we make it even safer and more secure by going to two-step authentication and that type of thing. So it was um a question and I wanted to know whether we are looking into that um and whether we will be you know looking to again because people are putting in their potentially you know credit card information and everything else to pay online and we do want to make sure that it is as safe as it can be given everything that is out there with you know right we've had with people trying to steal money from other people.

No Debbie and I have had meetings and we see we still are having meetings just to make sure of that. Yes. Okay. So, if you can keep us updated on that, I would appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Carla. Very good report. I hope I submitted my report. I know you did. You have anything else to add? You always come up with something. Nothing. No municipal shredder. Now, we had a very successful day. Good for the shredder. All right. We are at that point where I ask for a motion to adjourn. Unless unless somebody has something else to say. Any comments from the board?

Did I have one other? I had I did have a question. Give me one minute. Um

I had several questions. One was there was some damage at um Playland Park with the winds. I guess last week there was no damage at Ry Town. That was okay. Our trees are stronger. Okay. And um again, I just had a question about that this incident at the beach where the gate had been locked and I was hearing different things, but I was just curious what um solution is put into place to ensure that it doesn't happen again. The solution is that the gates are open.

Okay. So, well, public meeting. So now the gates will not be locked and so nobody can inadvertently have be be locked on the beach. And as Tommy will point out, there were signs. Yeah, there were plenty of signs. I understand. Sign was right there when they were climbing. I understand. But you got a cell phone. Your cell phone has a timer you can put in so you can remind yourself to be out there. Those people have been nominated for a Darwin Award. Yeah. I'm not, you know, I'm sorry, but there's signs. You got to read them and pay attention. It's nobody's fault but their own. And I don't know who the people were. I'm sorry if I'm insulting or embarrassing you, but you did it on your own.

I I actually would would disagree with that statement because first of all, I it's the first time I ever heard that it closed at 3:00. And this is just seeing comments on social media. That's how I became aware of the issue. Um, and I would never in a million years think that something a beach would close at 3:00. So if I was going to the beach, I wouldn't necessarily think to leave at that time. And I would think that if we were locking gates that we would have a process in place to check and make sure that nobody's on the beach before we lock a gate. So that's why I was asking about process. I understand that we would like people to read signs. We would like people to do a lot of things, but I don't go to the beach and start searching out for all the signs. Well, if the sign is right by the gate, how can you miss it?

Because you're not reading. You're focused on going to the beach. But anyway, I just wanted just wanted to make sure that

let me just clear something in place or that we were doing something to avoid again this is for offseason. We do not have park rangers on duty or lifeguards on duty to clear the beach. So there's nobody there to say get off the beach at 3:00. The maintenance guy who is new was instructed to lock the gate at 3:00 and that's what he did. He may not have noticed that somebody was on the beach, but that's what happened. We've discussed it at the park commission. It's an issue before the park commission as to h how to handle it because it's it's not that easy when you have a beach where people do pay admission during the season. There's a difference between on season and offseason because offseason the beach is free. on season the beach is not free. So rules will be established one way or another and that's a decision that the park commissioners will be making.

Okay. I just want to make sure again that somebody is addressing the issue the process behind it so that we solve the problem. That was my only question. Um, and then I have one last question or it's more of a comment. Um, which is, and I'm going to phrase it by I appreciate all the work that the staff is doing here and my colleagues are doing. Um, but I would like to request that we publish an agenda further in advance of meetings and get it out not just to the town council to review in advance, but also to the public because if there are people in the public, and I know we don't get a lot of attention in the public, but I think that we owe them the opportunity to look at an agenda in advance of the meeting and I would say a week in advance of the meeting, five days in advance of the meeting, whatever that time frame is. um so that they can look at the agenda in advance and then come to the meeting if they have anything that they have questions about or anything that they want to discuss or anything they want to bring before the board um and so that I I don't know about my colleagues here on the board but I know for me getting it last minute is is challenging because I don't have the time and I want to do my due diligence and make sure I understand everything that's on the agenda particularly if I'm being asked to vote on something I want to have time to review it and so I am it's a process it's not a it's not a reflection of the hard work that everybody is putting in because I know that work is happening. I'm looking for some type of process improvement so that we can move the timeline up a little bit and give everybody a little bit more time. So, I want to thank everybody again for the work that they're doing for this. and I'm just asking and any way that I can help to improve the process, I'm happy to try to help, but I am requesting that we get this information out to the public and to us earlier um than we've been doing since I've been on the board, which is this is only the third meeting.

Um we try to get the agendas published and out as early as possible. Unfortunately, matters come up that uh occur at the last moment. So if if an issue has to be put on the agenda, it comes up on Friday, for example, for a th meeting the next Thursday or on a Tuesday for a meeting two days later, you can't put it you can't put it up earlier than when it's ready to put up

or it gets held to the next meeting. And I'm not anticipating that we want to hold off and slow down everything, but on the other hand, there can be some type of process in place because it seems to me that it's a last minute and that we're changing the agendas until the last minute. And again, I didn't see it until yesterday, late in the day. I didn't have a chance to look at it until last night, late at night. I believe that there might have been changes even after I looked at it. Um, and so I'm putting the request out there. I understand the network, but I do think it's a process and I think it's a commitment. And if we make the commitment that we're going to finalize an agenda earlier, then it becomes an exception rather than the rule. If something needs to get added after that,

publish it earlier, it's all done earlier. And then in the odd case that something so critical comes up last minute that has to be added, then you can make that change. But it should not in my opinion be the rule that we follow a process where we don't publish the agenda until the day of or the day before the meeting. It's not the rule is we we try to get it out as early as we can and if things not are not ready then they're not ready. Um but uh we are well aware I am well aware and the clerk is well aware of your requests in the past to get the agendas out early. something I can do to help, I'm happy to to help.

Thank you. All right. Anything else? Pam over here. Pam, sorry, shine a light in the corner. Um, just a save the date for Saturday, April 25th. We'll have our next community cleanup. It's going to be quite exciting this time around. Thank you, Gary. Gary wanted excitement, so we're stirring it up. Um, currently we have What have I rout? You have routed. You have What have I What have I wrought?

Let's see. We have a a cleanup in Portchester as per norm. There's going to be a planting at the Basilo Center via Brybrook. We are planting cherry trees. Thank you, Vic. In Crawford Park, so that will be beautiful. And then I just had a really lovely meeting with the new director of the library today. and Vic looking at you because I haven't written the email yet, but they have agreed to let us have a special event at the library after the cleanup day, which means we can bring in the director of Fiddleheads to do the the talk about, you know, food sustainability and and also we're going to bring in meals on Main Street to the library. So, we'll be building in on the event. There's going to be a seed swap at the library at the same time as our cleanup. Post cleanup, we will have two speakers at the library. And we're going to have fun things as far as people to sign up. If you sign up to do the cleanup, if you sign up to go to the library event, we've said that we will provide a raffle where someone who comes can win a standing planter. And you know, we're going to try to make it a little bit more fun and a little bit more interactive this year. And it was just really nice to meet the library director today. and they are on board and want to help us in any way they can.

Great. Thank you, Pam. That's very good. Appreciate it. Wonderful. All right. And with that, may I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Meeting is adjourned.