Town Council - Regular Meeting

So anyway, I got to run. Let me call you back there. Right. I'm too fast. Hi Hey. Hello. Hello. Good. How are you? How's your face? Hello. Hello. I got my tab. I got my tablet. It's It's low on juice. One cuz I forgot to charge it. I got to test it. How are you, my buddy? One. Good testing. Oh, don't trip over my back. One, two, one. [Music] I put the one I updated it. Okay. And I tried to put the password into it and she got nothing. Key, but I thought Outlook was already installed in there. It doesn't look like it. I don't know. I like to You can do it through the mail app. I better fine. You get the That's fine. I thought I thought I had it already. My bad. You see, there's certain things with computers. Yeah. I know enough to get me in trouble, especially if you see my Facebook. You know how many accounts I got because I keep going. He's double trouble. What I find amazing is how like every major platform, every major platform I feel like has like a six to eight year. I got three Facebook

accounts because I get thrown out of I get keep going. Podium. Okay. Podium. Podium. This is my maternal grand that and like I only use them to just snoop on things but like but maybe see my problem is I like to start trouble on Facebook. I just love it and people are so gullible and so easy to piss off. It's fun. Do your password like officials ever talks back to the thing because they know they can lose. They just they just quietly complain about it to me or they complain about

Anthony, turn on. Oh, there you go. Why is it like chippy like that? Oh, cuz I'm so close. Now, who's this young man? My name is and I'm on the resolution tonight. How about that? Hi, Anthony. My name is Hope. Charity. I have a sister. Okay. Sister Cindy sitting here. Absolutely. Yes. I want you to unless you need it elsewhere. She's going to give Carla's report tonight. Carla's report tonight. sister. Acting receiver. Yes, she can do everything. You're do everything else. Why not that? We love this room. So, what? Oh, you did. I liked it. I get it. I get how it's weird. It is a weird story though. It's definitely weird. Tell me that that's that's a show that a lady hated. I didn't like it either. But you know, you you seem to enjoy it. So weird, but

this is part of this. Miss Jill is here. We missing a chair. Oh yeah, let's get a chair because didn't have a chair last time. So sitting here. I have no idea. Pam is sitting wherever. Hello, Mr. Randy. Yeah. And I said, "You know what? I sometimes you got any more questions? [Music] just always good to get to be transparent. I didn't push back on my I agree that it's a good thing and it'll probably be who we are. See if anybody else here. Yeah, we have six. We should have six. We're in the park commission meeting. Six commissions. That chair is a different chair. So, we're missing one chair. One, two, three, four, five, six. I see six chairs. Six chairs is good. We have enough chairs.

We have enough chairs. That doesn't match. No. Well, you might as well. That's That one goes in that office so we can switch it. Wow. Wow. The demand for matching chairs. I don't know why. I have no idea why. They rearrang. Good evening everybody. Is the 14th a Sunday or Saturday? 14th is Saturday. Tomorrow's the 13th. Tomorrow's Friday. Friday the 13th. to remember to bring my recycling. That's right. Recycling. Yes. Oh, you mean like No, no, no, no. Shre. Oh, the shredd. What do you I'm just like old tax returns or I've been cleaning off my desk. I have a box I have a box legal size, you know, about this big this wide. My feeling is that's what a basement is for. I'm going to Exactly. That's too much to shred at home. I still have old stuff.

Yep. It's already on set to go. I found newspapers from the guy in my head that got the sales in I can't even recent A couple years ago [Music] information, but that's not here. Right. Okay. West. You know, it's a problem. It's always good to have something in front of you. Whenever I was arguing, even I always

had it written down just because in case I should. Don't you think? If you wanted to quote something for political reason, it's like it's like Oh, look at this. Look at the shades and everything. Fresh off vac. Okay, let me get it for my email. Did you bring the mojito? Carl Carl was away all week. She'll be back tomorrow. [Music] shed that we had budget for two years for all these super electric vehicles and terminals about installing them properly having a building to have them properly sheltered.

I well we're spend Um, I think, you know, we we have it in the budget for two years. If we have a budget and if we have it in the budget, I mean, and we're

2. Welcome everybody to the Rytown Council meeting of June 12th, 2025. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation indivisible and justice for all. Please remain standing. Heavenly Father, bless this assemblage. Grant us the wisdom to make every decision fairminded in the best interest of all residents. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please call the role. Madame clerk, council person here in my position. Council person Jill Axelrod here. Council person Thomas Nardy here. Council person Randy Sier and Supervisor Gary Zuckerman here. Um adoption of minutes uh of May 15, 2025. If there are no additions, corrections. Uh may I have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Uh our first item is a presentation of the Ride Town 2024 audit uh by Jeff Shaver, partner in Okconor Davies. And also with him is his uh alter ego Scott. Thanks everyone. Sorry I knew we freshly arrived from Saratoga and Albany from meetings today. So, and there was a nice stuck uh 18 wheeler on the throughway that delayed my arrival till like 10 minutes

ago. So, uh this is what you get. So, anyway, what happened disappeared? Oh, there we go. Uh, so tonight, uh, Jeff is here to present to you the results of, uh, the audit that PKF Oconor Davies conducted for the town of Rye for the fiscal year that ended December 31st of 2024. He will take you through a highlight of uh, how you did financially uh, this past year. Thank you, Scott. Um I'm going to in the interest of time I'll skip through the agenda and um just talk generally about the audit. Um the audit is complete. We've issued our report. Uh we've issued what's known as an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. That's also referred to as a clean opinion and that's the most favorable opinion that you can receive. What that means is the numbers, the figures in the financial statements are complete and accurately stated in all material respects and the note disclosures are complete and consistent with the previous year. Um there were no material weaknesses and internal controls noted during the conduct of the audit. We would be required to tell you if there were and no instances of fraud came to our attention nor did we find any um during the audit. Overall, the audit went smooth. We were provided with all the um documents we asked for. Um I think timing wise, uh this may be the earliest presentation we've been able to do. So, we were able to get everything um timely and promptly and get it get through everything and issue the reports. I believe it was it was actually issued uh last month in May in time for us to be here to present to

you. So, I'd just like to thank the uh finance department um and the town administrator and everyone that helped, you know, pull everything together in a timely timely manner. And it was, you know, certainly a pleasure working with everyone. Um in terms of we like to talk about auditor's responsibilities versus management and the board's responsibilities. So it's really it's really management's responsibilities for selecting and implementing appropriate accounting policies and fairly presenting the financial statements in accordance with US GAP establishing and maintaining effective internal controls compliance with laws and regulations providing uh all the documents that we request as auditors and setting the proper tone at the top. On the flip side, we as auditors are responsible for what I mentioned on the previous slide. You know, essentially rendering um the opinion on the financial statements and um making the board aware of any, you know, significant findings that we found during the course of the audit. In terms of the financial results, this is a summarized uh snapshot of the general fund schedule of revenues and expenditures compared to the budget. I will go into some further detail in the next slides. Um, in terms of revenues, the original budget anticipated $7,12,000 to be collected in revenues, while the actual revenues were 6,396,000. Uh, a shortfall of approximately 615,000. I'll highlight on the next slide how, you know, how that happened. Um, on the expenditure side of the budget, 7,448,000 was anticipated to be spent. The actual expenditures 6,789,000 some 659,000 less than what was anticipated to be spent. The revenues less the expenditures yielded ex a deficiency of the revenues

over expenditures of about 392,000. In addition, there was a budgeted transfer to the capital projects fund which is referred to here as an other financing source in use. Um, and that was budgeted at 50,000 and the transfer was made at that 50,000. So after taking the 392,000 less the 50,000 brings you to a net change in your fund balance of 442,000. That's a decrease. The beginning of the year fund balance was 5,233,000. The end of year fund balance 4,791,000. Keep in mind if you look in the first column, the original budget, you'll see after the other financing uses of 50,000, there's a balancing figure that's 486,000. That's the amount that town board anticipated utilizing in the budget. So that was the appropriation of fund balance in the budget. The plan called for a decrease in the fund balance of 486,000, but you did a little better than what was anticipated. um net of the revenues and expenditures a $43,000 surplus. So, it's probably the closest to your budget you've ever you've ever come um at least since I've been working with the town, but you you know, you know, very very close to to doing what you anticipated to do when you when you adopted the budget. So, the the decrease in fund balance was slightly better than what was anticipated at 442,000. some details on the revenue side. You can see there's the total on the bottom, 7,12,000 of the budget with the 6,396,000 of actual. The largest revenue source of the town is the property tax levy budgeted at 3,819,000

while the actual revenue is 3,470,000. the the difference between the budget uh budgeted real property taxes and the actual is caused by the timing of the collection of the taxes receivable. So if you don't in modified acrruel accounting governmental accounting if you don't collect a tax uh within 60 days after the fiscal year end you can't recognize the revenue. So essentially what that means the shortfall means the taxes receivable delinquent taxes receivable grew year-over-year and we do see fluctuations that go positive some years negative going going some years depending on how the taxes receivable come in from year to year. Um I will also highlight a significant positive variance in the use of money and property category and that's mostly your interest income. So the interest rates did stay favorable uh during the during the fiscal year. The budget was 350,000 and you actually uh collected 654,000 some 300,000 greater than what was anticipated. That was offset by the fines and forfeitures of approximately 200,000 less than what was anticipated. And finally state aid at 269,000 less than the budget. the state aid category. Most of that's the mortgage tax revenue which came in uh less than what was anticipated and also less than the previous year as I think we've uh all seen you know kind of slowing in the the real estate uh market or at least with the number of transactions that that's been happening. We have um we have seen that at most of our the municipalities we work with and that's kind of the you know the highlights of how you you know how the details went on the revenue side the budget. Can I ask a question here?

Sure. Just as a general matter property taxes were about just under 10% less received less than budget. Is that disturbing or is that an anomaly based on timing issues because a 10% shortfall on its face suggest something a little off. It's not alarming in the case of the town of Ry because and I'll explain um and the controller I know has spoken about this many times in the past. It's not just the town of Ry taxes you're collecting. you're collecting for all the schools in the town and the county and the villages, mostly the school. It's really mostly the school money. And so it's really the taxes receivable related to all those entities. So the the tax the tax levy that the town collects, I don't have the number offhand, but I think it's somewhere in the $200 million range. It's a large number, much larger than your total budget. So a 10% swing in in your real property tax revenue is not the same as a 10% swing in all the taxes receivable. So 350 is actually not that big of a number when you look at all the collections that you do. Does that make does that help? It does. That is an unfortunate thing in governmental accounting because you're collecting for so many other entities and the dollars are somewhat um the dollars are large. um a small swing in those taxes receivable could have a big effect on your budget and and you're kind of you know you're seeing that in that line item and the other thing in Westchester County only I believe is the only county in New York State out of these 62 counties I believe that require the local governments the local towns under the county to be responsible for

the collection of the property taxes in all the other 61 counties. It's the county that's on the hook for any uncollected taxes. And they, the county would make those towns whole 100%. You would have no variance. You would collect everything and they would be uh responsible. They're on the hook for it. So, Westchester is unique in in in that regard. It's it's just as an aside uh when I have meetings with other supervisors I we have periodic meetings with all the supervisors of the state with through the association of towns and they do not have this problem. So when we bring up problems with state legislator when we talk when I talk to the council for the association of towns we are a unique situation in Westchester compared to all of the other towns in the state of New York that do not have this problem when it comes to collections or in rem as as you well know uh Jeff does the ins for us and Dave is certainly ly well aware of all of it. The other towns in the state of New York don't have this problem at all. It's only Westchester County. So, it's just an interesting aside. And I mentioned periodically joking with uh county officials that we should change it. They look at me a scance because this is one of the reasons Westchester can maintain a AAA bond rating because we and the other towns guarantee the county collection. So Westchester has the benefit of having that on their real property tax line, a variance of zero. The town of Ry does not have that luxury and neither do the other towns in Westchester. Um well, neither does the school district or the villages. That is correct.

Okay. Some um more details on the expenditure side of the budget. We can't fit all your expenditures on one page. So we There's some summary here. Um you can see the total budget at the bottom of this of the slide 7,498,000 while you while the actual expenditures were 6,839,000. Um the variance is mainly in the general government support category that includes all the general administrative functions of the town. So, uh, tax collections, clerks, supervisor, um, justice court, all those all those type costs are are within the the larger category of general government support. Um, and that was a savings, you know, in those various departments of about $500,000 under spending of the budget. Um, there was also an unspending in the debt service uh, part of your budget on the interest category. as there was bond anticipation, no interest budgeted at about 110,000, but you didn't issue the ban in time to have to pay the interest expense. So that falls to savings. You will have that interest expense in fiscal 25. So it's just really a a timing of when that will fall and um you know that's that's how you um achieve that those savings 659,000. Excellent. Okay. So, what does it all boil down to? It boils down to your fund balance. You can see at the end of 2024, general fund fund balance 4,791,000. It's comprised of these various categories. We have non-spendable, restricted, assigned, and unassigned. Non-spendable relates to prepaid expenditures to indicate that funds have been spent during the fiscal year, but they really relate to the next fiscal

year. they're earmarked to show you can't spend them again. The restricted amount is what's remaining uh from a premium on debt that you issued several years ago uh as part of the budget process. You've been taking that into revenue. It's down to a very minimal amount left for 2025. The assigned fund balance, that's the appropriation of fund balance for the next fiscal year or 2025 fiscal year. So the 579,000 of fund balance has been earmarked to balance the 2025 budget. The unassigned is really what's left over from all the from the total fund balance after you subtract the other categories. And that's what we refer to as unassigned fund balance. It's not earmarked encumbered. Um it's available for discretion at the use of the board. Um that number is is a your fund balance, your unassigned fund balance is still a strong number. $4.1 million. Keep in mind, um, as as we talked about before, the real property tax collections, every year, you have to make good on those taxes to the county and and to the schools. And that requires a significant cash outlay. And if you haven't collected the taxes yet, you really have to use your your surplus in order to make those payments. So this the fund balance that you have um provides a cushion for you to be able to make those payments without issuing issuing any tax anticipation notes um or or some sort of debt to make those payments. So your fund balance amount um does look very strong but when you factor in the you know several million dollars that you have to pay to the schools every year it look starts to look a little smaller. So, just something like to point out here, especially at the town of RI. Um, with that said, you know, you're still at about 53% of your total budget in terms of fund balance, which is considered very strong.

This is a summary of the bonded debt that's outstanding. Uh, 10,765,000. There's two debt issuances out there currently, one from 2017 and the other from 2021. There is also not on the slide, there's also the bond anticipation note that um I mentioned before uh in the amount of 2.35 million. So the total between the bonds here 10,765 and the ban brings you to a total uh debt outstanding of 10.77 million. Those are all the prepared remarks I have for today. Um, if there's any question, additional questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them or comments or anything you wanted me to go through in greater detail in the financial statements, I'd be happy to to do that as well. All right. So, our our total outstanding debt is 10,765 bonds. Bonds. That's what I meant. I said debt. Right. Um All right. Uh any questions from the uh council? Any questions from the audience? Any questions on Facebook? Identify yourself, please. Debbie Debbie Freeman from Brook. I was just wondering when you look at the numbers versus budget, do you ever put in like prior year so we can see it all together? So on this I did on the slides the fi the financial statements themselves are single year presentation. So no on the financial statements for purposes of today if you look up here you'll see the 2023 amounts I can't fit all the I can't fit all the budgets on here because it just becomes no not the budgets the actual the actuals see the and the in the last column you'll see

the actuals um so that's really for the board to see and the public to see. um it's kind of in addition to what's in the audit document and you'll see it again uh on the revenues. So in those two slides uh we did do that prior to your uh presentation and I did it with the with the fund balance as well. I saw 24 and 23. And going back3 is that easily accessible. I have it. I just We have all the numbers, Debbie, if you need them. We have all the numbers. All right. There are no other questions. I'll thank you. Um we'll see you again next year unless something happens in between. Um uh may just as a housekeeping measure um resolution accepting the the town audit by Okconor Davies. May I have a motion and a second unless there are other questions? Yeah. So second. All in favor? I thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item is Brian hiding in the back. Uh Brian is going to report on the our first Eco Fest. Um Brian is head of our sustainability committee. Am I correct with that? I don't think so. with some committee co-chair. Okay. Co-chair. Yes. Whatever.

But you're also our um you have an interesting title. You are our client coordinator. No, there's there's an actual title for you. But I'm I'm literally going to be naming you co-chair at the next chance I get. We when when when Brian came on board, we had a resolution. I have no no recollection of what that resolution said he was. We gave you some kind of title. Okay. fancy title climate smart court climate smart liaison I think it was but yes you are in my head definitely the leading co-chair to the sustainability sustainability zar yeah sounds more official I like I like simpler feel like it's more down there all right all right Brian tell us what this is about we all were at echo fest evening everybody some of us were majority yeahity most of the board was there thank you very much for coming along So, yeah, this was our first EcoFest. Um, it was made possible in large part thanks to a generous donation in the memory of Ashley Wely. So, thank you very much to Jack and the rest of her family for that. So, we um I'll just go to the next page. So, we had 25 local organizations participating uh ranging from the Clay Arts Center to Greenworks, which is a um a company that sells electric uh landscaping equipment um to the Westchester Children's Museum to the county uh bus service. So, we got, you know, one of their beline buses on site for people to take a look at. Um, right here in the pictures you can see we had Fiddleheads Cooking Studio, which uh operates out of uh out of this mansion every once in a while. And we had Meals on Main Street bring one of their electric vehicles by. So, we got a lot of people along and uh I think

pretty much everybody had a pretty good time. Um, we had about 200 visitors throughout the day. I canvased the area to uh do headcounts and estimate from that. Um, it might sound like more than it actually is. You know, we're it's a decent start, I think, and I think that it gives us a good chance to springboard for next year. I do want to note that our first years of the holiday festival and also trunk or treat started out about two or 300 people and they've continued to grow since then. Yeah. So, I think it's a uh I think it's a great chance, especially for kids, to get out and start learning about this, but we had stuff on offer for people of all ages. Um, yeah, so it's not that long of a presentation this time. I have some more photos from the event. Uh, Violio is also sponsoring the event, so thank you to them. You can see at the top right there, Beaver Bailey, who's their mascot, who is posing with the kids at our photo board. So, yeah, I mean, I think it was a pretty successful first go at it. And, um, I think with time it can grow into a really great fair for everybody. So, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Say we definitely had a learning curve. Um, but thank you, Brian. I mean, the amount of work you did was herculan to pull this off and following right up on our, you know, community service day last month basically, very short month ago. Yeah. Um, but it was interesting. We got a lot of through traffic. You know, we definitely saw the you were saying before the kids on the playground were there and Greg Diselli from the elementary school, BMP elementary school was running a sustainable drum circle and that just a lot of families in and over. Ruby manned the town desk the

entire day and I think you got a lot of interplay and a sunburn. And a sunburn still there. But no, I mean, Ruby, the amount of work you did as well was phenomenal. So, thank you. Um, I just think next year we'll have more of a timeline. I think that's what we came up. Yeah. And, uh, earlier today I met with Ruby and with Sue Hoffman, uh, about setting out a specific timeline for how we're going to get the word out and having a game plan for all of our deliverables several months in advance so that we can get our advertising up around the town. basically. So I think that's the big hurdle that we face this year and um I think we have a solution for it for next year. You know any anything that's new is going to take a little time. Yeah. You know to build up and like like uh Pam said it's you know with the other festivals that we have it just over the time it builds up and you you learn to get the word out in different areas and I think it'll be good. It was it was nice. I was there for what about an hour or so because I had other engagements to go to and you know helping set up and stuff was was nice. It was really lovely. Like the pavilion was filled with family activities. Um so people were able to just wander in and plant with the ri uh with the friends of Crawford Park or sign a declaration for a healthy garden. Um the Westchester Children's Museum brought an entire exhibit. They've been a great partner to us across pride and sustainability events. So, we also had a board up for Rytown Park for the suggestions for uh Indigo River, our consultants for uh sustainability that we got a grant for. So, I mean I think it was for a first effort I thought think it was very successful. Brian, I

want to thank you especially for a great job. Ruby always putting forth the effort and Pam chairing it. You guys did a wonderful job. Really did. Debbie and Sue, we're once again small and mighty, but you know, I think on the home end, Carissa did help you as well. So, small but mighty. We'll just keep growing. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Next item is u a presentation from H&H uh that's hard hardest in handover formerly FP Clark regarding a comprehensive plan for Crawford Park. Um is Neil on? Someone here. Hi Neil. Okay, let me just the the genesis of this was we were considering some things at Crawford and Jill came up with the idea. Well, we really should do a comprehensive plan for Crawford Park. So, uh I reached out to to Sarah Brown of I I'm going to keep saying FP Clark. I'm sorry, Neil. Um that's fine. uh and um uh they put together a plan that we're going to consider. We're not going to act on it today. Uh and why don't you go go through that for us and um let the whole community see what uh what we're working on. Sure. Um thanks for this uh opportunity to this prospect of potentially working for you. Um uh the the scope of work is is where I'd just like to start. I'm not I don't need to project it. I'm just going to talk talk a few few parts of it. Um I think um you know, we we we we

suggest calling it a comprehensive vision plan. So, you know, so people can have that word in in their in their minds when, you know, when they're thinking about Harford Park, you know, okay, what is what what what do we what do what do I envision for Crawford Park in the future? So that's just a small thing I want to I want to suggest um for the type of um level of engagement uh we'd like to have people to do with people um about the park. Um the um I think um uh in the in the first paragraph we just set out the you know what uh what this assignment is about. Um, you know, we want to engage town officials, staff and park users in discussions about uh the current state of the park and their visions for the for the park um you know, I think 5 to 10 years into the future. Um, and the result will be a kind of a vision plan that will narrate and visualize um through a concept plan, photos, um, perhaps an illustrative illustrative rendering to get people excited um, about the park's future design and programming possibilities. And I think I'll just uh summarize real briefly the the kind of the main steps in this process. Um I think the the first step one which is project initi initiation and discussion that's really about uh you know that that will be our first meeting with town park commission officials whoever you think should be um you know on the table um for the start of this project and we really want to just define for ourselves the goals uh of this plan. And then also another important part is the um some of the guiding principles for the future of the park. Um and uh that could also include um potential you know um parameters you

know you know we want to envision the future of the park but we als you know there also may be some parameters that we need to place uh on the vision whether it has to do with cost or just you know uh uh you know whatever whatever the factors may be. Um and so that's what we'd want to um get to at our first meeting. um some of the substantive parts of that task. Um we'd want to talk about public engagement strategies and methods, what's been done in the past, what's been most effective. We certainly want to be able to use um the best uh means possible that you've used in the past, and if there's any additional methods, we can we can consider that as well. Um and uh we'd also want to speak with the park director uh of grounds facilities and event coordinators um you know hear from the staff who works in the park. Um task two is more um uh kind of the more the base mapping and that's essentially for really just um getting down on paper uh really everything that's really critical uh in terms of the the landscape um uh easements and other restrictions where the parking areas are where there's drainage issues what the soils are. And so, you know, we'll we'll have this as a as a whole record. Um, and we'll certainly use uh use some of these use the m the the kind of the base maps to inform and be a part of the actual concept plan that we develop. Um the um we want to look at oh sorry we want to look at some of the constraints uh environmental um like I just said you know drainage other are there flooding issues in certain areas are there regulatory uh and infrastructure considerations and I think we'd want to get right down into

the into the park and um actually go physically in the park and for ourselves document what's going on in the park and how facilities are used. I was going to stop there for a second to see if anybody had any questions. Well, I I think some of the some of the work that you're proposing uh preparing base map and site inventory, we already have a lot of that. We have a topographical we've we've had to do a lot of things because of grants that we have applied for and and uh received. Uh so some of that's some of the that information if not all of it is is readily available without reinventing the wheel. Uh excellent. That's that's very good. Yeah. Uh that's what we we we hope for that that you would be able to have that uh information. So um thanks. um in terms of uh you know getting to the heart of of things really reaching out. It's not just engaging people but how do you promote this this process to park users? You know you're talking about the it's a little complex because we're talking about a number of towns that people in a number of towns that use use the park. uh and um we want to be able to do the best job within you know within relatively you know realistic means to uh promote the project and uh you know our our suggestion is to use uh I I I saw I I I realized there's a Crawford Park uh mansion website and there you know I mean I don't need to get into we don't need to get into details of what the which websites or which not but I think we want will leverage the existing social media websites, mailing lists that you all already use to promote the process and we would provide the language and images uh to the

appropriate people to have those posted. Um uh we would um if you tend to uh uh have other media outlets that uh you tend to uh post information or meeting notices, that sort of thing in, we would prepare language for that. Um, and uh, I think um, I think the other part of promotions is posters. uh we'd want to have something visual and be able to place uh in tasteful locations uh appropriate uh posters that would announce the um the project and with a QR code and that sort of thing so people can get more information about what this project is about uh what what events are coming up and then when we get to the actual engagement um we're suggesting having a um a brief uh survey five to kind of questions perhaps um and we'll focusing on the parks uh uh the current usage patterns as well as their ideas for the park. Um this uh we would also want to meet people in the field. So when we're doing those observations that I mentioned about the in the previous task about how people are using the park, we could, you know, we we could create a sort of a what we call a popup visioning event where essentially we we reach out to park users uh on certain days, maybe a weekend day and a weekday um over a certain number of hours to just talk to people about um their how they use the park and how they would enhance the park uh what they would like to see in the park in the future. Um and then the main event would be the Crawford Park with a visionary workshop where we get together people um in a in a in a during an event where we start to

present uh and discuss you know based on all the observations that we've done uh preliminary ideas for the vision plan and get into a discussion with people about that. Um and then that goes on to the actual you know once we've we've heard that once we've met with people we can advance that preliminary draft into a more uh proper draft uh of the comprehensive vision plan which we submit to the town which we discuss and then that gets to the to the final to the final Crawford Crawford plan. So um so that's the the the scope of work. Um and uh you know this is just based on uh our you know first pass. Uh I I personally have not been to to Crawford Park. Uh but you know as far as uh designing a process of engaging and pro and promoting and engaging people I think um um you know uh I've been do I've been doing that for a long time and and I put together you know we put together some ideas for how to do that. Um but yeah look for other are there any questions or does there any more clarification on any aspect of of this proposal? Any questions? Yes I mean tons but that's okay. Um, Neil, knowing how hard it is to get people to interact and you said you have a lot of experience drawing in, how do you plan on getting community stakeholders to talk to you, to open up to you? Uh, well, like I one of the things that uh I like best is reaching people when they're least expecting it. So meaning um what I suggested here is that while we're doing our observations of the uh of the park users on on the weekend and the weekday um we want to actually just

talk to people uh right then and there uh and get their ideas because often when you um we usually try to do a mix of typical workshops and you know there's certainly people who always go to the workshops but there's you know we obviously want to encourage encourage everybody to come to come to the workshops, but you know it's it's hard depending on people's schedules. So, uh, getting people that are already at the park, talking to them is is a good avenue for, um, uh, getting feedback, um, from people who may not typically be involved in this type of process, but their input is important because they're a park user and have thoughts about the park. So that's um that type of um uh you know popup that I call it is a is a good method for doing that. Um and you know during that process you know you get into a conversation with people about the project and what's coming up in the future and you know you can tell them make sure you go to the website. Sometimes we've, you know, we've produced uh little business cards or postcards that we can give people so they can have that and and um go to the website and and uh see when the when the workshop is and and so that's that's helpful. It it helps um um it gives you know gives more of a chance of bringing people in who may not typically be engaged in civic matters. I think being here would be very important. Um I noticed that in your plan it says that you would attend three town meetings, but I would hope that the team would spend a ton of time on the ground at Crawford, especially in those moments where we're having gatherings, whether it's a concert on the lawn or an ecoest or a holiday fest to talk to

people about what appeals to them about coming to the park and capture an audience there. Not to do everything via social, not to do everything through a lens and a curtain, but just making sure that there's one-on-one contact with the actual users of the park and the people who aren't using the park. What are, you know, who in the community is not taking advantage of the park who should be and how do we find those people and appeal to them? That's a good question about people who aren't using the park. Um, and uh, obviously when you're at the park, you won't you won't get that answer. But I liked your I liked your idea, your suggestion of um, um, you know, linking what we're doing with people with a specific event because, you know, people are going to be there. uh rather than just picking you know a random weekday um or you know a weekend day but linking it with events because you'll be able to get more people um by that you know by nature of what it is a big festival and event so I like that I like that idea I know Gary question but um I noticed you know just the language of some of this sort of projecting costs for um adding things. What if we were coming at this or some of us were coming at this from a mindset that there is a possibility that the park is at capacity or being overused. And I think there's an inherent bias in sort of looking at people that are already using the facility. I'm looking at a much broader thing. I'm looking at the topography of the park, what's available at other parks close by. I'm not. We've already done a project where we asked people things. That's not really my main goal. It's more holistic like what the park could actually tolerate in light of other facilities nearby. Other things

that like a really holistic approach to what we should do with this property. Uh perhaps the intention of the use of the property in the first place. Determining whether we're at capacity for certain things. the feasibility of creating new things that would require parking. I mean, I could go on. It will there be any allowance for that or is this just a hey, people already at the park? What else do you want? Because that's uh Yeah, our proposal is is is not intended to do what you're looking for. Um our proposals intended to do um the kind of the the kind of fundamental uh engagement work with people uh and the town um about the future of the park which is why I call it a vision plan. uh what you're talking about is going to be more is more um you know when you're looking at you know benchmarking or looking at what other parks have and um um you know what is the capacity of the park and and things like that get into a kind of the next level of of of a uh uh you know a park uh a park plan uh which starts to you know I think one of the questions questions. Uh I don't recall if if it was from uh it was from Gary or not, but it was about, you know, will will we will we be doing parking um any sort of parking assessments and uh you know our our proposal doesn't include that? Well, we certainly can do that, but our proposal doesn't include that because we're not doing um you know, you really have to get be more precise in terms of the programming of the park and what you want to do to start to get into uh doing like parking analysis and you know, how does uh you

know, uh investing or producing a certain amenity uh impact parking and how much parking does it need and can it fit and that sort of thing. So that's a that's a next level a deeper um that's a deeper project than what we our proposal does. Okay. So just to be clear, your proposal is really along the lines of what else we could add to the park. Not not really assessing whether that's maybe not a good idea or practically. I don't think that's right. as far as I know where you're getting at. I'm just trying part of part of what they're going to do is also to assess not only what what can be added but you use the word are we at capacity because there are a number of residents who feel that we should not be adding a lot of activities. I mean this whole thing started when we started to talk about pickle ball courts. So I there there there's an inherent tension uh among people who want more activities and people who want the same or even less activities. So I think that's what the vision has to encompass. Yeah, that was my desire to have something that would sort of weigh all of those variables because again, you know, without like if I'm at the park and someone says, "Hey, would you like pickle?" Great. That's fine. I mean, there's no assessment of what does that cost? How will we create parking? How will that impact on the foliage, the flora, the fauna of the park? That's what Neil is saying that that would be a next level to investigate that if we're going to do that. I don't know how wise it is to continue to spend money to find out something we already may know to be true, but thank you so much for providing some clarity for me on that. Thank you, Sure. Randy. Right. Right. And and like I said, if if um if your goal is to do is

to have something more deeper, then uh that that's fine. I I we we understand that. Um but I'm sorry, was there somebody else that was that wanted to speak? No, I was just saying Jill asked the question. I think you said the word right and then Gary started to talk and I was wondering what your answer would be to Jill's question. Which which question of Jill's is it? The I which questions of Jill was her first question was about the um you know you know the types of things that she can you repeat that looking at like looking at what other parks are doing and and that sort of thing can you echo do you is this something where you envision yes in in reading your proposal which is is very thorough and I appreciate it um I got the sense that this would be something, you know, and again, this is a a broaden overview of what it would be that we would be kind of seeking park users to tell us what else we want at the park and then we would see how to make that happen. We have done that pretty much non-stop for eight years now. Um, I am of the impression and I believe that I'm speaking for constituents who have conveyed these feelings to me that perhaps we need to put on the brakes a bit. And again, I I am not in as environmentally aware as everybody else here, but I think when you have beautiful grounds and you continue to put things on them, um you do alter the the environment, you do alter the the nature of the park. And what happens is the more people that come, parking is a very real thing because if people can't park, they won't stay. Um, and so I'm sort of of the belief that we need to take, as I said, this holistic look at the park where we say based on these myriad factors,

um, what where's the limit? Where do we have to say? Right. Exactly. Right. Before we're actually to the detriment of the park itself, we've worked so hard to have the grounds be so beautiful. I can't tell you the number of trees and plants and friends of Crawford Park have put in so much time and effort. our staff. It's incredible. And I would hate to think that suddenly we have pickle ball courts and parking for some people that don't want to drive to Stamford, but now we've also squashed a few plants that are never coming back and we just have a different vibe. Squashed my milkweed, right? I'm sure I know that what you know I know for all the people that work so hard on that and what it does for all the other plants that are here. So, I just have hesitations if what you're telling me is that this is another way to confirm what else we can do at Crawford. Basically, a different lens. You're looking at this survey, but taken from a different lens. So, not what can the park offer in 10 years. Yes. Because I I think we offer I I can't envision a scenario where there's something we don't offer. We're like YMCA catering hall. Yeah. rating what we offer but also what is like you said the the holistic sustainability of what the park can yeah be and I apologize if I didn't make that clear earlier or if that was good yeah that was helpful thank you for clarifying that well I guess another way of looking at it microphone Randy pulled one up and I think this is maybe I'm just repeating what you're saying is within the scope of the research and work you're going to do the possibility of reaching the conclusion that we think the best thing to do is do nothing for the reasons that Jill said is that as opposed to here's a list of five things that would be great because some people want them

right I mean ultimately you know the the comprehensive plan is going to take into consideration you know where public input is leading and that can go so many different ways. It could there could be people that say do not touch another tree in the park, you know, and that'll be their main principle of the park. Don't touch anything, keep it as it is. There'll be people who want pickle ball and that sort of thing. Um, so and you know, in our work, you'll you'll certainly get all those inputs. And if you already if you if you've already been doing that, then um then I don't you know, the value in what we what we bring may not be more than you already have. uh you know unless if it is then you know let's u dig into that more but um ultimately um the you know in the what I suggested in the beginning of the process is that you know the town you know we establish some goals and some principles for the future of the park uh you know has some parameters but ultimately in the end um you know this is this is you know the our client is is you know is is not necessarily the public. It's it's the town and um you know it it becomes your decision. Um the comp the actual vision plan that results will have to you know be vetted and you know by by by and and approved by by by the board or the commission. And so um that's kind of you know that may result in the decision or the you know uh that you know there's nothing you know nothing more should be done if that's if that's where that arrives. um because you know uh and that may be disappointing um uh to the public um because of of you know the visioning

work we've done. Um um but if there's kind of a different conclusion you come to then it wouldn't it wouldn't uh be necessarily a disappointment to the public. I mean everybody there will definitely be somebody a number of people are disappointed for whatever reason because of their main specific interest but um you know this is this is how the any sort of you know planning endeavor uh um you know uh comes out in the end it's um it's a negotiation and it's a uh p some people are are we try to do our best as we can to kind of you know bring together um what are the best kind of concepts that are potentially feasible. Yeah, I just I just wanted to add, you know, one more um factor. The what what I was looking for is really um something that people could, you know, there the vicissitudes of politics means that people who have the power may change. And I feel like if there's something documented for people to look at, then the varying opinions in terms of priority, instead of saying, well, this person now thinks this, it's like, oh, well, wait, we have this here, and we really have to look at these parameters. We happen to have an airport in Westchester County near residential uh homes and whatnot and we're doing something similar in that there is this comprehensive plan of what the airport can actually accommodate in terms of number of flights, frequencies of of of flights, you know, all these kind of factors. So I think that was sort of what I was envisioning this factbased thing more than an opinion poll. So again, I just wanted to put that on the record and I know Pam has questions. I think that that would be on a second stage. I think um

just to elaborate on some of my thinking. Uh there seems to be a view that all I'm thinking of is putting more activities in the park. And that's not true because some of the things that I've spoken to Vic and Debbie about uh are things like uh how can we get more butterflies in the park? Uh I read an article about hummingbirds. Can we can we establish some kind of a um flora where that would attract hummingbirds or other things? Can we um you know are there places other kinds of gardens, what kind of other uh even can we introduce, you know, native animals that are that are not there? Um, I'm just talking about natural things as opposed to introducing activities because we're going even peace. We we keep applying for grants and even outside of grants, we remove invasive vines and species. We do all of those things and that can be part of it as well. We planted the uh the mini forest and that's part of it. We didn't do that with a plan. Somebody came up with an idea. I think it was probably Vic to put the mini forest there. Debbie, might have been Debbie. Either way, um could have been Ruby. Who knows? Mhm. Uh but but I am not wedded to the thought that we need to put more physical athletic activity. I'm wedded to the thought that we want to improve the park for the joyfulness of all the residents and the park users to go there. Whatever that may encompass. Um, you know, there may be places, for

example, where we we have an area where we want to set aside for music or something like that or plays. There may be the possibility of putting a a small amphitheater for those for those kinds of things or not. But that's what you need to look at and get people to come out and say, "We we like this idea, we don't like that idea." And ultimately, it's up to the town council to decide the direction that it would go in any of these cases. And we're not all going to be here um in a couple of years. You know, there are such things as elections. So, the board may turn over and you're absolutely right. It would be great to have a document that says this is what this board thought and if another board really beyond that, you see what I'm saying? It's fine for all to espouse our views here. That's very helpful. But if you have a document that says you continue to lay asphalt for parking or grounds for a pickle ball court, you can't reconcile that with more butterflies and do you know what I'm trying to say? So that's what I would like. That's the whole idea of doing a study to to try to put that all in perspective and have it in a in a place so that future boards can at least look back and say that board in 2025 had this document and we agree with it and should expand on it or you know this board doesn't want to go in that direction. This board wants to go in another direction. But I think it's harder to say that when you have some type of factual document. If you say, "Oh, people in 2025 thought it was a great idea to do X and now it's 2035 and we don't." It's a little different than, "Oh, the physical parameters of the park, the environmental damage that might be caused, the concerns of neighbors and the tax um, you know, impacts on their home or the value of their homes. You know what I'm saying? Concrete things because opinions are great, but facts are what matter. So, that's my opinion." So, it's beyond our

opinions. It's finding out what the opinions of the residents would be. Not really. No, it's finding out what this park because I've lived in Ryberg a long time. It looks totally different now than it ever did. It has many more moving parts. We have many more employees. And if we continue in this vein, I'm not certain that that's wise. If you present to me something that this park has endless capacity and really only needs x amount of green space, then I will um I will gladly pull back from Jill. I don't think anybody's suggesting we eliminate any green space whatsoever. where you can put the pickle ball. That that would be a that's one thing that that is obviously not finding a lot of favor. But we also talked about another piece of playground equipment. Does that not go in green space? And we've also I mean we've talked about many many ideas that would require subtracting green space. That's just facts, guys. Not for nothing. When we redid this park, we sent out to the community what they wanted in this park. And to me, I don't see why we can't do that again. let the community decide just like we did with the playground, like we did with the pavilion, what we do with the mansion. A lot of the stuff we did here was what the people wanted. And I don't see I know no disrespect, I don't know why we have to go for 40 grand when we what it cost us last time, 3,000 maybe for all the for all the mailers and everything. I think we should make a list what the what the board would like to see and see if the people want it. I think that's completely irrelevant to what I personally have concerns about. What you want, what I want, that's great. I have nothing but respect for what your vision of the park is versus mine, which is clearly different. But somebody has to tell me, "Oh, actually, you could pave this whole thing and make it a second playland because some of the rides over there are closing up. That would be great. It's revenue for the town. People would love it. People with little kids. I want some facts, some scientific information about what the parking t How

about the deeds and the grants?" And I don't I don't happen to really know all of that and how that might restrict us or future legislation. Then why did we do that when we did the park when we re remodeled everything? Great question. Why did we do it? Cuz we did it. We did it. We let the people we asked the people and the people responded and that's what we got. We did what the people wanted. Plain and simple. Well, I think that's a gross oversimplification, but okay. when I listened to what Gary said and it it seemed to me that that's very different from this is basically a public opinion survey a user survey that I think this is a different thing to have someone with expertise in the envirment enironmental area, the land use area, what would stress the land, what would fit in with the land. It's more technical. And I think that as the board that it would be fair enough to to say to someone, okay, Gary mentioned a number of things here. Here are a menu of things. Do they fit? What is the environmental impact? How do they impact the overall feel of the place? And that doesn't frankly have to be driven by, you know, 17 people or 47 people saying we want a pickle ball court, right? And listening sessions and yeah, I mean, in other words, I guess what I'm saying spending money on as the dare I say it, leaders of the community, that's a process that this board could drive. And

what Gary, the questions that Gary was asking seemed to me to be questions that are for some sort of technical consultant, somebody you could say, gee guys, if you had a whole litany of things, a butterflies and hummingbirds and this and that. And if you know what would be if we wanted those things, would it how would we do it? what would the impact be on the rest of the park? That's different from saying let's ask a bunch of people to take a survey. And I I say that respectfully. Um unfortunately you're listening to a discussion that we should completely understand. Maybe we should have had this discussion before we asked you to to put and by the way this looks great. Yes. um for what it's intended for and I think Jill has raised the point the question is what this project is what the board collectively is looking for because it's certainly not what Jill is looking for and the several constituents who voted for us or did or didn't vote for us but live here and have concerns and don't make the time to go on Facebook or come here. So, I think I have to speak for them because I know for a fact that I'm not alone. That's your job. So, I may be alone when I'm here, but I am not alone out in the and I agree with some of your points. I'm sorry. They could also feel free to call me anytime. I'm sure that's true. I'm sure that's true. I'm not the supervisor, but I'm a good resource for the people that and I do agree with a lot of your points, but there's some things I don't agree on, but that's, you know, I would expect that. Yeah. Yes. And I respect you, too. You know, it's no disrespect between the

two of us. It's just that you have your views and I have mine, and some are together and some aren't. And honestly, the reason to have this discussion and not to vote on this today is to let the community listen to this discussion and let them come back and call Gary or email Jill and let's come back and discuss it in the next meeting. That was the whole purpose of this. And one reason I did not jump in while everybody was crossalking was because I thought it was a very productive discussion to get things out on the table. The one thing that I know about this council is that we all want Crawford Park to be a highly successful park for the park users and residents. And it is our job to try to determine what that success looks like. And we obviously from this discussion if anybody uh watches it on uh on cable or on the internet going to our um web page they will see that there are different views and our job is to coalesce those views possibly with the guidance of a professional such as Sarah and Neil. Um and formulate a plan going forward as to what we would like to do or not do. That's what the purpose of of discussion is. Um you know we have five people sitting up here. We have many people hopefully many people watching. We have our staff who take care of the grounds and the building and they have their ideas. they they see what goes on. They

see what problem areas there are and they also see what potential um benefits can can occur. They have their own ideas as well as us. So all of this coming together will formulate something. Basically this plan Neil is not set in stone. It is mutable if we go forward with it. Neil, can I ask you a question? Absolutely. Um you know uh you know initially we actually had thought about including landscape architecture uh in this which would uh that would be kind of a but that would be kind of end up being a different proposal. Uh it would include the the visioning piece with public and all the engagement but it would probably get more towards um the kind of the scientific um understanding that that uh um was expressed uh today. So I take it that your firm has the expertise. For example, if the assignment was the board has five or six thoughts, items, potential projects, can you evaluate those projects for us? Um, we'll talk about public participation later. kind of a more of a feasibility study to see given uh if the parameters were the concerns that have been expressed about the environmental impact etc etc on on some mix of those projects. I assume that's something that you could undertake. Well that's the thing we don't have landscape architect architect in house.

Um, so, uh, we had honored the idea of working with one, but, um, you know, we don't currently have that in house. Okay. Ruby, are there comments? Um, thank you, Neil. I'd like to hear at this point if there are any comments uh from the public. Do we have anybody on Facebook? There's a comment on Zoom. The first question was, is this a proposal that the town requested or are you proposing the use of your firm to prepare a concept plan that has already been determined? Who are the stakeholders you propose to reach all right? This is this is the Carmen. This is the beginning of a formulation of a plan. Um I requested a proposal from uh H&H uh that we are discussing. It's obviously uh an item for discussion and uh before anything comes to fruition, we're going to have uh community input and uh I think uh you've heard a lot of robust discussion from here uh about what we should be looking at. You are going to be thrown to the ground in handcuff. It violates the very foundational idea of this country and it absolutely will come back in boomerang. Senator being arrested.

Is there anyone in the audience? And actually Davey, I'm looking at you because We had the NYU group in. You had a lot of commentary. You want to come up? Yeah, you got to come up to the podium. Debbie Freriedman from Ry Book. I have been listening to the conversation and um I think the premise of even hiring a company to move forward with this is that the park needs to be improved. And so the conversation is all how can we improve the park? How can we change the park? What can we do for the park? And if that's the question that you're asking, then you're going to go down the path of add this, add this, do that, do this. But it doesn't allow for um it doesn't easily allow for people to to make the response, I love the park just the way it is, and we don't need to make any changes. So, I think the original premise here is we need to change the park, and we need to do more and more and more, and we need to make it better and better and better. And I think that there are probably a lot of people around who think that it's absolutely beautiful as it is. Um, and I agree with what a lot of what Jill said that the the piece that we're missing. Um, and I understand that the the I don't H&H is that what the firm is called? Um, did a great job based on the question that they the assignment that they were given. My my understanding is the assignment they were given they did a great job coming back with how they would approach that. but it doesn't really allow for leaving the park as is. Um, and again, I think if you're going to go to an event in the park that's a big event where there's all these people coming to event and you're going to ask those people, what do you want? And you want to add pickle ball, you wanted this, you're going to get that response. This would be great. That would be great. Everything would be great. But everything that gets added in this park changes the feel of the park and the overall. And for a lot of people I think in our community this park is still a

place the only place left in Rybrook really that's open land. It's not that big. It's not that much land. We're not talking about acres and acres and acres and acres where if we take a few acres out of you know 500 to to build all these things we still have 400 and whatever it is 95 acres left. You know we're talking still about a very very small area and it's the only open space that we have left in our community. Um, and I think that a lot of people come in on their own quietly walking their dog, just getting away from everything and having a peaceful walk. And when you're surveying people coming to a big event, you're not going to touch on them and get their opinion. And those may be the people also that are going to be um potentially the most impacted by the constant activity and event that's going on in the park. and likewise a lot of the neighbors that live around the park um who I think enjoy the quiet and know that there's quiet. So when there are events here that are going on with loud music, it is heard in the surrounding streets and the surrounding areas and I think we have to be conscious of the neighbors that also live near the park as well. So, that's just some of my thoughts about, but I I think that you touch on something and I'm not dismissing it at all that um one of the alternatives is to do nothing. It's an alternative. Absolutely. But when you propose a project like this and and you're going to spend $40,000 to put together a plan for how to change the park, that gets very very lost. And the other thing that was not part of any of this discussion is how this land was deed to the town. And I know that a lot of people their assumption is they can't do that in the park because of the way the deed is written that it was written to allow for kind of this open space and

and not to be built up. And I have looked at the deed. It's been a while so I haven't looked at it in a while. But I do think that there's the feeling out there, well, they can't do that and people don't know. And then what happens because we know that people aren't paying attention. People pay attention often. They hear about it when we're too far down the road and then they're going to be upset and angry, right? They don't necessarily hear about it at this stage of the process. So, I applaud you for trying to find ways to bring that conversation in and to hear people's points of view before you go too far down. But if you're going to spend $40,000 to do a study of what you could do to improve or change the park and put together a 5, 10, 20 year vision for what this park can be, you've already made the decision that keeping it as is not what you want to do. Because if you wanted to keep it as a board collectively, if you really collectively thought that the best thing to do would be to keep it as is, maintain it as is, continue with the planting and the gardening and the open space and the quiet and maybe get an owl or two back in here. If if that's what you wanted to do, I find it hard to understand why you'd spend $40,000 to commission a study. So, that's just my my perspective. So, I I I value your perspective. I just disagree with the fact that you that you you're assuming that the purpose of the study is to do something. Purpose is to determine what if anything should be done. And one of the things that may be done is nothing at all. I understand my my feeling and I I I purposely mentioned things like honeybees and hummingbirds and butterflies and things like that and improving gardens because I think th those things are very valuable to do. Personally, I wouldn't know how to go

how to go about doing it or where to put them and that would require further study. I don't want to just say let's put a uh you know let let's get some honeybees over here and make honey. Right. But you're you're amplifying my point which is that kind of expert opinion about the feasibility of A, B and C given the constraints that we want to have or the lack of, you know, impact. Um, that's not a survey of people who are here on Sunday afternoon. No, I Randy, I I agree with you. That's why we're having this discussion to determine the way forward because um I don't think I don't think any park is static stays the way it is. You know, you have to improve. I hate to use the word improve, but want to do things to make it even better than it is. I don't know what those things are. flower gardens, uh, bringing in possibly some specimen trees that are that are native that would look at the repaving project that we did in the last couple years. You know, that's something that had to be creative, right? Like that is that is a change. That's that was an improvement to the park. So, that was people like, I'm falling as I walk my dog. The the um you know, the friends put in the uh the garden dedicated to George. We have a garden dedicated to Bobby Morabida. We have a garden. We have the sunken garden where many weddings take place. Should there be more of that? More and different kinds of gardens, different kinds of flowers. Um, and of course, you know, one of the participants in any discussion would

have to be the friends of right of uh of Crawford Park. I mean, we have a marshy park to the great lawn. There are things that you could do with that if we knew what to do with that. Yeah. So, I'm not I'm not just suggesting that we need to have, you know, oh, we need to have all of these activities. No, we don't need to put basketball courts or pickle ball courts or tennis courts or golf driving range. We don't need any of that stuff. Um I mean our last but the question is what should be done if anything and I keep coming back to paraphrase you Debbie if anything if anything because in many circumstances we need to do nothing council has I see him there you you want to you want to speak it to the microphone ch Actually the deed can be very helpful. The deed is actually the original guide post for all of you. This is your starting point and it could at some point be your ending point. The deed is very explicit about what you can do, what you should what should be done with this park in perpetuity. Just read it. It's very the language actually is is very clear and people don't know what's in the deed. I can't tell you how many times someone's like, "Well, why don't we put in a swimming pool?" Because of the deed, the deed should be someplace pretty public. I'm sure it is on the website, but the the the history of of Crawford Park and we did a study of this when uh when I was a trustee in Rybrook. Um, the reason that Crawford Park was not given to the village of Rybrook when Rybrook was created was because of the deed and the deed specifically left it to the town of

Ry. every other park that the town owned. Pine Ridge Park, Gab Baldi Park, Meadow, I keep forgetting the name, the park right right next right next to Crawford and Ry Hills Park. All were given to the village of Rybrook, but not Crawford because Crawford Park was deed directly to the town of Ry. And one of the reasons that Edna Crawford deed it to the town of Rye is because she enjoyed watching the children play in her backyard. So the fact that we have play areas, playgrounds and fields comports exactly with the will of Ed Crawford and it and it reads as follows. All of the premises shall be used and maintained by the town in perpetuity as a public park for public recreation primarily of an outdoor nature and then there are certain exceptions. So you I think you have the luxury and and the good fortune of having a document that kind of gives you an outline and it gives you the parameters. Yeah. Right. And and there is a section Jeff didn't read it that is dedicated actually for municipal use. The park right right next to um Rit Street is designated for municipal use so that the town could actually build a structure. I don't have any intention of doing that by the way. Um but but Jeff is right. It lays out it lays out the parameters of what it can be used and That's very helpful focusing wise not only with act with you know with the stakeholders with the friends with the

parkgoers with consider so when you talk to people if you familiarize yourself generally with this language you know you can frame the conversation I think it's actually very helpful and it it gets you out of this morass of what we you know all right all right let us end this discussion thank you very much I hope that you're not too put off by this uh discussion of the board. Uh no, it was uh always quite interesting. So, uh if we can be helpful, that's great. If we can't, then we hope there's something else that we can be helpful on. So, you know, we're happy to be on in the next meeting if you'd like us to be on and um let me know or let Sarah Sarah and I know. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Neil. Thank you. Bye. What was that, Ruby? What was that last comment? The comment from the resident. Did I answer that? Um, she wrote another comment that says, "As a member of the community and a member of the Friends of Crawford Park as well as in the development implementation andification, this proposed budget is heavy on public relations and engagement and not a feasibility study for the future of the park. I think that the expense should be earmarked to address cultural issues that we currently have in Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment and feel free to um approach either myself or Debbie or Ruby uh for further Gary consultation. Unfortunately, I have a work call. I still try to make a living once in a while at 8 o'clock tonight. We'll be done. Uh, do you need a vote or are we voting on anything? Do you need me for anything? No. Yeah, one more vote. We have one vote on uh Yeah, we have two votes. We're going to do that now. We'll be done in 10

minutes. Okay. Okay. Uh, bringing up the uh request from Portchester Council for the Arts for 2025 summer camp. They wrote us a letter. Uh I think you're all advised of this where they reorchester uh Council for the Arts has requested that their uh fee uh be reduced to no more than $3,000 for the summer uh because otherwise the program would not be able to exist. Um comments also on Okay, I'm Denise. the street name. It It seems to me to be uh taking this letter at face value something that we should agree to. Yes. Uh may I may I have a motion and a second to reduce the fee for Porta Council for the Art Summer Camp to $3,000? I make the motion. I'll second. Call the RO, please. Council person Jackie. Yeah. Council person Axel. Yes. Council person Sier. Yes. Council person Lardy. Definitely. Yes. Supervisor Suckerman. Yes. And a resolution to award a contract for video and audio consulting to Anthony. I hope I say the word name. Gathers of the scene video. Debbie sent a memo to the council regarding this. Um, apparently our good friend Jack who has been uh working on the audio video portion for our meetings both here in Righttown Park. Um he is uh I should say gainfully employed in the assessor's office where

he's been for better part of a year doing a very wonderful job and he would like to relinquish his responsibility as audio video uh technician or whatever where where his title may be. and uh our company has recommended Anthony Gathers um to uh take his place. Can I just ask this question before we vote? I don't Yes, of course. Okay. Um what were we paying Jack? Because this is $315 per meeting. Yes, we were not paying Jack that much. Um and this will be an addition to the budget. Okay. Why weren't we paying Jack if he's I don't know the answer to that. And and we're going to pay somebody. We're getting it done for free and now we're going to pay somebody. Well, Jack was salaried. I don't know how to do it. Jack went from being on retainer like this and I think it was 200 and something um per meeting and then he started working part-time like he became part of Vick's team and now he's part of the assessor's team. So, it just wrapped into a growing job and actually it's one of our examples of promoting from within. Okay. So, we're just paying another $100 than what we used to pay one of our own employees. We're paying more. Yes. And we're going to have to do a budget modification to take account of that. It comes out to be 35. Well, actually split between Rytown Park and the town. So, it's not that much. I think we offer the $315 to Jack, I would think, for supplemental income or something. He's done a wonderful job for so many years. I just wonder why we would want to I know. I think he wants a life though outside of work. You don't get a life outside of work until you're like, "Guys, how many hours it stop Gary?" This is I do not want How

many hours How many hours a month or a year are we talking about? That seems to be the budgetary question. X times 315. Well, it's basically for it wouldn't matter because it's per meeting. So, if the meeting is four hours or six hours, he's getting paid the same. My question, it's 12 12 town meetings and 12 park meetings. 24 meetings plus our budget sessions if we plus bug sessions if we video them. Correct. Public budgetary sessions. I don't think because we don't have the same video for that. Okay. Um I do not want to get into personal discussions about what Jack would or would not do. That's for executive session. Uh we have before us. Can we table it till the next meeting and we can have an executive session before I I would not Well, I don't think Jack I don't think Jack is going to be taking the job. I think Jack is out of it. He wants to work in the assessor's office. So I think the only question is whether we're going to hire somebody and is uh Anthony I'm going to say based on just public relations experience it 315 for given meetings is competitive rate. K. Um, at this point in time, you know, six years after we hired Jack, just it just seems like an odd set of circumstances. I would prefer to make an informed decision about what I'm voting on. That's all. I did receive a very

brief memo. And this could be my this is my suggestion. Let's go forward with this hire. This is not a civil service job. Okay. And we can discuss it in the future. I mean, he's working. Are we signing a contract with him for a year or a set time? If we have one meeting, can we sign at any point? Yes, we can with notice or Well, we would always always give notice, but I'm saying that there's no set contract. This way, we can actually have video recording at our next town meeting and the next right now. Just just FYI, I have discussed with Debbie our entire video setup as to whether we need as many people as we do, whether we need different kinds of equipment, how much that would cost. We're going to be looking into that because right now we have five people working these meetings. And one of the reasons is because we have a hybrid meeting. Very few communities have the kind of meetings we do where people can come in and out via Zoom where we're we're doing all kinds of things that other communities do not do. Okay. I'm sorry. I I do have to go. I do have a professional obligation after this. I didn't know the meeting was going to run over, but it seems to me that based on what you said, Gary, that we can do this. There's no long-term commitment. Is that correct? Correct. So, and we need someone for the next meeting and the the the park will need someone for the next meeting. So, and Jill says based on her professional experience, this is a Pam. Oh, Pam said that. Pam did. Pam said that. Yes. Yes. PR person.

Wait, I'm looking. It says Jill Axel Rod right there. I'm looking. Yes. And this Yeah. to know that that very specific amount is actually okay. We have fun at our meetings. You there. Oh, look. You're a double. I'm a double. Okay. Based on that, you're and I'm sure you're right given the nature of your work. It seems to me given that it's not a long necessarily a long-term commitment and he does seem to be a qualified person and Debbie has recommended it. I can I make a motion? You may. That we go forward with this, gentlemen. Okay. Motion. Who's second? Please. I'll second. Please call the roll of hope. Person. No. Council person. No. Yes. Supervisor. Yes. Can I just say I think that's the first split vote. We've had a lot split vote and I think it's good to have one once in a while. It's good that we all agree on everything most of the time. I don't and this gives us couple months if we find competitive offered that much. He should have been offered that. Jack should have been offered that. I don't see this is not a vote against Anthony. This is a vote in favor of Jack. Yes. No. And I know we're all very grateful to Jack for his hard work and by the way I think and his continued hard work for the town. If if if Jack does want to work and not live right a better life or whatever, then we've said this is a temporary

arrangement. And if the young man wants to do it since he was doing a great job, I think we can just go back to him and offer him the same rate and offer it as something on top of his salary position at the assessor's office. Let's have a solution for next month's meeting in case Jack wants to hire off into numberland. I really don't want to discuss personnel matters in Good night. Good night, Randy. Thank you. Good night, Randy. I think it's really like a real democracy. It's not like Don't worry. I'll talk to Tommy. I'll talk to Tommy later and have him change his No. Just kidding, Tom. Hi. Um that ends our resolutions. um reports African-American cemetery Junth. Um Pam, do you want to do this or No, I think this is Tommy. No, Tommy want to do it. Karen wants to do it. Ruby. Me and Ruby. Ruby. I will say that the press release set for uh for Saturday. So, that's all taken care of. I got that end done. Gary, did you look at the press release? No. Okay. That was my only job. I not only looked at the president because Ruby's done most of the work. She really has. She does. She's phenomenal. She does so much of the stuff. Will hopefully appear. She's excellent. Okay. So, she is quietly. I have we put up the little graphic here. The event is on June 21st. It starts at 10:00 a.m. Um, it starts with a commemoration. We have a couple

different speakers and we actually have high school and middle school volunteers um to read different I know last year they did a letter actually don't know exactly what they're doing but they did a letter um you know from someone who is buried at the cemetery. So, sort of connecting the history to the place where everyone's going to be. And then there is a service project that involves cleaning off the headstones, which we've done um in past years as well. And then this year, we're also using the um ground piercing radar survey that we got a grant for um and the firm has come back and marked where all the graves are. And then we're going to be putting small wooden um monuments and where where each of those markers markers. Yeah. Thank you. Um where each of the unmarked graves are. So it's a two-part service project this year. Great. We're going to have several speakers. Uh I believe uh the main speaker is going to be the county executive and uh we'll have the usual I believe our usual um elected officials will probably be there. Most of them can will be there. Um we've sent invitations to lots of people. Everybody's welcome and uh I think it should be a really nice event and hopefully it won't rain. Yeah, that's the whole thing. Yes, Sunday the next. Yeah, but hopefully we'll have it on this day schedule because somehow people sometimes can't make it on the journ date. So, all right. Anybody anybody comment on uh on that comment? I want to thank you for all the work you put into it because you really, you know, we have

our meetings and you're taking the notes and you're moving with this stuff. So, you you do a really fantastic job. And not only that, it's June, so Ruby is doing that for Junth for Echo Fest and Pride on top of her daily activities. So, this has been an action-packed month. She doesn't do anything during the day, you know. Oh, no, no, no, no. I just But no, no. Seriously, I'm always I'm always I'm always on top of her with Ruby, can you do this? How about that? Ruby, can you take a vacation after June, please? She gets everything done. Thank you. Yes. No, but thank you. You've all right. Done so much. Thank you. Thank you. You want to stand there? I have got more. I have Carla's report. She's unable to make it. Okay. I don't know if I'm skipping ahead, but Sorry. while you're there. Um, so the village of Rybrook and Portchester first installment 2020 for the 2025 taxes are due by June 30th. Uh, everyone should have received a bill in the mail at this point, but the bills are also accessible on the town website. Um, to submit this payment, you can use you can mail it to 222 Grace Church Street. use the lock box in front of the building at 222 Grace Church uh or come into the office. But the fastest and easiest way to pay your tax bill is online. Uh there is a $150 fee for processing an echek and a 2.35% fee with a debit or credit card. And an important note is that the tax department is no longer using the lock box in New Jersey that they were using in previous years. Uh, all bills need to come to 222 Grace Church Street. And just to check, if you have your payment set up with your bank or mortgage

company, make sure that they change the address as well. And Carla thanks everyone for their cooperation through this transition and hopes that everyone has a wonderful summer. Thank you, Ruby. Good job. It's why she's here. Now she's becoming a collection officer, too. Um, Crawford Park. I I see Candy sitting back there. Do you have any report? You don't have to have a report. Um, I do have a report, but the only So this is the growth so far. It's a little higher than last year with um the waved fees. We have a little less than this year than last year of 2024. We don't have the teachers from Portchester coming in as often as they used to. Before they used to use the great hall, now they're using the activity rooms upstairs. So, I think that's reduced the weight fees for That's a good thing for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're using they're either using the bridal room, they're using the activity room one or two. Sometimes they spread themselves out a little bit to have smaller group sessions with the teachers when they have their meetings. So they like being upstairs more now than downstairs unless if they have 50 or more then they do use the grade hall for their sessions.

What was the activity here tonight? Um right now we have um an adult choir group and this is their end of the year uh session that they're having. So that's why they're using the piano downstairs. So it's a group of eight women that most nights they'll bring their instrument and keyboards and practice in activity room 2. Today since they're having their family members come watch their performance, that's why they're downstairs in we also have the Cub Scouts or the scouts outside having their ceremony. Great. Um, speaking of how did you enjoy sleeping outside? I did not like it. Um, I don't mind being outside, but I don't like being cold and I was freezing and I was waking up every hour on the hour. I had everybody's blanket. So, it was What was this for? the we had the Rightbrook Cub Scouts camp out that they have every year out on the field. It was a smaller group this year than last year. There was probably 20 parents with their kids doing the camp out. Um, and so the kids had to help the parent set up the tent. Luckily, we set up the tent just as it started to pour. So that was pretty bad. Um, but the kids had every child had sping wet shoes throughout the whole thing. Sounds like fun. I mean, they had fun. They were outside. They were hanging out with each other. They had their dinner. After their dinner, then they had their ceremony with their little pins that they were getting. Um, and then for breakfast,

they had a really like continental type of breakfast. So, it didn't really last long like last year because last year it did take longer for Charlie and myself to clean up. We spent about like an hour and a half cleaning. This time it maybe took us half an hour to clean. So, and thank you for that on behalf of team. I mean, we had to do the transition quickly because you guys were coming in to use the pavilion. So, say you want to get yourself a good morning bag. Well, that's for next year. Well, Liam has to start doing more campouts. So, I'm like I'm getting the little um warmers and you just need a mummy bag for at night. Sleeping bags. I mean, if it's not 80° for me, I'm freezing. I I can't I feel a breeze. I'm like, "Oh, God." Yeah. The next morning, you look like you could just went back to sleep. So, um, for this year so far from May, we've had 285 events. That includes, um, our public events. It includes the events that have happened by rentals with municipalities and also our sponsored classes. This weekend on Saturday, we will have our start off summer concert with uh Mike T and the jam show acoustic. So if it rains outside, they'll be inside. So we'll have it like bar style with high tops and low tops for people to sit inside if it does rain. And that's And it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Mike Mike T is really good. He doesn't stop. He will

continue playing until you until you throw him out. He'll keep want He'll want to go and it's like 10:30 and he's like, "Can I go?" I'm like, "You got to get out of here." Mike Mike loves playing. He loves to play. Yeah. That's my Thank you, Candy. Much appreciated. And honestly, it's it's fun to see that you're doing innovative things partnership wise. my Pilates um I guess club Pilates is coming here next weekend to do Pilates in the park which I thought was really kind of fun and different of a partnership. So yeah, we haven't had a outdoor group in a long time. So it'll be interesting to see if she actually likes being outside. I think she's going to be on the grass. Yeah, I think so. I thought that was great. I was like, "Look at like Well, she was also interested at the beach, but she wants to try it here first and then see how it goes. Cool. It's great. All right, great. Thank you, Candy. You're welcome. By the way, also huge kudos to Candy, who I understand you're helping out a lot with Rytown Park, so you were split. We have a we have a new management model and she's also helping out with the car show, too, that we're planning. So, she's another one that really puts a heart and soul in everything, too. Just like Ruby, the two of them together, the great assets to the town. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh financials. You have anything to report, Davey? Um just the other than the audit, right? So the audit the audit's completed as you know because I just submitted it and it's earliest it's been in a number of years. So which is good because we can um provide the audit reports to um our financial advisor for uh debt service reporting as well. Um the the tax receivables were I were sent

late to today because the meeting is a week earlier but uh you they're uploaded now. Okay. So the there was one uh um in rent property that paid in May of 25. So there's three um inrem properties from the class of 24. There's only one left from the class of 23. Uh we did make whole the school taxes at the end of April. Uh the outstanding school taxes as of May is about 1.2 million. Uh the county in town for 2025 is a little high. It's about 300,000 higher than the prior year. Um so we're we're monitoring that, but there was some issues with the lock box and things like that. So that's why the changes is being made by the tax receiver. Um but overall um we've we've made whole on all our taxes with the exception of the 2025 county in town which we will do in October. So, we do have a strong fund balance and we do have a good cash reserves that's earning interest. So, we're we're in good shape. And even though we did have a a loss in the 24 year that was budgeted for and planned for because we knew we were taking some revenue hits for mortgage tax and and uh some other areas as well. Yeah, we're going to have to plan for the mortgage tax for next year. Figure out figure out where That should go. Yeah, we'll be getting the first half within the next week. So, we're going to to measure the the We got a payment today from the county. What was that for? I believe it was mortgage tax, but I I I got that notification late and I couldn't confirm it, but I

believe that was the first half of the mortgage tax uh which we resume receive in June 15th, but it may have been notification. The second half comes December 15th. So, we're going I'm going to look at the last couple years for the first half payment compare it to what we received last year to see where we are. We did lower the budget for for 25 for mortgage tax to reflect the downside for that. But at least we don't have to worry about sales tax going down. Yeah. Like the county does. That's the counties. We don't we don't we don't get sales tax but over you know good no news or quiet news is good when it comes to financials. We are in good shape. Great. Thank you Dave Jeffrey. Yes you do. We have to follow up on his inrem. We have we have four properties in REM. One one is going to apparently be sold and one that's in bankruptcy is apparently going to be paying their taxes. And then there will be two they're just prognosticating. Um Lauren Hope my report has been submitted and your big news county mobile shredder will be at 222 Grace Church Street this Saturday the 14th from 10 to 1 that's it. Our next meeting is July 17th. Does anybody have anything to say? comment comments from the council people always we always have comments. I just want to say we are super lucky to live

in the town of Bry and we are super lucky to serve the constituents of Ry especially in times like we're in. Um I want to thank Crawford for working with Color Blast to give them a home for their belated holiday festival. I know that you did, you know, you made concessions there and that is such a great sign of inclusion and, you know, embracing community. We haven't talked yet about pride. This year's pride was fabulous. It was wonderful. It was, Ruby can back me up here, filled with families with young kids all day long. It was pouring rain, pouring rain, pouring rain. But just exactly the warm-hearted family celebration we wanted. And once again, very inclusive and very loving of the people who are there. And then Eco Fest or Echo Fest. And these are things that aren't being supported on the national scale right now. And I really value the members of this council and the supervisor and this staff and everyone who comes together to make rise such a great place to live. So that's just my heartfelt thanks that we live in a lovely haven in a difficult time. Thank you. Joe Tommy. Yes. Um I'd like to see people come to our Junth celebration at the African-American Cemetery on Saturday the 21st from 10 to 12. And also everybody have a safe 4th of July. We'll see you on the 17th of July. Right. Fourth of July is coming. Portchester is going to have the fireworks as usual. I did not hear uh do you know town if uh Playland is doing fireworks. Sure. I haven't heard about that. Debbie, have you heard? I don't know. Ruby,

I have not. All right. I will I will make a call and see what their plans are because that affects Rytown Park tremendously whether they have it or not. Yeah. Ken Jenkins will let you know on Junth. And have we given Barley full control of our beach or are we going to have our beach open for our residents to enjoy? No, it'll be it'll be uh Debbie worked with them. The residents if you have a pass get on the beach. Great. Thank you. Thank Debbie. The barley they they have to be self-contained within their area. Okay. Of course, if there's no fireworks, going to have much less of a crowd. We can still have picnics. Um, also, do we know the county is doing the bus again? Like the free bus? I don't think they are. Okay. All right. Motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor? I 7:59. Just me.