Town Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody to the Ry Town Council meeting of October the 16th, 2025. Please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing. Heavenly Father, bless this assemblage. Grant us the wisdom to make every decision fairminded in the best interest for all residents. Amen.

I'll call the roll. I was just going to say that Madame clerk, please call the role. Council person Jill Axelrod. Council person Pamela Jackie. Why is it finished? I think she's okay. Jill is here, but she is on Zoom. And she's muted. Councilwoman Axelrod is appearing via video conference. Yes. Council person Randy Sier. Council person Thomas Nardy. Present. And supervisor Gary Suckerman.

Present. I'm also present. Call Jill. And I spoke for Jill. I want to know why my voice came out but it wasn't a little bit guys. Guys. Okay. A quorum in person is here. This is an official meeting. Um, council person Sier is uh absent uh due to a family emergency and council woman Axelrod is appearing via Zoom because of an illness. Okay. She just responded. Council person is here as well.

Yes, we're all here. Okay. Adoption of minutes for the meeting of September the 18th, 2025. If there if there are no objections or corrections, may I have a motion and a second? So moved. Second. All in favor?

I. Our first item is a public hearing regarding local no law number one of 2025 which is regards the residency requirement of the town controller. Um in brief, the town has the office of controller which has been aly filled by Dave Burns for the last 15 or 20 years

and Dave is retiring from that position and so we are going out on a search for a new controller. Normally the controller as any officer must reside in the town of Ry. Um but we have the power via local law to open the search to all residents of the state of New York and that's what this local law does. You know personally I hope that we can find a qualified person within the town but this is an important position and we need to find somebody truly qualified. So with that, I have a motion to open the public hearing. Make the motion.

Second. All in favor? I. The public hearing is open. Do we have any comments from members of the public who wish to be heard on this proposed local law? Hearing none. Do we have any comments from the council regarding the proposed local law? The only comment I have is I hope that we get somebody from the town. Ary, I hope we, you know, whoever is capable of doing it, I hope they apply for it because I rather see I would rather see somebody from the town, but we do have to have somebody that's capable of doing Dave's job.

I agree with Tommy. We are We are all Okay. hearing. No further comment. May I have a motion to close the public hearing? Second. Please call the role. Council person Axel. Council person Jackie. Yes. Did you speak? No. The sound has gone down for her. Um we're trying to reach her on the cell so she can um Oh, there she is. Jill, I'm putting you on speaker. We're calling We're calling the roll too. Hi.

Hi. [Music] Do before. Were you watching? Were you Were you able to see the We're We're uh having a motion to close the public hearing unless you have something to say. Nope. Okay. Call the role. Madame Clerk. Okay. Council person Axel. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person Nardy. Yes. And Supervisor Z.

Yes. With regard to local law number one, establishing residency requirement for the town controller. May I have a motion and second to pass the local law or to approve the local law? So So moved. A second. Please call the role. Council person Atsurat. Yes. Council person Jaffy. Yes. Council person. Yes. And Supervisor Zucker? Yes. The local law has been approved. Comments from members of the public on non-aggenda items.

There weren't any a minute ago. Let me just check. Nope. No comments. Can we get Jill back on the screen somehow? Jill, can you um go on to turn the camera on

or at least go put go vocal on the on the screen instead of the phone? Are you v I think she is the tech issues. sound was working with it during the sound check. It's not working now. That's why she's on speaker. Okay. Well, you'll stay on speaker. Okay. Sorry. I'm on video and Yeah, but I'm not sure if I'm hearing you through my phone or through put this on mute and see put the phone on mute and see who you can hear Jill through this. Speak Jill. Okay. All right. You're on. There she is.

You're good. You're good. Okay. First resolution, um, a resolution to authorize the town council to, uh, we're good. Oh, even better. Good.

A resolution to authorize the town council to enter a new contract with Hobart Contracting for the Rytown Park bath house interior renovation. Bit of a background. Everybody knows that um Rytown Park uh commission has gone out to bid uh for the bath house renovation. We have two grants, one from the county of Westchester, one from the state of New York. Uh both of them uh have um have authorized the town of Ry and this is a a practice that that they that they do. Sometimes it's the Rytown Park Commission. In this case, it's the town of Rye to enter into the contract with the various uh state agencies for uh reimbursement. And since the grants are coming to are named to the town, uh the town also needs to enter into contract with Hobart Contracting, which was the low bidder to uh to perform the contract. So that is the background. Are there any questions about that? If not, may I have a motion and a second to approve the contract with Hobart Contracting?

I'll make a motion. I'll second. Please call the role. Hope Council Person Axel. Yes. Council Person Jackie. Yes. Council Person. Yes. Supervisor Zuckerman.

Yes. Next resolution is authorizing the town supervisor to enter into a contract with Citroen Cooperman for accounting services. Debbie, do you want to go over the background? We discussed this in our budget meeting previously, but um please just briefly review this. So the the town um began outsourcing its accounting services in 2016 after the untimely demise of Sam Tenzi. Uh the team uh at the time a um uh the previous administration had conducted a uh request for qualifications and had identified um a firm by the name of MMJ um as the um best um provider. Um we followed through and engaged MMJ. Um MMJ also known as um Mayor Meyer Justic. Um they've gone through various name changes over the years and um most recently uh the firm was acquired by Citroen Cooperman. uh the team of accountants and the partner on the project has remained um consistent um with a significant amount of institutional memory. Um there were also economies of scale achieved by having this accounting firm cover both

the town of Rye and Rytown Park. There was a savings to both. the allocation is of fees is 76% 24%. Um and my computer just went dead so I got to um so before you is a resolution that identifies um that uh Citroen Coopermanman came in and um requesting a new master services agreement which is before you. It is somewhat different from the master services agreement that we had before, but it has been reviewed by Jeff Binder, our attorney, and um in detail by our controller, by Gary Zuckermanman and myself. Um there's also a new scope of work um which we um went uh delved into extensively and at a very granular level and identified the scope of work. their original um fee escalation was considerably higher than what you see before you. Um we identified a number of items on their scope of work that we thought um could come off of our accountants outsourced scope and uh because Allah Abramian our office assistant financial support has um very strong abilities. So, she's going to be picking up a number of the time consuming tasks that our accountants have been handling up until now. So, right now, you're looking at um a higher fee of about uh 12 about 15% more than we are currently paying, but considerably less than was originally proposed. Um and this is uh an agreement that is basically for a year. Um and during that time we will evaluate what's

next. Thank you. Any questions, comments? I'm glad to be utilizing the skill that we have in house. I agree. I I I like to have in-house than outsourcing. I like to do as much in-house as possible. All right. Um motion in a second, please. So moved. Second. Call the roll, please. Council person Axel, she needed because she was cleaning.

Council person, we hear Thank you. Council person Jackie. Yes. Council person. Yes. And supervisor. Yes. That completes the resolution portion. Uh reports. I'm going to start with Charlie. Charlie, do you have a report? I do not have a report this one. No more report for you. Okay.

Uh Crawford Park. Hi, Vic Federico, director of Brown's facilities, filling in for Candy Mahia, who is tending to her youngest child. Okay. Uh, I guess you all saw the report. The utilization is showing. We're about $45,000 above last year for private event growth and we're 24,000 below the municipal, but it's showing positive growth as far as total money. Uh so we're not really losing with the uh municipal and school events. being the private events or

in other words, we're not waving as many fees. Yes. As we were last year. Yes. Exactly.

Okay. If you go to the next slide, you'll see how busy we were. We are I shouldn't say were uh a good 125 plus more events this year than last year. So, you wanted busy. We are busy. Um, when you leave later, they'll be gone. But the last few times you were here, leaving on a Thursday night, you've seen the fields are packed. Um, we on Thursday night, we only have chess, but Tuesday is our busiest day where this whole building is full and the fields are full. Okay. Um, as far as total events, 701, 349 private, 14 public, 162 municipal, and

I have no idea. That was excuse me, that was chairs coming from the elevator behind you. Looks like music carrying a music stand. That's right. chair's music stand, whatever it was. Metal was metal. Yes. Okay. Maybe we have the senior music group tonight. I'm not sure. All right. Upcoming events. Tomorrow night, 6:30, Funk Salsa, who's been here every year since we've started the music. And uh they've grown.

Yes, they've grown. uh very large throughout the country. They host an event in Cleveland for over 10,000 people and uh they've been traveling down in the islands too now. So they're they've become very well known. Um Gary, you'd appreciate this. The guy in the red hat and the one with the sunglasses in the front were my third baseman and shortstop when I was coaching travel baseball. Oh, wow. Yes. Cool.

Okay. Then next Friday night we have trunk or treat or Halloween uh festival. Um we were hoping to have all the um what do you call it blown up tonight. Uh but inflatable the inflatables because of the wind we deflated them so um they'll be all ready for next week. Are the council members coming to give out candy? I unfortunately I will not be here. I have a concert that night. That's no excuse. Sorry. I have committed two cars, Vic. I've committed two cars.

My concerts is like your baseball and football games. I'm sorry. All right. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, lastly, we have our Are we pushing this out on social media? Oh, yeah.

It's out everywhere. Um, lastly is uh the free cooking class from Carrot Tanning Bomb, which will be Wednesday, November 12th. Um, I know sometime before that Candy will get the ingredients and what she's cooking and all that. Actually, she was working in the kitchen today. Um, I guess you know, we just had a

Oh, all right. Yeah. Well, how could I forget holiday lights? I know all of you remember the first year when we had COVID going on and we were driving cars through. Um it's it's turned into one great event. A lot of people um enjoy this. Um so that'll be on December 6th from 3:30 to 6:30 and it'll pretty much be set up. Who's going to be Mrs. Claus this year? Um I have no idea. Mrs. Claus.

Okay. She'll be there. Beautiful as always.

All right. As far as the park goes, we'll be busy right up until the first week of November with sports and after that we'll be airrating the field heavily and seating it heavily. It's taken quite a beating this year. Um I mean it's busy every day. So uh the baseball field is in great shape. Uh we groom it uh two to three times a week. We just got our delivery of NIPA trees, New York Power Authority. Uh we got 16 trees. Uh at least six of them will go down into the mini forest to help out down there and a couple will go across the the way here to screen a certain neighbor.

Maybe I I loved Gary. I won't say it. I loved Gary's um answer to me when we mentioned this about a year ago. Buy them three feet high. What about the the red oaks at Jers? We haven't picked them up yet. Okay. Um maybe a few more of those. Not over there for the screen. No, because they don't, you know, they in the winter time they lose the leaves and it's not screening her. She Well, the nice lady always complains in February. Okay.

And we don't have many events in February, so I don't understand how we're noisy. And but uh you could snap a couple pictures of the little forest trees going in to send to Definitely. Yeah. Baldi family. We also have a community cleanup Saturday. We do. Um but it's only at two sites. Correct. I know it's kind of disappointing. We consolidated. Oh, okay. We consolidated. Okay. But we're also we'd like to help out with the Marx um cleaning in two weeks. Okay.

So hopefully we can commit volunteers to join their scheduled cleaning. Here we are clean and Bowman Avenue downtown Portchester is meeting where I keep forgetting it says Columbus on there nights of Columbus. It just says uptown Portchester. No meet at night. Oh, okay. Well, I took my glasses off. And then for Rybrook, we're meeting at the middle school, the Portchester Middle School.

Yes. Right. And lastly, I'm going to give you a little update at Rytown Park. Uh the porticotties were delivered yesterday. The fencing went up today. Uh work will start on Monday with the plumber and the electrician before the demolition can start. Sidewalks were being done today these sections and uh tomorrow the knockdown piece of wall will be repaired. Great. And that's all I have for you. Thanks a lot, Vic. Thank you. That was a good report.

Do you want to talk about the car show? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Let's let's do Caru after Carla must have something. The receiver of taxes report. Do you have anything Carla? Yes.

Hi. Please receive your taxes. Um basically the only thing I have is the delinquent notices that'll be going out tomorrow for the first installment of the school taxes. Um, anyone who hasn't paid will be getting those letters and there's tons of ways you can pay. Pay online, pay through Dropbox, bring it in the office, but they will be going out tomorrow. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Davey's not here. He submitted his

on vacation. He's on vacation. Oh my god. Okay, his report is submitted. And the town clerk, your report is submitted. Right. But I'd like to remind the residents. I'm sorry. Do you have anything, Madam Clerk? Yes, I do. Do you want to talk about the uh municipal? It's not the municipal one this time. It's the mobile the mobile shredder for all residents.

For all res. and they will it's on November 1st from 10 to 1 at the village hall town hall at 222 Grace Church Street and um feel free to bring all your items that have to be shredded need to be shredded and that's it. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. I look forward to that whenever it comes. Licenses this month must be a very romantic month. It is a lot. Um, now Tommy, let's talk about the car show. Car show. Do you want to start with the video?

Yeah, start with the video, please. That would be good. Thank you. As you can see, we have quite a few cars. Um, being the first year, um, it went very smoothly. I'd like to thank 914 Muscle Car because they really helped out a lot. John Zika, John, uh, John Rogerio, uh, Ruby, Carla, Debbie. We had uh, a lot of people helping. Vic and Vic's crew were help parking cars. Um, we we didn't we we had a lot of cars. We had a big success that way. Uh we're we're about a thousand in the in the red uh after everything's said and done, but some of the stuff we can reuse for next year. Uh we have some trophies left. Our trophies did not have years on it purposely. Uh all our trophies were donated from various groups. um whether it be delies, uh car repair shops, um personal personal people doing it. So, um but it was wellreceived, well, a lot of compliments. There's a couple bugs that we have to get out, but that's that was expected. Um and hopefully, like I said, I hopefully next year we can break even at least. Um I like to see that. Like I said, we're going to have um uh we're gonna uh we we had uh the fire trucks. Uh Angelo Espasta brought his trucks, his fire trucks. The kids went wild on them. They had a really good time. Um we raised just under what was it? Just under $900 for the friends of Crawford Park.

Nearly $1,000 almost $1,000 for the friends of Crawford Park with our 5050 plus um our food trucks. We did not charge them, but what we did ask them was to give um a donation to the friends of Crawford Park, which they did very generously. So, it it was a good time and hopefully next year, you know, we get more more people. We got a lot we had a lot of spectators. I don't know how many off hand, but there were a lot. We had um quite a bit. And um we'll see what happens next year. Great event planning. really good job. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you all. And with that, believe it or not, comments from the council people.

I just want to note that every week is Earth Week. So, we did create these community cleanups on the requests of the community for public service and community service hours. So I really would love for people to come out, join us in Portchester, join us in Rybrook, join us in two weeks of a Marin and really, you know, take this opportunity to make the community we live in as beautiful as it can be. So please do sign up. We appreciate every hand of help. Thanks, Pam. Anything else, Tom? No, just, you know,

try to show up for our events that we have here at Profit Park. The park is here for you people and we have these things going on and um come and enjoy it. Bring the family. Jill, anything from you? I don't think she's on anymore. She left. She left. Okay. And with that, motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor? I meeting is adjourned. Next meeting is November 12th