Alright, so we will get started in the spirit of maximizing the time.

Good evening, everyone.

You're an intimate audience this evening.

If you don't know, I'm the dear of Ramos Herbert, the privilege of serving as the mayor of our amazing city, and it's really a pleasure to welcome you to tonight's community meeting focusing on districts five and six.

I want to begin by thanking our dedicated professional staff who you see sort of surrounding the space here, who are here with us tonight, our city manager, each of our department commissioners, and so many others who are here representing City Hall.

They work tirelessly on behalf of our entire city, and I'm grateful for their partnership and service.

And maybe I'll ask for us to give them a round of applause for taking time to be here.

I want to thank the school district for hosting and all the hands that get the chairs and the tables together.

This doesn't just manifest on its own.

We really appreciate the partnership.

I want to make sure I recognize a few other electeds in the room.

Of course, the Stellar District 5 and 6 council members, Councilmember Kay representing District 5, and Council Member Story, representing District 6.

And we have Shane Austin Louis, representing District 4.

And who's representing District 3.

And we have Corey Galloway here from the library, here to listen, and also answer any questions you might have about the project.

So tonight, like last year, we've gathered for one clear goal to foster productive dialogue and ensure every resident has the chance to engage directly with the people working on the issues that impact your part of your show.

In terms of format, your city council rep, Sarah Kay and Matt's turn will spend a few minutes sharing their priorities for the district.

Following that, our city manager, Wilfredo Melendez and provide a high-level overview of the city's 2026 work plan, highlighting the projects, initiatives, and improvements that affect districts five and six.

Once they're finished, you're going to have the opportunity to stand up and speak with each of the department commissioners who will be available at individual stations.

Everyone has a little sign and even like a summary of the focus of the office and able to speak directly with you.

So whether you have a specific concern about public works, public safety, parts, or topics and questions for multiple offices.

This is your chance to have a focused conversation, ask questions, and share your feedback with the people most closest to the work on the ground.

We piloted this format last year at four different meetings just like this, and we heard from many residents it was a refreshing change.

These small conversations really give space for real dialogue.

Concerns won't be lost in the crowd, and everyone can be heard.

So thank you for showing up.

Thank you for caring for your community and for being a part of the work that makes New Michelle stronger.

I now have the privilege of welcoming Sarah King.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here.

After several years of doing this work, I've been thinking about how many of the projects we're going to talk about tonight started as a simple conversation.

A concern raised by a resident, an idea about how something could be better.

From there, it's a long process, figuring out what's actually possible, securing funding, working through design, and staying with it through all the setbacks along the way.

And most of that work happens quietly behind the scenes.

But what makes this moment different and really exciting is that we're now starting to see the results of work that takes shape here in District 5.

Recently, I caught myself looking at parts of the district differently, not just as they are today, but what they're about to become.

Projects that started years ago are now becoming real visible improvements in our neighborhoods.

Things you can see, experience, and benefit from in your day-to-day lives.

And you're starting to see that most clearly in places like Ward Acres along Timewood Boulevard.

At Ward Acres, we're moving forward with a series of long-planned improvements focused on access, safety, and preserving what makes the park special.

That includes things like restrooms, a new crosswalk, a ward elementary, additional pathways and signage, and long overdue upgrades, all designed to make the park easier to navigate and more welcoming for everyone.

And along Time World Boulevard, we're preparing for phase one of improvements that will make the streets safer.

With new bike lanes and crosswalks, improved drainage, and other changes that will help slow traffic and make it easier and safer to walk and bike.

These are not small projects.

They are foundational investments and help people move through, experience, and live in this city.

And at the same time, we're making real progress on something that I know is top of mind for many residents.

Flooding.

Over the past two years, seven drainage projects have been completed in District 5 alone.

And we're not stopping there.

Multiple additional projects are advancing through design, including City Park, Ashland Place, Almore Avenue, Quaker Ridge, and East Chester Road.

This work is part of a much larger effort to address flooding issues that have connected homes and neighborhoods for years.

You've likely seen some new trees popping up all across the city.

That's part of our community forest management plan, which is guiding how and where we plant and care for our trees, focusing on the neighborhoods that need the most.

But at its core, it's about really practical things.

Reducing extreme heat in our neighborhoods, help managing storm, improving air quality, and really just making our streets more lovable and beautiful.

It's about quality of life.

Another important shift you might have noticed is a stronger community presence here in District 5.

When I first took office, there were very few city sponsored events in this part of New Rochelle.

Today, that's changed.

We now have a growing calendar of events from park cleanups and tree plantings to Halfway to Earth Bank, Halloween, Goat's Fest, and expanded programming at City Park.

These aren't just events.

They're about building community, creating opportunities for connection, and making sure that every part of the city feels included.

At a broader level, we've also been advancing initiatives that support long-term stability and opportunity.

Establishing a cannabis trust fund to ensure new revenue is reinvested into youth programs and community services.

Support for new local businesses and economic activity and continuing to align our policies and bestments with long-term climate goals.

At the end of the day, all of this work is conducted.

It's about building a safer, healthier, and more resilient community.

So while not every project is visible all at once, and not everything moves as quickly as we would like, there is a significant amount of work underway right now, especially here in District 5.

And tonight is an opportunity to build on that.

You'll have a chance to speak directly with commissioners and staff, ask questions, and share what you're seeing on your block.

Because ultimately, this work is strongest when it's informed by you.

And I look forward to the day, which will be very soon, when these things we're talking about tonight aren't just plans, but tangible improvements you will experience in your day-to-day lives.

So thank you again for being here, and I look forward to the conversation.

Meeting everyone, I'm Matt Stern.

I'm a council member in District 6.

Um, first I just want to re-emphasize just have a quick plan for our city staff.

Um, it is a long day to start this at 6 30, probably going until about 8 o'clock.

Um, so thank you for the commitment and all the work that came in to make this uh evening possible.

And thank you for coming out.

You know, I it's there are a lot of familiar faces, but fortunately some new ones as well, and um I know it's not easy to come out to a community meeting, um, and we're grateful that you're here.

Um like Sarah, one of the biggest issues for me has been the flooding uh across uh URSH.

In fact, I would say it's probably the first thing that really got me interested in in stepping up.

It was after Hurricane Ida, when my own basement started flooding, and neighbors down the street had even worse problems than I did.

And at the time I was like, well, why isn't the city doing anything about it?

Um it was only after I got more involved that I say, well, actually, they are.

They're taking the steps needed to study the problem and put a plan together.

And that plan is really what is carrying us through to today, and I'm really proud that we are executing it determinedly every year with another 10 million dollars invested each year into actually addressing this issue so that we don't have to, you know, uh pass this issue on to our kids.

Um basically every area around the city that I was knocking on doors and hearing these problems, I could say that we actually have a project either completed or going to happen this year that is going to address most of those problems.

So I'm really proud of uh the work that we've all done to make that happen.

Um, along say streets.

Um it's it's only been about two and a half years, but we've had more crosswalks.

Um we have uh a new sidewalk coming in on Wilmot Road, where there's you know a dirt path from all the people who've been walking on the people's front yards.

Um, and there are so many other projects that are underway to make sure that our streets are safer for everyone who wants to travel, whether it's by car, bike, or walk-in.

And then finally, tonight you're going to hear a little bit about a program that is really hard to say, but I think it's really important, and it's called participatory budget.

The idea is simple.

If you have an idea of what you want to see in your neighborhood, you know, a physical project that will last for years, um, with this program participatory budget, you're going to be able to put that idea forward, have a group of residents work with you on actually getting it onto a ballot, and then you and your neighbors can vote for which projects receive funding.

I was at New Orchell High School this morning talking to some of the juniors and seniors there about what they want to see, you know, at the park in front of their high school.

Some of them were talking about how they don't feel safe when just crossing the street.

Some of them were talking about how when they take the bus or wait for the bus, there's one uh bench, you know, for 30 kids who are ready to get on the bus, and there's no covering.

So there are some really tangible things that you know, if you really start to either ask residents and actually give them a chance to propose those ideas, they'll tell it, they'll tell us, and maybe it wasn't on our radar before, and this is going to give them a real path to actually getting those projects completed.

So thank you again for coming out.

I'm really grateful to serve uh this community, um, and most importantly, spending some good time tonight talking to our wonderful city staff.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thanks for coming out.

Um, thanks to the mayor and to the council for their support.

Um just want to say thank you to the staff.

A couple of years ago, we we we used an analogy of uh of a uh an iceberg, you know, and um the top part is what we kind of do and what shows the ribbon cuttings and all that stuff, but there's a lot that goes on underneath the water, and everybody that's in the back there is part of that, right?

So it's a lot of work that happens, these things are not easy.

We we run across a lot of roadblocks and hurdles, and you probably will probably talk about a couple of those, but you know, we have great staff, great professional staff that are really good at what they do, and I'm really proud that I work with them every day.

Um 2026 work plan.

I gave this already, but um I kind of just pulled out the high-level initiatives for Council 265 and 6.

Um so you know, every year we we develop a work plan.

Um, kind of get input, we made it a priority for 26 that I got input directly from city council.

So that that was that was important.

Um something that maybe wasn't done so much in the past, but um I just wanted to make sure that we had a formal process that we received staff to see what really was important to each of the council districts, and then we use that information in the development of a work plan and part of the budget process.

And of course, the other side of that is what the department feels, the departments feel that are important uh in their own world, uh what's gonna happen for the next year.

So it serves as a roadmap, it's it kind of lays out the steps, and it gets us focused, really.

So once we we we establish those goals and initiatives, we budget for them, and um, and that that's what sets the plan for the year.

Um last year we started, you know, rather than we took another different approach, rather than look at what all the departments do.

We said, what you know, what are the major themes for a city to really focus on?

So we developed these buckets.

You know, we said public safety, emergency preparedness was important, a resilient infrastructure, which you just heard about, uh, environmental sustainability and stewardship.

Again, items that we we looked at though were important, economic development, opportunity, prosperity, and growth for our city.

We have very you know dynamic growing city and community building.

Um we thought it was important.

So we established these buckets last year, and then we kept them for this year.

Um this just the main thing here is what we found out, like in 25, we established those buckets, we had a lot of projects and initiatives, but you find out that nothing happens that easy, right?

There's always little stumbling blocks and stuff, and we definitely you know, we continue on these initiatives, and we had to carry those over into 2026.

Because the idea was you identified them, and what the first line says we want to land the planes.

We started these initiatives, we want to get them going, we want to complete them.

Um, so and that takes time and resources, so a lot of those initiatives that started in 25 actually carried over to 26.

And these are some of the major, so we we said we focus on community engagement, we're setting up community meetings, infrastructure planning and design, we had a lot of planning, a lot of design happening in 25, and hopefully we'll see those fruits of our labor in 26.

Environmental planning, we had some major initiatives that were that were approved last year, and we're looking to now implement those practices.

Economic development strategies were developed last year.

Now we're seeing the data come in from that.

And the community engagement.

Meetings like this, being more transparent, just opening up the different avenues, you know, social media, our website, our events that we have, our tabling events, and just really building on that.

So public safety and emergency preparedness.

So just an initiative of our police department, our commissioner, Neil Reynolds, a great idea of establishing public safety advisory meetings.

So rather than having a meeting that's just focusing on just police issues, we we said let's let's take it and expand that.

It's Neil's idea, expand it just beyond police, but to emergency services, fire department, and public works.

So it's build the goal build upon trust, enhance the transparency, it forces collaboration.

It's a great meeting to have.

There's a dialogue that happens back and forth.

We had a first one a couple weeks ago, and we're looking to expand those and bring those out to the different districts, and more to come on that.

So I think it was great format.

Some resilient infrastructure, we touched on that.

One of the big initiatives that we did this year was developing what we call a local safety action plan.

It's a program for making the streets safer, obviously, for everybody.

It's a plan that it's a necessary element that we've uh found out that's required when uh applying for different types of grants and funding.

So uh and it's it really uh focuses the intention and the emphasis on specific areas within the city that have traffic concerns, pedestrian particular concerns, and it identifies those crystals in a plan, gives the data that we need to apply for funding to eventually do improvements.

Uh we just finished the plan up, um, and actually it's been part of some recent grant applications.

Another big thing for this year is looking at our corridors on the same vein of traffic safety.

So we looked at the Webster Avenue Corridor, and we have several initiatives that are going on uh for this year.

Uh development of a traffic signal replacement project for the entire border from Main Street all the way to Hutchinson River Parkway.

That's looking at all the existing traffic signals and pedestrian crossing signals.

Um we're looking to get into design at the end of this year, and hopefully construction next year.

Looking at a potential under the same contract, we're adding an installation of a single possible signal at Glenmore Drive up on air.

Uh continuing to address the speeding concerns.

Uh we're looking at, we're partnering with our local officials, both uh in the Senate and Assembly to uh pilot a school zone speed camera pilot for the city that will allow us to monitor speed at different uh designated school areas with us three locations to work with, and we could move those locations wherever we see fit, and one of them being Webster School.

Uh we're pursuing a TAP grant for additional traffic calming measures, and we're going to finalize the traffic and pedestrian safety review for the intersection of Webster and Florida.

So a lot happening on the Webster Avenue corridor.

Same thing on Pineville Corridor.

So looking to finalize the design.

Uh we're going to start some community engagement.

We're right now at a preliminary design stage for the first phase, which is from each month drive to Forest Avenue.

The design is basically supplant should complete.

We're going to go get some community input from that and finalize that design and eventually go into construction this year.

Uh we have a replacement, I believe that was completed already at Pineville Boulevard Tulip Lane.

Uh we're looking for a we have a bid out for guardrails installation at the vicinity of Quaker Ridge Road on the Boulevard.

Uh we just got to secure some funding for that.

Uh there's a final design and construction dots for uh what Matt had referred to, which is a pretty large uh storm mitigation project, uh culvert replacements at Pinebrook Bilovard and Tula Lane.

We're also installing a bypass pipe there, so a pretty big project.

The bid is out, and hopefully it'll be awarded and constructed this year.

Identify funding for final design and construction of Pineville Boulevard phase two.

That's the rest of the segments along Pineburg Boulevard.

We're continuing to we have basic schematic designs for that.

So we're looking to find funding to finish the final design and eventually construction of those remaining segments along the building.

The Quaker Ridge Corridor, same another corridor.

Complete sheets projects, which you probably heard about.

We have a final design ready to go.

We are actively pursuing, we were recently awarded a grant.

We still have a funding gap there of a couple million dollars, and we're still looking for uh to see if we can shrink that gap up so we could start that project.

Uh we have drainage improvements.

There's a specific project at uh Van Meeta Fenz and Quaker Ridge Road that is uh in design uh I think it's probably almost finished, and uh stormwater construction uh this year.

Uh and again I talked about the speed zone campus and moving those uh locations if we get that pilot program established over at this this area, Albert Leonard, and uh Montessora School, Craig Water Trail.

Uh just a couple run through these stormwater mitigation uh projects.

I talked about that one already, the second one already.

We have city park uh drainage improvements, a lot going on there.

Uh we have two major areas there on Fifth Avenue Plain, what we call the city park break and different phases of design.

We expect to finish that detailed design by the uh end of the third quarter, and hopefully uh start uh a bid construction uh by 2027 for to mitigate issues over at C Park.

Um as Councilman P mentioned, uh we had a lot of mini drainage, what we call mini drainage are really smaller localized uh projects to to address specific issues rather than large uh system issues.

So we had a lot of those completed last year.

Um this year uh we have these locations substantially complete, final restoration, uh Bolden Horseshoe Wilshire Road is actually out to bid and expect uh construction soon.

Uh couple locations, not all of them make it.

So Interlaken Avenue, Robins Road uh did a lot of work, uh, but it is a challenge location.

Uh it is in a flood plain and it is a riverine condition.

Uh but what came out of it was you know not a project but uh a couple kind of a cooperation with the county on you know focusing on some enhancement uh maintenance in order to alleviate some of the potential of flooding conservations in those areas.

For 2026, we have a slew of again some new mini drainage projects uh at these locations.

Uh these are specific areas that you know have have experienced flooding at some level.

Um and then over at sub basin, what we call subbasin five, which is over on East Chester Road by by the high school on North Avenue, uh that gets hit with some major flooding.

Uh we actually have a design in uh in place, uh design effort in place, and hopefully uh we'll have construction and bidding in the first and second quarter of next year.

Parks and recreation facility improvements, the Maplewood Park Playground and Basketball Courts, construction happening now, uh the Pinebrook Tennis Center, Google, removal and replacement of existing wood stairway, and we have a Pickle Board Court expansion uh happening there.

Um a lot going on there, a lot of uh once-in-a-generation investment at Ward Acres.

So it's this is really nice.

We had a lot of uh you know, staff involvement with this one.

So you know, our city manager, uh Deputy City Manager was involved with a lot of this work, great work here, uh really putting together all these different elements over at Ward Acres, working with DPW and eventually putting bids out, scoping work out.

Um so it's it's really uh I like this one because you know the staff had a lot to do with and hearing the concerns from the council on the area.

So uh we're looking forward to to these improvements.

We have uh barsite visioning, we have to one of the projects that's not in here, we have a stone bridge that's all I think are completed already.

We have a restroom and storage building, we have crosswalk happening right here in the front, which we really help out.

Um main entrance sign, and again, 88 compliant pathways that allow you uh 88 compliance through the park to access different areas within the park and trailway signage.

Dam safety.

Uh we have dams here in uh Nurshaw that are all regulated by the New York State D DC.

Um over at Glenwood Lake.

Uh we were we did an engineer assessment.

There was uh notable items that were deficiencies associated with the Glenwood Lake Dam.

Uh those were noted.

We started a design process, an RP, uh went out to design.

Those designs are all the design for those improvements are completed.

Uh right now we're working on the last stages of obtaining a dam safety work permit with the DEC, just working through some details, and hopefully, once we get that dam safety uh permit, we can start construction.

Over on the Lake Isle Dam.

Um lot of issues here, a lot of very dynamic situation.

Uh but again, it's a high-hazard dam that has some issues, some stability issues associated with it.

Uh we've been in conversations for many years with uh uh with the different dam owners and trying to resolve that.

But um I think the newer shell staff and myself included feel as though uh the improvements, the the required uh improvements to these to this dam is mandatory and it has to be done.

We are mandated to do that by the New York State DC, and we're pushing those efforts with them.

We're working on an interim safety plan with them as we work through some litigation, uh, but hopefully we're working through the process now of obtaining again a dam safety work permit in order to start that work and identify grant funding that would uh fund us for that.

So we're pushing here on the newer shell side because we realize the the importance of dam safety, especially with uh environmental sustainability and stewardship, uh just uh high level the uh ITC solar ray installation uh uh over at the ITC Center downtown.

Um it's uh it's aligned with our Green NNR action plan.

Uh we conducted a feasibility study which determined whether or not structurally we can install uh solar rays that would determine that it was feasible.

Um so that study has been completed, so now we're entering now it's a detailed design portion of that project with hopefully construction by the end of the year.

Um Kirk, a very big initiative that was started last year, uh, and now we would start seeing the implementation of our community forest management plan, uh, and these are the main elements of that.

We have already started the initiative.

Our goal for this year is to install 300 trees throughout the city.

We already started that initiative, spring planting season with the majority of happening in the fall.

And again, a lot of elements to this plan, and thanks and kudos to the staff for really uh it's it's it's uh it's a bear to manage.

There's a lot of elements to it, and there's a lot of components to it, uh, but we're working together, and uh, it's a great initiative for the city.

Economic development opportunity, prosperity, and growth.

Um just to we've completed the process, the uh eminent domain process for the Habitorn building, or what we want to call the Carnegie building.

So that we actually finished up in April.

Uh the city now owns the building, uh, which is a uh really um really position ourselves as a cultural anchor here within the city once we uh improve this building.

Um we finalize the purchase this year.

We're gonna develop an RFI to uh to focus on you know what the planning and what the um the alignment, you know, what what we plan to do as to to expand this building as a as a real important community asset.

Um, not only to the immediate area but to the city as a whole.

So we're going to do some initial cleanup, get the place looking nice, and then continue on the process, and hopefully within a short period of time, we'll have some planning going on there.

Over at CBS 625 North Avenue, again, we finished the process of eminent domain.

So we have acquired that building.

Again, same thing here.

We've developed an RF RFEI, a request for expressions of interest for the development of project that benefits the community.

Over the Black Box Theater in the downtown, we've great news here.

We cleared up any issues we had with the prior operator, have a move operator on board.

Currently, we're performing some improvements to the interior to eventually set that place up for a really vibrant arts performing arts venue.

We are on schedule to hopefully finish the major construction activities by either the end of the year or the beginning of next year, and hopefully we will see some really interesting programming in early 2027.

Community building.

So we recognize that not-for-profits serve an important function for the city.

They're like an arm that we have an extension of services that we can't provide, or we don't have the resources to.

And working with the different non-for-profits throughout the year, and really to me was like kind of like let's set up a program where we could give a little bit more structure to who we actually contract with.

And it also gives us a little bit of the ability to see where we can use a not-for-profit that would help us, the city, and achieving some of the goals that we want, especially the quality of life issues.

So the program was established.

So we uh we just finished up, we awarded 12 grants at different in these different focus areas uh recently, and hopefully uh we could see some of the benefits to uh the community.

Uh participatory budgeting.

Matt touched on that.

Um great program and kudos to Matt for really champion champion this effort.

Uh just had a meeting uh set up a budget steering committee.

Um they're gonna finalize kind of the rule book that we use the uh New York Shell uh high school as a kind of a pilot for this year, uh which is a great idea, uh partnering with not only students, teachers, faculty, but staff, and really will give us the opportunity kind of see how this works, really, to put the framework together and then bring it out hopefully uh to the rest of the city uh next year and beyond uh community engagement, uh a lot of things happening this year.

Uh we have uh a lot of events happening for uh 250th anniversary.

Uh we are partnering with our bid downtown for uh World Cup activations, hopefully we'll hear some more about that.

We have two major events happening over at Flowers Park and eventually for the final game down in group in uh kind of Ruby E Park.

So a lot more to come on that.

Uh we one of our initiatives actually uh uh spearheaded by our deputy city manager was to utilize um uh numerous neighborhood associations in the city to really extend our reach, right?

Um so it's really partnering with them to really get the message out and also to get a lot of feedback from what's happening.

So we're gonna really um try to do that reach and have messaging out to the different associations throughout the city.

That's part of our one of our engagement strategies.

Workforce development, uh, ongoing initiative, uh looking to do some modifications to our UTEP to increase this uh workforce development um partnership that we have.

Uh we tried something this year, we're gonna see how it works, where we introduced into our standard boilerplate contract language an incentive, I would say, for contractors to utilize uh the workforce development program here in Rochelle to actually hire people uh that come out of this program for city contracts.

So we wrote that in, and thanks to our law department and our commissioner of public works for really being innovative there and seeing if we could really get incentivize contractors to utilize.

Great job by our staff, John, for really kind of expanding all our outreach and our different platforms with video really being a really major component of our communication strategy going forward.

City Council updates, again, another way of kind of letting know, letting everybody know what's going on.

That was a commitment that we made at the city manager's office that we will produce a monthly update to council, which is a monthly update to the city, basically what's happening, given like kind of real-time information of these initiatives, uh, really focusing on the 2026 work plan items and kind of doing an update as we go along throughout the year.

I think it's a it's a great format.

Uh and then we're just continuing our initiatives.

We started a lot of things back in 25, and we're looking to you know continue those to 26.

And that's it.

Land the plans.

That's