Good afternoon and welcome to the May 2026 committee of the whole session.

Madam Put, please call the roll.

Mayor Ramos Herbert.

Councilmember Lopez.

Yeah.

Councilmember Tarantino here.

Council Member Peters.

Councilmember Asiloye.

Councilmember Kay.

And Councilmember Stern.

Good afternoon again and welcome to our May 2026 meeting on this glorious weather day.

I believe we have a deck, Commissioner.

Yep.

Thank you.

I know you have a long night ahead.

So out of the respect of your time, I'm going to move very quickly.

And hope you enjoy.

Shortly after the holidays.

The winter brought us right into the first quarter of the year to where we both had some new winter activations and some new offerings to the public along with some longstanding traditions.

So some more stuff that we develop for youngsters at downtown New Rock.

Oh I know.

Should you need some printing more of the moment?

Oh, it's good for the council and theater.

Sorry about that.

We have a growing uh adult cornhole league where adults get together and play down at downtown rec and then our long-standing traditional uh partnership with the school district with after school ice skating uh at HOMICs.

Our annual winter uh basketball league in conjunction with the school district is something that our recreation bureau uh historically has always run.

Um but challenge the staff uh to you know uh get creative and uh they did an awesome job in this department.

So uh for those of you that do not know, we use the schools, but the schools for Winter Basketball League, they have their own individual tryouts at Trinity Award at all these schools, and kids get cut, right?

That's how tryouts run.

Well, we wanted to develop some for the kids that get cut from these teams and leagues.

So for the first time ever, we launched a recreational beginner league uh for the kids that did not make the school teams for our winter elementary school team, and that went over great with parents uh from the public school.

We think that's always gonna grow.

Downtown rec is popping.

Uh we got some new cool partnerships with Grind Grit Ninja, everything uh mini golf, so whether it's obstacle courses, mini golf, winter fun Fridays with the black light bingo was fun, uh ballet, little movers, ready set sports, little stuff for types.

We really tried to um make an effort to get every single age range as we continue as we know to uh grow downtown rec.

Spring is definitely sprung.

So whether it's a traditional event now, a decade in of kite day, uh, which drew a bunch of families that have a poor park and the wind down on the water, the Easter bunny um visited yet again.

Uh the our striders run club at Lincoln Park uh continues to grow or you know, taking traditions like Arbor Day and then taking it to the next level now.

Adult softball, 40 teams, nearly 600 players at uh flowers for this adult league.

So this is continuing to grow.

Um yeah, one of the biggest in Westchester County.

And with a lot of cities to where I don't want to say it's completely died, but where softball has adult softball school really took a hit.

Uh this spring and summer.

This is just a quick snapshot of what you're gonna be seeing in terms of our social media and in terms of the city managers uh monthly updates and uh newsletters.

So whether it's tennis tournaments, whether it's goats fest, which we're taking to the next level at Ward Acres, uh, or whether it's you know, really getting behind uh you know FIFA in the summer of soccer or fishing derby, skateboarding, the family fun days at Flowers City Park.

We're really taking July 4th uh to the next level this year with the 250th anniversary of America, for example, the summer sizzle that would traditionally be at Ruby D park on Saturdays is gonna be down on the Sun deck uh at Hudson Park this year, a few hours before the fireworks that go with that launch from Five Islands, so more to come on that.

Lighted boat parade, uh, you know, adult soccer, the new Row Cup uh around this summer of soccer, so it's gonna be real fun stuff.

Some summer camp updates for you as of today.

Kitty Camp, 75% full.

Ward capacity at 180 children registered.

Jefferson, 90% full.

Camp Now, the middle school program at the high school from the youth bureau, 50% full.

Camp Joy, three quarters full.

Also, remember, we drastically increased our registration caps to help accommodate the Summer Stars version of the summer from the school district, which had to end because of that multi-year grant that ran out for them.

So we upped our numbers and we helped the common aid in that sets.

Transportation registration has doubled from 2025.

Waters full.

Jefferson's 80% full.

And you know, we we we're proud to have taken on that challenge and that push and hearing from the community last summer, and we're gonna have double the transportation numbers this year, so um we only look uh for that to grow.

Um, and amongst the campers that are registered, 50% have submitted requests for financial aid and assistance.

So whether it's you know, the constant communication with our staff uh with the parents, or whether it's campership fund or other options, um, as our uh head of recreation, our bureau had Nina Gainer always likes to remind me no one ever gets turned away and you know told that they can't participate in camp.

Youth Bureau, you all know how big uh summer youth employment is and how popular it is.

904 uh have interviewed.

We're looking to hire 500.

Uh also keep this in mind though.

So whether it's the learn and earns mentors in blue.

We also employ another 178 youngsters in the city, whether you're talking about park attendance, booth attendance, lifeguards, summer day camp counselors, uh beach attendants, pool attendants, uh, summer camp counselors at all of our camps.

So we employ another 100 uh maintenance young adults and um uh part-time maintenance hourlies uh under parks maintenance.

So we employ another 178 by that.

So please keep in mind that this is not necessarily 500 employed, 404 knows and turndowns.

That's not how it works.

We have several um youngsters that have been with us for three or four years.

Uh they started with us with summer youth employment when they were 14, 15 years old.

Now they're 18, 19, 20 years old, so they would get possibly pivoted to like our summer day camp counselors and off of this program.

There's some of the youngsters that get older.

Um, you know, they've been with us for five years and they may be 20 years old, and we're trying to create and try to really make this focus around late middle school and high school and try to help them in other ways.

So this is not necessarily and and lots of kids like to put multiple pans in the fire, right?

And they have applications in at other places.

So this is always fluid.

Elite steppers, mommy and me programming continues to grow in a big time way at downtown rec.

Girl talk, youth bureau is doing great with their uh initiatives and programming as well.

The Doyle Center.

This time last year in 2025, we had 14 new complete registrations.

We have 34 this year.

We currently have 208 active memberships, and you see it.

It's not just about membership renewals or meals or transportation, case management is huge.

2,527.

That's every conversation, every phone call, every email, every assistance, every interaction.

Um we've uh you know, we've really made it an effort to increase programming and recreation down there as well.

So whether it's education or new classes, um, and and guest speakers and and really keeping the seniors engaged on a daily basis and not making this to where they feel like they're going through the motions.

So a hearing loss presentation.

Um they love uh we police assisted us with an active shooter presentation.

Uh we have health care coming in, and then thank you to the ARPA funds for the brand new van that we've been rolling out so far here in 2026 as well.

Senior engagement.

Uh we've gotten a ton of feedback, and we've been appreciative to be a part of the mayor's road show.

We've also we've often been the open and act on her concert tour.

Um Lauren Send's a lot better than me.

And we uh we we've been getting a lot of good feedback.

Some of uh some of it's small stuff that's been you know implemented immediately, some of it's more bigger picture stuff that will take a few years.

But you know, the the biggest thing is that we're engaging right now, and internally, more to come on this, but internally from staff-wise and some restructuring, we're taking senior engagement and some satellite senior recreation and engagement to the next level.

We're getting we're gonna get creative on the north end, we're gonna get creative on the Lincoln Carter, and we already have ideas flowing after this engagement uh that hopefully you see soon for the next report and update uh on some senior uh activations, programming, and special events outside of the Doyle Center.

Two new playgrounds coming soon.

So Maplewood Park, uh, which was a long-standing capital project.

Uh, we're looking to have that ribbon cutting ceremony knock on wood at some point in June.

And Dinofrio Park, we're looking to hopefully break ground uh in June.

As we know, that was a private charitable donation.

So between these two new playgrounds and the three playgrounds that we did with ARPA, that will be five brand new playgrounds within the last 36 months.

So that is big time compared to what uh was rolling.

New marina building and parking deck nearing completion.

Obviously, near completion doesn't mean next weekend, it means later this calendar year, but really a huge credit to engineering, public works, and our harbormaster for still being able to navigate and keep over 200 uh boaters from our local community here.

Happy to also be uh the linkage to City Hall to the small businesses, the restaurant, the marina boating uh community, and those other businesses that are down there that are employing uh Shellyans as well.

So, this is obviously a work in progress, literally and figuratively.

Uh, out in the field, uh, we've been trying to tackle um some low hanging fruit and then some long standing issues uh that we've been able to get creative with funding.

So the Ward Acres Bridge, obviously, which was part of the trails grant, is finally this historic bridge gonna get back to public safety because as we know, the trails have gotten so much more popular since COVID at Ward Acres.

Additional fencing at Seacord Park because the kids like playing with the balls in there, and there's a homeowner and a residential home uh that we'd like to protect a little bit better.

Cameron Dock, this water fountain, really, really, really needed to get um uh replaced.

So some of these things are little look like little small projects, but get a little more costly than you would think.

New fencing in Flowers City, uh Flowers Field 3 for public safety reasons.

Dinofrio Pavilion, thanks to CDB.

This was another one that we've been trying to work on for a while.

The next time you get down the Dinofrio this summer, you're gonna be impressed.

We created more green space at Sycamore Park because we have that brand new playground in the back, but we kind of felt like we had an old rusty backstop baseball ball field that really hasn't needed to be used anymore.

So we tried to open up some green space there for some kids to maybe kick around a soccer ball or have some fun.

Um the solar panels at Wilmot Woods, um, it was a long-standing ARPA project that obviously there were a lot of you know hiccups with that electricity-wise that we've been working on.

Uh Oakwood Pavilion Deck at Five Islands.

This has been uh this has been a thorn in our side, but obviously, thanks to you at last month's RLM and that money got moved with legislation with this change order.

We're looking to resume here and have this fully safe and activated for the warmer months.

And giving back, we really couldn't do what we uh could do if it wasn't for the partnerships of our nonprofits.

So, whether it's boots on the ground and our dedicated volunteers at Lincoln Park, Ward Acres Community, Glenwood Lake, LL Bean with that program, Hudson Park Children's Greenhouse, or the land longstanding uh partnerships, whether it's Volunteer New York and Parks Cleanup Weekend, Nurse Show Basketball Association with the popular Lincoln Park Summer Basketball League.

Obviously, we know about Nurker with our concerts, the Butterflies from Jody uh Foundation, which has donated 15 uh AEDs citywide uh for public safety for our youngsters for Heart Health, or obviously when it comes to unique uh first-time private donations like Lou and Sandy Montaleone at Dinofrio Park Playground.

And with all this craziness with our day-to-day about to get super super busy, we've still been trying to work and we're appreciative of our other partners here uh at City Hall from the City Manager's Office, W City Manager, Engineering, Public Works, Development, Finance, everybody across the board.

This is uh truly a team effort.

Um, IT, everybody.

That buildings department, that you know, it's it's always a team effort, and it takes a village for the way a lot of these projects come together.

So, as you knew from the winter, it's gonna be historic year for improvements at Ward Acres, Ruby D park.

We we've been on site and we want to revitalize and we want to create some green space.

We we have a partner that's uh we think that could orchestrate, maybe creating some nice green space and getting that thing out of there.

And uh we've already looked at uh uh redoing the children's playground area, play structure climbing area, which is closest to the library uh building on Memorial.

So more to come on that.

Uh Pinebrook Tennis Center, we're gonna take pickleball uh to the next level, those stairs ADA are gonna be completed and Lincoln Pool.

This is a biggie.

We got that million dollar swims grant.

We're we're we got the ball moving now with the with the comfort station.

We got more grant monies that get us closer to two million.

So we're gonna we you know, listen, it's been over three decades and like the time is now, so in the next year or two, we're really excited about uh the progress that we're making at Lincoln Pool.

Planning ahead.

Um you know, with the basketball courts getting busier at Pinebrook Tennis Center.

Uh uh, I mean at Pinebrook Park uh through the pandemic.

We really think that some protective fencing is needed there of the way uh young people, the way those cars are whipping around the corner.

Um so we're tackling that one.

Huguenot park causeway.

Uh we got lighting off of East Chester Road in conjunction with buildings and the school district.

Now we really just got to start tackling some of this pathway uh because we know this is a partnership uh in unison with between us and the high school, Sharkey Park.

Um we've been on site, we think we have a good volunteer project going to get these bacce courts um going for the time being.

And we also want to look at the horseshoe pits as well in the Hudson Park Banchell, just so you know as a heads up down the line is something that's gonna have to be addressed, and it's probably gonna be the next significant capital project, but we're working on some immediate repairs so there's no glitches in the summer program and season.

So we hope you enjoy your summer.

We hope you uh can attend uh some of our fun stuff, and you know, as you know, on uh social media uh we're known as uh new row parks, but in City Hall we are called the fund department.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you so much, Commissioner.

Um did you pick that picture or did he pick it for you?

I yeah, he picked everything.

Yeah, you know, I like to play.

The goat pack.

I usually like to have a you know the skies on, but that's right.

Questions or comments from my colleagues on um Councilman Tarantino on the Hudson Park Ban Show.

You said we don't have the money to do adequate, you know, no, we do serious repairs.

No, we do.

We do we we're we're funded well at Hudson Park.

Just to repair it.

We don't want to, we don't want to complete it.

We don't want to completely hamper the NURCA summer concert series.

Um, because we look at we look at what's ahead with Hudson Park between the Wednesday and the Friday nights, how popular it is, and then we look at um the glow in the dark adult party, and then we look at views and brews in the fall.

We're trying to do some really quick immediate patch repairs.

Um it's been a couple of little falling pieces as we know the haunted mansion for um Millie and the children's greenhouse is a huge attraction in No Roy Shell.

We're trying to do just some immediate patchwork, get us to Halloween, and then we really want to tackle uh probably a six-figure number of of really taking care of this thing for the next several years.

We already have the money, in other words, fix the bathrooms also.

Yes, yeah, we're so it's a full-scale upgrade of the property.

Yeah, okay.

Because you know, that's been a particular item in Hudson Park, and you know, I'm very sensitive to this because we removed four million dollar uh bonding that we had in Hudson Park.

We we took it out uh we have to go.

I want to make just make sure that we have the funding in place so that and we have the timeline in place because a lot of that work that you have to do on that building cannot be done in the future.

For sure.

We we have over a million dollars at Hudson Park because we have the long-standing uh money you're referring to that we didn't move all of it.

We have the 500,000 CFA grant.

Um yeah, so we're we're we're and we have some other waterfront money available from the um watermark point project.

I believe we still have it used, but just want to make sure that we can you know, going into next spring, next summer, we have sufficient time to upgrade that because I know one of the issues has been about bathrooms, and they've been using the bathrooms at the um uh the the greenhouse and on the other property where the wild club museum was, and you know, it's quite a long walk for people, uh especially if they're disabled to get to these bathrooms.

So I I just think that should be a priority to have for the yeah, we're confident and and a and a big a big thing with that too was the half a million of ARPA that we that that we're able to get for the playground, so we didn't have to go into any of those monies, but we feel good about Hudson.

I feel good about Hudson Park the next year.

Yeah, have you found any more private donors to uh we're searching?

Um I've tried some robo calls, but no one's called me back for half a million dollar trucks.

Okay, thank you.

Are there questions or comments?

My colleagues, uh I thought he saw Peterson.

Sorry, Peter.

Uh thank you, first of all, for uh this variety of uh recognition opportunities in here in the Cell.

I just think it's great, particularly the developmental focus associated with the young children also up for people growing older.

Uh the question that I that I have, and it's more of a of an ask, uh, has to do with the long-standing um basketball tournament that occurs at the at the park.

You know, that's a really great activity really.

Um I was wondering whether or not Nika's client some ways to support it in a in a little different way, right?

Meaning uh apparently for some of the awards and some of the other stuff that they have.

I'm not I'm not sure if we have any financial skin in the games for that particular tournament.

And it's a really strong long-standing tournament.

So I'm wondering if you can take a look at that somehow to help Mr.

Oliver with some of them with some of those expenses around that.

Yeah, so I mean, full disclosure, we help out in a small way.

Um when Sean Oliver and the NRBA runs their charity golf tournament um from a friends of Nurishell Parks uh standpoint.

Um we incur all the costs uh if any staff has to be there in terms of assistance with like electricity, um we clean everything during the day, he doesn't have to worry about that, and it's a work site.

It's a work site for the summer for summer youth employment.

So honestly, the only expense that they have is uh the referees, but we have brainstormed with him, you know, in the past about maybe you know, collaborating or looking, you know, helping uh my like some more sponsors to maybe make the trophy presentation or the uniforms a little bit better.

But um, yeah, sure, you know, Sean does a great job getting his jersey sponsored, but yeah, we we are definitely not um hitting him with the bill or getting revenue from this.

So we'll keep those conversations going for sure.

Yeah, just want to be able to kind of that's like you know, now in mix, you know, uh Origin Blue Skies, this is a big thing, you know.

So we want to we want to update the capacity for the colour.

Alan Houston was in the park last summer one.

That's what I mean.

So maybe we can figure out a way how to make but this is a really uh citywide effort with teams coming from everywhere, even outside of the city.

So you know, right now he's privately or trying to figure out ways how to meet his expenses and upgrade the classic for that citywide.

It's a woman's uh tournament too, right?

It was an all-man.

He's been trying to get um teams, yeah, pretty soon.

So if we can, you know, upgrade if we can support him in some way, yeah.

Uh way for the two outcome.

Welcome.

Um Ashley.

I heard something about it.

Oh, first of all, thank you for your work because this is extensive.

The focus on our youth, uh, particularly employment, you know, that that's literally the future of New York.

So thank you for taking that in hand.

Um I heard potential partner for Ruby D.

I was so excited, but I don't I almost skipped the prologue.

Yes, I don't want to I don't want to say anything too early too early yet, but it's a uh it's a local, it's a local business, it's probably more of a company than it is a business.

And while it's not while it's not the the cutting of a check like the Dino Friel playground, it could be the I could be coming back to you all at this table to accept the gift in kind.

In kind.

So just more to come on that, but I I I think it it would really be great for Library Green and Ruby D park some more to come on that.

Excellent.

Um has uh I want to understand a little bit about how the the each position is funded through youth employment.

So is that's 100% us, or are there already other stakeholders like the county, the state outside funding, there are various grants.

We have grants and there's CD.

I mean, I could get specifics for you.

I just I can't think of every single one of them we had but C D B G also.

Kelly Johnson unfortunately had to be excused uh for this today, but um I would say it's mostly um you know city funded, but there is a there is a good amount, significant amount of of other ground correct, whether it's 10 of C D B G.

Um we we package it together.

Um so we could definitely get that breakdown for you.

So just to could we also consider looking at speaking to our county and state representatives to see if this is something that might well, particularly for the county, something that might through the lens of business improvement be something that we can you know get some funding for a budget line item on or something like that.

We'll exclude and uh some programs don't foot the full bill for the cost of an employee.

So could we consider if there are neuroshelf businesses or organizations that need youth employment or employment in general, but youth employment in this discussion, if we could subsidize the cost of employees to some extent, and maybe the businesses are covering some end of it as well.

I'm just trying to mix up our you know funding mix, which I think Todd and our finance commissioner will appreciate.

Yeah, no, just a consideration.

I'd like to shorter more of that as we move forward.

That's it.

That's interesting.

Um want to echo the gratitude.

I mean, this is a huge back of a huge amount of uh programming and uh also want to acknowledge that I mean you guys are in here Monday through Friday, and so much of this is on the weekends, and I know you're present at just about everything.

So thank you for your real commitment there.

Um and there are even things that I'm thinking of that are not in here, uh like the recent parks weekend, cleanup weekend um huge citywide effort.

I had 72 more slides, but the same manager that'll let me know what it is.

We appreciate it.

Um that event uh I'm just thinking about how many people were engaged across the city um in making their parks better, and it was just a really yeah rewarding event.

Um also wanted to just say thank you for the Will Motwood Pond.

I I know some uh residents have been you know upset with seeing the solar panel where it is, but I know we're working to get some uh hedging and you know other plans to to make that look a little bit more mech, but the the the um uh fountain itself is really beautiful.

Yeah, um and uh uh one one park that was not in here was Roosevelt Park, which is one of my favorite parks in the city.

Um when I last visited like a week or two, actually the day of the uh parks cleanup.

I I spontaneously heard from three different people who were in the park just how much they want that park.

Um and and that was it, and you don't often just get you know praise.

Um so I just want to say thank you for that.

I will will just note that I saw like the stairs walking up from one direction are kind of crumbling a little bit.

So that's probably the the next thing that has to take place there.

But um no Roosevelt is is uh is a hidden gem that is yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate that one can add my thanks as well, and know that this is gonna be a very busy year, so looking forward to the improvements ahead.

Thank you.

Um I'm sorry.

Yeah, sorry, let's consume this.

I I want to also thank you very much, even though I don't see here feedback, but I really hope that we could where we can enhance it a little bit more.

Yeah, we could get we could get on site.

I mean, listen, we're all ears.

I thank you so much.

I know you do so much in the I I love one of the programs that you have.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I just had one more question.

Um so Ruby D park improvements, what what's our timetable?

What are we looking at and how much have we been in coordination with the library management?

We will that will probably I probably will have a better update for you on that mid-year to see how these next couple of walkthrough meetings go, probably be by like mid-year, mid-July.

I mean July 1.

Um, but the next big on-site there is end of next week.

But um we will definitely keep we'll we'll make it a standard.

Lord and I have talked offline, like we're not gonna make any moves there without keeping the library in the loop.

I think the library's gonna like what we bring to them and and and show uh before we're going because we we communicate with them as well for sure.

I'd be grateful to join you on those walkthroughs.

Yeah, yeah.

And Martha, we think Phoenix beautiful right now.

We're all ears for more beautification with you.

I just wanted to add my echo thanks to all of the programming.

Um if it was five parks in 36 months.

Did you say playgrounds?

By playgrounds, rather.

That's like fairly impressive kind of metric to think about.

Like I, you know, I um so I give just a ton of credit, and and I think um Kelfman Strunts at it wonderfully.

You guys are here Monday through Friday, and to his point.

A lot of the offices are here well after 4 30, let's be clear.

Um, but appreciate um just the presence and um in that vein, just really appreciate you guys um doing the transportation.

I know it's a lot of work.

Um, but I guess the need is demonstrating in this year that it doubled, you know, that's a testament to you guys too from last year, though, right?

You sign up when you hear it was a really good option and a helpful option for families.

So I like I'm confident you guys are really um helping to provide kids with uh robust summer enrichment, right?

In a time that summer it's just the summer slump is real, and you every little bit that you guys do around transportation makes it easier for like working parents or single parent household to get their kids to quality care.

And so I just want to thank you guys for for championing that because that's another slight of things to do.

And then um, I've appreciated our um your our our uh our dance, our show.

What did I say opening act, our partnership at the senior buildings?

Um I think we probably could say each other's pieces uh separately.

Um and but again to to Councilman Stern's point, you're leaving your office to come to a place that's been identified and spending time, and I see you guys listening and talking.

Um, and you know, as I say when we're at the senior buildings with rising food cost and fixed incomes, you know, I really think we're also again ensuring quality of life for many of our seniors for whom they can't you know pick up a second job or get over time.

Um, and one of the social workers at one of the buildings, maybe 29 Crest, you know, said um like providing social socialization, you know, building community, which is so important, and you guys make it so easy.

So um I'm happy to see the uptake in numbers, but I think that's a testament to them seeing leadership in their space, and you guys are are like walking the almost to the door.

So um grateful.

Thank you, Mayor.

And and I just want to say, because it's not a slide in here, but I just want to thank all of you, honestly.

Um you never say no, no one would come to you, and you approved everything that we presented to you in November at the end of last year.

And you know, I mean, I know Lauren and I are getting the praise right now, but from our bureau heads down to our full-time staff down to our part-time hourlies, um, our entire department.

I'm just so lucky to have uh the staff that we have there dedicated, they love it.

Um days were on group chats texting new ideas at 11 o'clock at night.

They just live and breathe it, but wouldn't be able to do it without the support of uh of you guys behind our bureaus and our departments.

So I just I'm grateful to the staff.

Thank you.

And the last thing was to you know, the youth bureau, that week that they do the interviews, that might be the nicest time to be in City Hall to see just the young people.

I mean, maybe not for some people in Sorghima.

Yes, for sure, and maybe not maybe not for the staff who are like going through the list and making sure in the nervous teams, but like I think as us like seeing our future quite literally there, learning how to do an interview, shake hands, answer questions, like you see the dedication, um, and you know that those are all things that have to be practiced to to kind of refine, and we're launching them you know, better prepared.

So I think I think I may have seen Shayla's like skipping the first day I saw the kids.

I was like singing one of those Christmas songs because it really is the most wonderful time of the year for me personally.

But again, your team like knocks it out.

They have their laptops, they have their cell sheets, and they are like they're number one out of all these heroes in Westchester County, which is something to be proud about for them.

So yeah, they've been a great job.

So thank you and to the team extensively.

And I see Councilman Stern has his hand up here.

Just on that note, I mean, 900 applicants, 500.

I mean, I'm I'm just offering.

I would love to help interview three months of that.

I mean, Kelly would look like that.

I see Diana nodding.

We're gonna pass an email nodding.

And you know, I wonder if more people might be willing to help too.

We seem like we could push that.

Yeah, I push that out.

I think a lot of us would do that.

Yep, yeah, Diana, Sheila.

Interview with the council.

Excellent.

All right, I don't see any other hands so we would be here.

But you guys and blue skies, maybe it's new era.

Is that why you're wearing orange?

I'm a host.

I didn't know what he was gonna say.

I see it, I see it.

All right, our next presentation is the New Michelle local is about the New Rochelle local action, also local safety action planning.

Sorry, the brain was moving.

Um Commissioner Salgado and some of our guests, welcome to this is Elsa.

Okay, copies.

Great.

Thank you.

Um good evening, everyone.

So the local safety action plan, it fulfills a commitment made by this council back in January to establish a data-driven framework.

Um for eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040.

Well, we we we declared that goal back in January, and this builds upon and supports our ongoing complete streets efforts.

It basically is grounded in a kind of rigorous study of the five years of traffic and crash data throughout the city, as well as a pretty extensive community engagement outreach effort that we engage with the community, as well as we convened a local safety action committee to identify the most critical needs that will frame and help us to sort of uh direct the resources strategically.

So, anyway, but what the real reason for this and the whole sort of uh expedited time frame here is that we have a deadline of May 26th to submit our SS4A grant application to uh and and the project that we've identified, and you'll see it later in the app in the agenda this evening is the North Avenue Corridor.

So we're basically proposing to look at the entire north-south length of the North Avenue corridor and identify areas along there and uh on the roads that are sort of um you know part of that system uh for uh a large grant.

And uh this this uh framework that we've engaged on will help us to frame those conversations and it also is a prerequisite to any applications that we would submit.

So the deadline for that application is May 26th.

We needed to adopt this before then, and so that's why uh this evening we're asking for you all to consider the adoption of this plan to meet those those deadlines.

We're joined today by Jesse Minz Roth from Stantec, who you've seen before.

Sarah Spicer from the Department of Development, she's the senior resiliency development manager, and Seth Kay, of course, last but not least, the deputy commissioner for planning and sustainability.

So with that, I will pass the mic, as it were, to Jesse to take us through the Yell SAT presentation.

Whoops.

That would be okay.

Um so hi everyone, my name is Jesse Mansroth again, and um I'll be taking us through the presentation.

Um as uh Adam mentioned, I was here last to present the introduction to this in January when we when the city committed to uh zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040.

Um I'll go through in this presentation why to create a local safety action plan, what SS4A compliance is, um, the major components of the plan, which are listed here, um, and also the North Avenue grant application scope, and then the continuing communications and next steps.

So the local safety action plan um will serve as a roadmap for achieving uh safer streets in New Rochelle.

It combines data analysis, public engagement, and uh bringing in existing plans and policies.

It prior has a prioritization of uh strategies and projects uh that aim to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injury crashes, and it brings together the prior work on complete streets policy and corridor redesigns.

Um, and it brings these together into a high injury network.

And um a slight apology for all of the new acronyms that this brings into your life.

Um but um the high injury network or the HIN is a fairly standard one in this area, um, and so it's a good one to know about.

Um Safe Streets for All is a uh US DOT federal program that was created in 2022 under the infrastructure investment and jobs act, um, and it was authorized with five billion dollars, which is you know basically a lot of money, so it's quite attractive to be thinking about this product money.

Um, the program requires applicant uh municipalities to have an SS4A compliance safety action plan.

So when the city applies, they have to fill out a checklist saying that this plan complies with all of these things in the checklist in order to apply for the implementation funds, which can be up to 25 million dollars.

Um, and New Rochelle was awarded in December 2025 a 400,000 demonstration grant.

That's the part of the grant program that doesn't require having this um completed SS4A compliant plan.

Um, and that is great, and I think that's um really great to recognize to just compliment the city for that win, uh, and that is for the Vanguard District tactical urbanism feasibility study um at six intersections around North Avenue and Place.

Um but now, as you'll hear later in these slides, the city is preparing an implementation grant application, which uh needs to have this uh LSAP completed and adopted before the May 26 deadline.

Um the reason that this is such a big focus this particular date is because it's the last known opportunity to apply under the current uh authorization by Congress.

So the first major part of the LSAP is the safety analysis.

As Adam mentioned, it's data driven.

There are three parts of the safety analysis.

The first part looks at the five most recent years of injury crash data from New York State's clear database and refers to this as the trend section, and it uses the data on the map on the right where you can see an X shows a fatal injury crash, and a red dot shows a serious injury crash.

And these are the two most sort of highest grade of severity of crashes, and these two are really the focus of the plan.

A second area, which I'll get to talking about more in a moment, is the risks layer, and this looks at variables that are most closely located to those X's and red dots shown on the map on the right, and thinks of those as a predictive layer because those are the types of locations where crashes, these higher injury crashes happen.

So we can look at places where they have not yet happened but could happen because they exhibit similar physical characteristics.

And then a third area is community input.

And so these are all layered in the next section.

So looking at the uh fatal and serious injury crash data, the X's and the red dots on the previous map, in the most recent full five-year period of data, which is 2020 to 2024.

Um, I should just mention on the side, we do know about the traffic fatalities in 2025 in this study.

Um but with the time of the data poll, these are the most full, these data years are the full years.

Um so in this five-year data period, the fatal and serious injury crash numbers have been going up.

Um of the most notable things to say is that this data range includes the pandemic years, and so this type of data scenario is not uncommon.

Um by doing this type of study, the city can become aware of this data trend and take the strategies and first the awareness and then adopt strategies to begin to have this trend line go down.

Um so in this data period, there's eight fatal injury crashes that results that resulted in nine traffic fatalities and a hundred and thirst serious injury crashes that in total are the 144 data points in the graph.

Um the first of those new acronyms, the high injury network.

Um, this is the map of streets on which uh most of them cluster.

So 92% of the fatal and serious injury crashes shown on the last slide are located on 15% of New Rochelle's roads.

And so this becomes the focus area for future investment and is one of the main sort of concepts in SS4A and Vision Zero plans.

Further though, we then layer that that's the yellow map on the top here, uh, with that predictive map, the places that exhibit similar physical characteristics to those places, um, and also community input.

And these maps have different sort of mile lengths.

The uh that 15% of roadway that I mentioned before, that represents 26 roadway miles.

Uh, the similar characteristics that are predictive in the future, that's 81 roadway miles, um, and the community-based network is 41 roadway miles, and these are combined uh into what we call the prioritized investment network, which is 24.5 miles.

This is a subset of the high injury network that brings all of these pieces together and to some extent focuses the 26 miles a little bit more, and uh is sort of in a sense more of a focus than the high injury network.

Uh another major area of the plan is engagement.

So we created a bunch of different ways for people in New Rochelle to engage with this plan.

Uh, there was the project website, and it had an online survey, it had an interactive map.

So among those areas where there were 300 survey responses, and there were 955 comments that people submitted.

Um we also had a public workshop here at City Hall, which was on March 25.

Um, there were materials created in English and Spanish, which could be taken to any other event that was happening, or just any community organization to tell to talk more about this project.

And there's also stakeholder conversations which we held with different areas of city government and also city government partners in order to understand how safety is currently operationalized within the city context.

And so these are some of the major themes that we've heard from community feedback.

Speeding and driver behavior are primary contributors to concerns.

There's the crossing conditions and intersection design.

We have sort of diagrams on the right, but we also have little icons on the left, and those little icons on the left are gonna reappear again on another slide.

So people, their safety challenges concentrated along key corridors and intersections and in downtown areas, and people prioritize implementing improvements such as safer crossings and speed management and more enforcement and also safety education.

One of the major frameworks for thinking about safer streets under the Safe Streets for All program is called the Safe System Approach.

And this is also part of the LSAP plan recommendations.

If you were to think about going from all potential traffic fatalities and injuries to the zero traffic fatalities and injuries, that is the goal of the plan.

One of the big ideas here is redundancy and pursuing strategies that fall under all five of these pillars which make up this framework.

And the five pillars are safer speeds, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer people, and post-crash care.

And just to sort of understand that it's you know, we we want people to be traveling at the posted speed limit.

We want the roads to be designed safely, we want people's vehicles that they're in to be safer.

We want safer people is a reference to usually education and safety messaging, and post-crash care is to both investigate the site at which crashes happen, but then also think about the interface with public health and first responders and hospitals and trauma centers and ambulances, so things that are a part of the whole system of the experience of being in a crash or being the family member of someone who's affected by a crash.

So then recommendations.

These are those icons I mentioned before from the previous slide, and linking those to where these recommendations are.

There's 21 recommendations here, and I won't read all of them, but just to give a sort of a flavor of the range of them.

Um there's design under leadership and coordination where we began in January with uh the city committing to zero traffic fatalities by 2040.

Um, there is to designate a street safety champion inside government, uh, potentially usually.

Um developing citywide speed management plan is something that can have many different phases and areas, just to give examples.

Um, this could be specific neighborhoods, it could be specific arterials, um, it could be a whole different speed limit in the city, as New York City did a few years ago.

Um, under enforcement, um, we know that legislators are working now to make it possible for there to be speed uh cameras in school zones, and that's one of the major recommendations.

Resuming and expanding the red light camera program that's existed in the past and is currently being looked at for expansion.

Um increasing police department patrol staffing.

There's many things that the police department could do that are targeted, or even just a greater analysis of data within the police department linked to this analysis of data that's in this report.

Um roadway design.

One of the really interesting things that's being done in uh other cities that could be done here is to formalize safety as a factor in prioritizing having because the cities already are repaving, um, and so that's uh sort of additional metric that can be used about location.

Um expanding quick build programs.

Uh, so the vanguard uh SS4A demonstration project is an example of a quick build program, and programs like that can be a bigger area of work, and they don't need to be necessarily focused in one location, they can be sort of bits and pieces around the city.

And so that is an area that a lot of cities are building up now in this moment of understanding safe streets for Almore.

And also there's the proactive network, which is those locations that are exhibit similar characteristics to locations where fatal and severe and serious injury crashes that have happened in the past.

So those areas can be thought about more and can have sort of more inexpensive things implemented at them.

In education and community and community engagement section, there is the safe rights to school program that has many different interpretations around the country, but generally speaking is making it safer in the areas around schools, whether by redesigning and adding more crosswalks, or having you know slower speed limits around them, or just thinking about the ways that kids walk to school in around schools that have kids that walk to school.

So it sort of depends on the area of town that schools are in, but there's a lot of options there.

Leveraging city assets for expanded safety messaging.

That's thinking about how, for example, the city has information kiosks on main streets around town, or is the owner of the transit center, and those are places that you could basically distribute safety messages of different sorts.

Two-wheel education campaigns, two-wheel is a kind of inclusive term to talk about emerging mobility because one of the growing areas in cities is well, in the past you would have thought about bike and ped, but now it's challenging to think about how you categorize a crash that involves, for example, a shared mobility device.

And so, and when you think about the people who ride them, you know, would they have had the same sort of safety thinking as someone riding a traditional bicycle?

And so there's a lot of things that you can do under recommendation 17 that are thinking about ways to promote street safety for all different types of road users, including you know new types of mobility and future types of mobility.

Um then uh data and transparency.

This is the awareness of this whole area, and the way that this passing this action plan is really the beginning of the journey.

Um, so you can it's recommended that the city publish annual crash statistics so you can understand where we're going and if the strategies that are being adopted are working.

Um another place in there is to perform before and after studies, both of projects that have already been built and or proposed to see how they're performing.

So that's some of the recommendations that are in here.

Finally, uh getting to the North Avenue Corridor Safety Draft Grant application scope.

So the map on the right is of the high injury network in yellow and the proposed locations for this grant project in purple.

And you can see that it includes locations all throughout uh New Rochelle and focuses on the north-south spine of North Avenue, connecting to Main Street, Huguenot Street, Quaker Ridge Road, Beachmont Drive, and Webster Avenue.

Um it's including uh planning and design, it's programmatic and has many construction ready elements.

The uh the overall scope is uh including signal modernization at 29 locations, geometric safety improvements, uh focused downtown high injury network interventions, systemic, that's the predictive network, uh, signal and pedestrian upgrades, and also closing uh sidewalk gaps on five high injury network segments.

Um it also includes the safe route to school emphasis, uh prioritized crossing and education and engagement, and all of this complements the ongoing complete streets work.

Um and so this project is both on the high injury network and the prioritized investment network.

And so finally, uh the continuing engagement and next steps towards zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040 is first the council adoption of this plan in order that the city can apply for the grant scope that I just described by the deadline on May 26th, which is the day after Memorial Day, and we'll have and the city will have uh ongoing communications to uh leverage the local safety action plan in support of street safety projects, complete street projects, and the Vanguard District SS4A project.

And just uh reiterating that this is the beginning of a multi-year effort.

Uh the plan is to update the local safety action plan every five years and continue working with the safety action committee, which itself is a requirement of the SS for A plan, but it really creates champions and expands awareness around this issue in the city.

And finally, this image is a public-facing dashboard, uh, which will be released as part of this plan and updated in the future.

Um, and so I believe that's it.

Thank you so much.

Uh questions or comments from my colleagues on item number two.

Uh I think we need the first time conflict.

Um I I love how comprehensive this is and um appreciate the workshop.

I was fortunate to join um, I guess in the big picture, this is a huge number of recommendations.

In your experience, what distinguishes municipalities that are successful in actually acting on these wonderful plans versus both who aren't well, I mean, if you're asking me personally, I was a Vision Zero manager before becoming a consultant, so um, I was that sort of champion that was the number one recommendation.

Um, and so I think creating a person like that who can sort of coordinate all of this is probably in my mind one of the distinguishing characteristics because um the way that you you know look at all of these possible ways to um engage the future um does sort of come back to making sure that this is the beginning of a multi-year um set of recommendations that you really act on.

Um so I think that's probably an important thing to mention at this at this juncture because you know this plan, I think it's it's I think you know whatever it's I think it's a good plan, but you know, I think that what makes what makes a good plan a good plan is what that you act on.

Yeah.

Um I heard some crazy statistics that like the difference in fatality rates between driving between accident at 25 miles an hour and 30 miles an hour like increases 70 percent.

And you know, speed, especially since becoming a parent, is something like I'm just really upset over constantly with how people drive and how fast they drive, and yet I feel like in so many of our residential neighborhoods, the speed limit is 30 miles an hour.

Um, so I I did see you know a recommendation around creating a speed plan specifically.

Um to me that seems like one of the top things to emphasize.

Is that fair to say?

Or you know, is there a way to prioritize?

You know, I hear your point about the speed champion champion, you know, for this plan being a top priority, but then beyond that, like it seems so important to me like to just emphasize speed, but not just so I think you you are on like a good point.

Speed is one of the biggest issues.

Um I would say that the city's appetite for different ideas that could be part of the speed management plan is something that you will would be to work together on.

Like it's sort of um, it's very far reaching to say that the city should change its standard speed limit.

Like obviously, when New York City did that, it was a really big deal, but it wasn't their first step.

Um they began with uh sort of neighborhood specific uh zones, which were called slow zones, um, and then they created arterial slow zones, um, and arterial slow zones were on main streets like North Avenue, for example.

Um New York City is a little different structurally.

There are sort of more tools for controlling the speeds that vehicles travel at to be slightly more descriptive.

Uh, New York City has traffic signals very regularly on most of its avenues, and traffic signals can be timed in a progression.

Um, and I know that there's many areas of New Rochelle where that's not the case.

So changing the speed limit on arterials may be more involved here.

Um but it is nonetheless, it could be a second phase, like you could have a first phase in some neighborhoods that opt in.

That's what they did.

You could uh have another phase on arterials that make sense.

Um that's also what they did.

Um, and then you know, that idea of like a citywide speed limit, that was a third phase.

Um so I think looking at that as a you know, a multi-year strategy wherever it makes sense, um is probably the way to think about it.

It's really helpful.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry, Ashley and Lopez.

Go ahead.

Um thank you for your work in you know, as one of the members of your committee to see how you guys navigate data is very impressive, and we're grateful for this work because it could literally mean saving a life.

So you're doing life-saving work.

Um I'm I'm comparing the map in the safety analysis, particularly the you know, the red dots kind of tell the story, but it's not three-dimensional, so we can't really tell if they're layered on top of each other.

You do have a heat map for sparse versus dense injury crash density, which tells where the accumulation is.

Um looking at the map that's that's comparing the grant project locations to what you're identifying as sparse versus dense and looking at where fatalities are.

And uh I'm seeing that the the grant project locations tend all the way up North Avenue and all the way across Quake Ridge Road, which for capital projects like this would be gets expensive when you bring it over an area, but we have a high density network that's going from east to west up and down Huguenot Street down to exit 15.

So you know, I'm just thinking about priorities.

I'm thinking about you know, the bottom half of Nerd Shell often communicating that they don't feel well represented, and then actually seeing it on the map, you know, if we could tend east to west, I would feel like that would be more, you know, that would catch the high density area that you're identifying in your maps and and reflect what people are feeling on the ground.

Yeah, I can I can speak to that.

I think um, you know, one of the issues with Quaker Ridge Road is that there is a funding gap, you know, from the existing project uh that we have and so it is included on here also because there are bike lanes on Quaker Lidge Road in the proposed project that need to sort of plug into um you know of an improved intersection on North Avenue.

So I think it's identified um on here, but in terms of the level of expenditure, I don't think it's expected to have a great deal of funding spent on that um you know Quaker Ridge Road corridor.

Um that said, I I I do think that as we sort of dig into the scoping of the um the grant application, those issues that you're referring to based on the data that we have uh collected in this exercise, I think we'll end up kind of yielding projects to address the issues that you're talking about.

I mean, sort of an equitable distribution of the money that we that we apply for is going to be a primary uh consideration.

I don't think the expectation is to invest, you know, a majority of the money um in the north end of the city.

I think I think the data would would point to a different sort of allocation of the grant um just based on what I see here and based on you know looking at the you know the combination of the three layers I I think any comprehensive grant application and ultimate project for submission is going to be responsive to the data, which would point to a pretty extensive investment in the southern part of the city, looking at that east-west connection as you pointed.

Particularly from you know, this this extended extends into Councilwoman Lopez's district, but that center avenue to exit 15 area is hot here, you know.

Um you know I would duly advocate for Pellin Road, but it I you know like even my focus needs to shift to where the data is showing, which is really the Huguenot Street corridor to exit 15.

And then on your draft application scope map, you're don't forget the Huguenot Street corridor and the main street corridor both have CMAC funding already associated as part of the two-way conversion.

So there is going there's already a pretty extensive grant that's lined up.

We're sort of doing the legwork now to install and improve the signals, like the type of signals that Jesse mentioned that are going to be synchronized and able to have an impact on speed.

Um a lot of those elements plus this the tactical urbanism money that we have uh from this last SS4A application, plus some other money that we have for uh tactical urbanism improvements around the LeCount in the Vanguard district are all going to, I think, be brought to bear to achieve the outcomes you're talking about.

So I I think the main like the reason we chose North Avenue is it is sort of the last frontier.

We we have a plan for Pinebrook.

We have a plan for uh North Avenue.

Part of uh you know, creating these complete street networks is establishing these spines of of that, you know, that um you know multi-modes, different types of uh you know modes of transportation can be uh facilitated safely.

And North Avenue has a lot of um tricky parts to it.

You know, the the the widths change, the geometries change throughout the length of it.

It it it's so there are there's a a lot of pedestrian activity and it it it sort of lights up on the map quite a bit, and and that is kind of you know, given the amount of money that we're talking about, it really had to be a super extensive project.

And and then and and Pellham Road to your point, Huguenot, Maine, Quaker Ridge, all have uh pretty significant grants and projects that we've identified already.

So uh, you know, kind of looking at North Avenue as that that opportunity also goes through not that we would consider politics, but it goes through everyone's district pretty much every table.

So I think it's a it's a you know it's an equitable way to use the money.

Okay.

Uh well, I guess a part two to that question then in your identified focus area.

You're including ex it looks like the exit 16 mess.

Um, but it does seem to black out have we blacked out what's state versus what's ours as we wrap around the river, cedar, garden street area and where it intersects with exit 16.

I don't think there's any highway, I don't think there's any state-owned roads on the Angry Network or um prioritized investment network.

I feel like that was asked when I was here previously.

I just want to make sure that the you know we ask for their help as often as possible.

Okay, because that's I I just don't want to crash on my way to church in the morning.

Yeah, and I I understand I think a police car was hit by a car that refused to yield off of exit 16.

So, you know, there are stories.

Councilwoman Lopez.

Ah, yes, thank you for putting the safety uh planned this uh together.

It is very scary to see that uh we had in four years 144 fatal and seriously, you know, uh injury crashes.

And uh while the recommendations um many of them are really good, I would definitely think that enforcement is the one that is going to be the one that is gonna be better.

Why?

Because the people that are driving very fast, but you know, if we have like the red light camera program, if we have uh police, you know, uh in different staffing on different streets, and if we also publish yearly crash statistics, I think that that makes more of creates a bigger impact because while I think that leadership and coordination is great and and the uh and design the design also works as well as the education and community engagement, you know, people start getting tickets, and it's like okay, you know what is gonna hurt me more.

Like I see it within district one, like on Union Avenue, it's very scary.

I I'm surprised that the number is not even bigger because I mean people just drive so fast, and so uh or center avenue.

Uh it's very scary, Huguenett, all of those areas.

So I too was, you know, my colleague here said, you know, as as a grandmother, I mean it scares me to think that well, you're driving, you know, that there are so many irresponsible drivers from there.

Um so having worked with cities enforcement tends to be um an area where there isn't necessarily as much resources as we might imagine.

Um and uh the most impactful typically is roadway redesign.

Um and uh just in terms of book, but like the the city that I worked for before this was much larger than Urochell, but um the experience was that um enforcement was a smaller entity within the city than um than you would than sort of you know in the description you were giving.

Um so well to to say like there are a lot of enforcement um ideas here.

I wouldn't say I wouldn't do that all well.

And I think that one of the main ideas in in the plan is under the safe system approach of looking at redundant strategies of um trying to do them under all five of those pillars.

Um so so I think that you know it's actually been great to work with the police department here in New Rochelle.

In fact, they took us on a tour and we went all around town.

So I got to see um the city through their eyes, and that was really uh interesting and unusual.

So you know, I got to hear about the the streets, which people speed on more easily and where they do uh targeted enforcement um because they know that people speed there, um, but it doesn't, you know, that they don't have tons of staffing, so yeah.

Yeah.

Any questions or comments on this item?

Well, thank you so much.

Moving on to item number three.

Thank you, sir.

Um she's a parking study of the sound.

I mean, James said in the process.

Well, I reference table settings and just okay.

Okay, another presentation.

Um said Gleefully, that's it.

Um same well, like a half the challenge.

Yes.

So uh good evening, everyone.

Uh this evening we have uh James Cabelli and uh Jerry Giosa from uh MV5 and Level G associates respectively are here this evening to present the parking management strategic plan, which evaluates how parking functions in the city and identifies the strategies uh to improve operations to improve access and the overall user experience as the city uh continues to grow.

Uh the study really uh provides a data-driven assessment of we looked at parking supply, we looked at the enforcement, um the equipment, the policies, the everything kind of really comprehensively, as well as curve management.

Um and what we really learned, I think at the end of the day is that a lot of the parking frustrations that were experienced are not necessarily the result are purely a supply issue.

It's not about necessarily we don't have enough parking per se, but it's rather how we manage it, how it's deployed, how we communicate the policies, how we communicate pricing, even where the location of the parking is distributed throughout the downtown um and throughout the city, uh the off-street parking anyway, is all the subject and was all kind of like the subject of the analysis.

So uh we have uh as I said, James and Jerry here today um to kind of go over the you know the the overall uh plan.

There is a more dense report that um is going to be finalized, you know, uh and and circulated for you all this evening, as well as as part of this plan we've identified you know several categories of interventions, like short, medium, long-term uh interventions, and and based on the conversation today, we are prepared to move forward with uh the short-term interventions, you know, as soon as practical, like literally, depending on you know the the conversation around the table, and if there's a consensus, we can move forward on on several of those um at the next at the June meeting.

So with that, um, you know, I'll I'll hand the uh the presentation over to James who will run us through what they are, and then we can we can have a conversation after this about the timing of the subsequent interventions.

Thank you very much, Adam.

Um, and thank you.

Thanks to the mayor, it's nice to meet you in person, the city manager, uh, and to the council.

Thank you for having us.

Uh I was gonna say this afternoon, but we might have slipped into evening.

So uh good evening.

Yeah, the same transition.

I guess we have try to move very quickly then.

Um and uh so I'm gonna be doing a lot of the talking early on, but then I will be very uh glad to bring Jerry in as well, who's uh very much a is a parking expert and and has uh uh was the creator of a lot of our strategies here for this evening.

So our agenda?

Um we're gonna share the project background and methodology.

Um we're gonna go through an overview of parking in the city, uh detail what we learned in preparing this plan, and share strategies that are designed so the city can reach its parking goals and detail short-term and long-term steps for implementation.

Okay, all right.

Uh and again, thank you.

It is uh wonderful to meet all of you here in person.

Okay, so what's our project purpose?

Uh the parking management strategic plan analyzes parking, the efficacy of parking regulations, and development trends to inform strategies to solve parking related challenges and service of greater policy goals.

The goals are to make newer shell a safer, more sustainable, more comfortable, and more convenient place to live, work, and visit.

Okay.

So our study area, um, I'm sitting in a room full of newer shell experts, so I'll do this very briefly.

It's a highly urbanized downtown environment with suburban density outside the urban core, historic low-rise commercial buildings, institutional structures and mid-rise and high-rise residential and mixed-use development, and as we've all seen newer, transit-oriented development.

Okay?

So our methodology and what we did, um, we started with an existing conditions analysis, what's going on, what are the rules, what's built, what are the problems or challenges, data collection and surveys, and surveys mean parking surveys, so counting, a lot of counting.

Um, data-driven parking analysis using big data tools.

We have public outreach through two uh surveys, so traditional surveys, uh, and then we developed our strategies.

Okay.

So parking downtown.

Adam alluded to this being not necessarily a space, that there's not enough spaces, but it's where they are and what are we competing for.

So in your downtown, there are 14,806 total parking spaces.

I see that number in my sleep now.

Um, the largest portion of that is municipal off-street, right?

So we think the New Rock Garage, Prospect Street lot, um the transit center garage, and that's 33% of your parking spaces.

That's followed by the fastest growing segment, which is your private multifamily or mixed-use off-street spaces.

Then it's followed by other off-street.

So think about uh police stations, fire stations, places that have areas to park, but are not necessarily public but just parking to go elsewhere.

And then finally, your smallest portion is also your most competitive.

That's your on-street spaces.

There's 2,025 of those downtown, making up 14%.

Um but that's where a lot of the friction comes from because that's where what we tend to compete for.

Okay.

So in New Rochelle, just a very brief overview.

It's operated by uh parking at Newer Shell, is operated by the Department of Development and LAS, it's your contractor.

Enforcement also is done by the NRPD, their parking enforcement unit, and with the Department of Development.

And the price of parking in New Rochelle for all transients, so anything that has a meter, anything that's not a permit, is a dollar twenty-five an hour, which is um a little bit low for uh for generally for the area, and we'll we'll go into that.

Okay.

So I got to learn a lot of great things.

I'm an urban planner by trade, and so I got to learn about all of your wonderful plans.

And I know that in the previous presentation you went through a number of those as well.

So what's great for us is you have excuse me.

Um the way to make change, right, is through changing policies and regulations.

Right?

We change the rules, when things happen, we we see the change occur.

The city has a number of complementary plans and policies that can be modified or furthered to help reach parking goals.

You can modify parts of the DOZ regs to improve valley parking, for example.

Uh, we can tie parking goals with Green and R and complete streets goals.

If there are more options to travel, people can opt not to have to compete for parking, right?

You can do something different.

We can unite our goals with the EV Master Plan, or use innovative programs like the Link has templates to improve walkability, again, providing alternatives to parking.

Um, newer shell is public transit options that are growing, and the two-way conversion will make traveling within the city's busiest area easier and safer, and we have tools to build upon that to help direct folks to some of our underutilized facilities.

Um additionally, we learned from the public.

Uh, and typically when you ask about parking, people are never like glowing, right?

It's never like we love parking, it's great.

Uh so a lot of what we got is I find constructive criticism.

So the general public survey, um, we learned that infrastructure and safety improvements may be needed.

Parking costs for most residents are low.

Uh it is easiest to find parking on weekday afternoon, uh, excuse me, weekday mornings, but most difficult on weekdays, which I think tracks with a lot of our habits.

Street parking is the most challenging type to find, and parking is particularly in downtown, takes anywhere from five to 15 minutes to find a space.

But we also heard from our businesses.

Um, it's typically difficult to find parking downtown for employees, business owners, and customers, both on-street and in parking facilities.

There's room to improve information sharing from the city.

There's a near-even split between businesses that prefer more parking turnaround versus preference for customers that are able to park for longer periods.

I would think of that as retail versus restaurants, where do we want folks to stay longer or shorter?

Delivery vehicles are a point of frustration, and parking signage can be improved, and parking meters are cumbersome to use.

We also learned that the two largest facilities are very underutilized.

So we set up cameras outside the exits and entrances over a five-day period that included weekdays and weekends.

I should also say there was another subconsultant traffic data bank that did that.

They're not here today, but I just to give them their flowers for that.

And we recorded ins and outs, we counted before and after, and what we found is that in New Rock, peak utilization is 52.2%.

So at any given time, there's about 1,100 available spaces, even at peak time usage.

In the second largest facility, the transit center, you had about a peak utilization of 65%, so 600 of 920 spaces used.

So we have capacity.

So when folks are competing, especially downtown for street spaces, we do know that there's spaces elsewhere.

We learned about valet parking.

Valet parking is convenience that also has its challenges.

It takes up less space, so in a dense urban area, that's a positive.

However, when operated, it can create on-street queues, negative negating its positive impacts.

And this is especially true for ballet operations that use mechanical parking.

So we recommend changes to the ordinances to address these challenges.

Okay.

With revenue, parking revenue facilitates parking improvements.

The city's revenues have not recovered to pre-COVID-19 or 2019 levels.

Revenues are down for most parking types, including the two largest facilities, though they are trending upward in our study period of 2019 to 2024, it still has not recovered to COVID-19 or pre-COVID levels.

And the same is true for enforcement.

So enforcement follows a similar trajectory, the overall citations down from pre-COVID-19 levels, but trending upwards.

So we have recommendations for improving both revenue and enforcement levels.

We also did a big data analysis.

So we used a tool called street light data.

We identified insights about parkers in downtown New Rochelle.

We broke it up into two sections, so north of I-95 and south of I-95.

So north of I-95, there's more cars are parked during the week than on the weekend.

Most trips are short trips, most trips are five miles or fewer, and homeowners make up a slightly larger share of parkers than renters.

South of the I-95, more cars are parked during the week than the weekend.

Most trips are fewer than 30 minutes.

Most vehicle trips are under five miles.

Parking activity generally increases with income, and renters make up a slightly higher share of parkers than homeowners.

So when we learn about all of those things, we come up with strategies to make improvements.

There's a lot.

I'm going to throw some numbers out there.

So we have three very broad approaches.

Those are then funneled into nine strategies, and those strategies turn into our actions.

We have 15 short-term actions and six long-term actions.

So what are our three approaches?

One, continue the momentum of ongoing initiatives to provide desirable alternatives to automobiles.

People will continue to drive, but if we make it easier to do other things, right, to take a scooter, to walk, to bike, we reduce that, right?

Because ultimately parking is a spatial issue.

And in urban areas and cities in particular, cars take up space, space is finite.

So if people use fewer automobiles and try a different alternative, that's one thing that we can do.

But next is to properly value parking spaces in terms of money and time to incentivize better parking behavior.

Behavior changes are long-term policies or long-term programs, but we can implement the building blocks in the short term.

So it's a big part of our strategy as well.

When necessary, develop more and better parking facilities for specific targeted needs.

They range from wayfinding to pricing, curb management to valet parking improvements.

We're going to go through those again.

So just pointing that arrow in.

Three approaches, nine strategies to our actions model.

Okay.

So number one is wayfinding.

When you get downtown or you come into downtown, is it easy to find the off-site off-street parking facilities that we would prefer that you park in as opposed to parking on the street or being more likely to park in those facilities?

So we recommended a wayfinding program with gateway signs and directional signs.

This map, which is very difficult to see here, and I promise is easier to see in the plan, is built with the two-way conversion in mind, right, for Main Street and Cuban.

So our goal is as folks come into downtown in a car that we direct them towards those off-street facilities where we would prefer they park and where there is more capacity.

And our signs were designed based off New York State and MUTCD regulations and recommendations, but where we did have flexibility, we utilize the Vanguard district color scheme as well.

Okay.

So for the short-term actions related to wayfinding, uh, the first is walkability and streetscape plans.

If we do want folks to park in New Rock or Transit Center, and we want them to come to the downtown core, right to our restaurant road, division street, things like that, improving walkability.

And then over time, as newer shell continues to develop, make it pleasant to walk as well.

So we detail that a bit in the next is downtown sign inventory plan.

So there has been through our public outreach and through what we've heard.

Sometimes the parking app pricing and signs don't always add up, right?

So checking in on those signs, making sure they all reflect up-to-date parking regulations, reducing sign clutter when we can, and this is specifically for public signs, not business signs.

To make it simple, right?

We want it to be clear.

If we have rules, we want them to be easy to follow.

And if folks don't, we can enforce from there, but we want to make it easy as easy as we can.

And then long-term action is implementing the full way finding plan.

We anticipate that takes between 18 and 24 months when it comes to approvals, having signs made, and then physically installed.

Okay.

I'm going to turn strategy two over to Jerry Gioser.

Thanks, James.

One of the things James mentioned earlier was about the available capacity in the New Rock Garage and the ITC garage.

And also another interesting part is that we have parity on the short-term prices for parking.

Everything is $1.25 an hour.

So if you have a choice to park on the street for $1.25 an hour, or pull into one of the parking garages and circulate through it also for $1.25 an hour.

What's happening is that parkers are choosing to park on street.

And they will circle the streets looking for you know decently priced on street parking at $1.25 an hour.

And that does create congestion.

So one of our one of the more popular strategies that is starting to take over the parking industry is demand-based pricing.

So basically, another another term for it is stadium pricing.

And this is where, of course, you'll you'll pay more for the best seats in the house than you will for a seat that's further away.

So what this map is showing is a uh is it's a three-tiered uh parking zone, uh parking pricing zone based on demand on your current parking demand levels.

The green area would be $2 an hour up from $1.25.

The red arrow, the red areas would be $1.50 an hour, and the blue areas would remain at $1.25 an hour.

And you'll see that the new rock garage is the blue uh rectangle embedded within the green area.

So that's a strategy we're trying to invent and incentivize parkers to pull into that garage.

There's plenty of parking in there, and not only will you be able to get quickly off the streets and into a parking space, you'll pay 75 cents an hour less than you would if you were parking on the streets.

So the the short-term action that is uh related to that would be to um implement the downtown uh the change in pricing by ordinance, and that's something that can be done uh relatively quickly pending the schedule of council.

Okay.

All right.

Shed G3, I'm also going to turn over to Jerry as well.

That's enforcement.

Okay.

So enforcement, I've always used the term enforcement officers, need to walk a fine line to you know to do proper enforcement.

Too much enforcement, you know, can seem overly aggressive and not non-welcoming.

Not enough enforcement.

You'll have parkers quickly taking advantage, knowing that they won't get a ticket and they're not going to be putting their money in the meters.

So that's the fine line we have to walk.

So to what I found over the years is that the proper metric is for short-term spaces.

Um, you want to at least visit or pass or do enforcement on those spaces at least four or five times a day.

Whereas long-term spaces, you don't need uh as much coverage, probably possibly once or twice a day.

Um those are some of our uh enforcement practices that we've noticed.

And as you've seen, uh you saw in the graph previous enforcement levels are down.

There is a correlation between enforcement and revenue when enforcement goes down, you'll see revenue ticket corresponding dip.

Um we notice that the software that you're using on your license plate readers is not really a commonly employed uh software in the parking industry, um other other systems, uh they coordinate the the the camera software with um with the ticket riders, uh discovery, an online uh payment portal, the process of adjudicating uh the appeals and tracking and collecting tickets.

It's all kind of an interconnected suite.

So we notice you don't have that today.

It's something you might want to consider.

Also, that the meters themselves.

Some of the meters, the keypads are difficult to use.

So these are all very real problems that our parkers are experiencing today.

And we have some recommendations on how we can how we can improve all that.

One other thing I wanted to mention, the that's very important, is that the current method of enforcing the new rock and ITC garages, because they're metered, are you know, we have to go into those garages with the plate readers and drive the entire garages in order to enforce.

The more common operating model you'll see for parking garages is a garage that has either plate readers or gates, uh traffic gates that let parkers in or out.

You basically you don't leave unless you pay.

So that's a self-enforcing system.

If we move to a system like that, our enforcement officers would not have to drive through the garages all day long, wasting valuable you know, time and resources.

Thank you for that, Jerry.

All right.

So in the short term, um one thing we didn't mention as well is uh the fines actually in New Rochelle are lower than a lot of our our pure cities, right?

They're they're quite low at $35.

Um you have a reduction in the fine if you pay it early.

Uh we do recommend increasing those fines, right?

So uh one method of getting folks to not do any kind of violation is you increase the penalty.

Um so we do recommend that as a short-term change.

Um we also uh and the long-term actions, I'm sorry, there's a few there that shouldn't be there, so that's my fault.

I apologize.

Uh that they should have been another recommendation.

The long-term actions, I say that long-term install automated license plate readers because reality that it would probably take about nine months to a year to procure, install, uh, and put those in as well.

Um, and then while we recommend short-term meter improvements, we also have longer term recommendations for really changing out or retrofitting uh most of the parking meters and reducing the total number, right?

So I think what you're going to find is over time more people will pay with the app, more people will do pay by text, fewer people will use the meter.

The meters are clunky and complicated, and so um overall, when your uh next contract is up with the meters, we recommend just having fewer of them, and it would probably be easier and there's less to maintain.

Okay.

So Strategy 4 is a residential permit parking program.

Um renters park more often downtown.

Um, but some of our new mixed-use and residential building parking lots are below capacity.

We also know anecdotally that these folks uh often park on the street, um, and so to capture that revenue, or alternatively, to encourage more of them uh these folks to pay to park in their own buildings.

We recommend residential permit parking.

Um, this also reduces competition for residents from visitors for on-street spaces.

Um, in the short term, what we would want to do uh this requires going through the state legislature through a petition, uh petition the New York State Legislature for a law change, um, and then in the long term, so about uh 12 to 24 months, implement the program.

Uh the longest part of this in our estimation is the petitioning process.

Um I grew up in the city of Bayonne, which didn't have a light rail when I was very, very young, and then it did.

And then after that, they implemented a residential entree parking permit program.

Every aunt, uncle, cousin, and parent that I had complained about it initially, but over time it actually did uh was a benefit for residents because it reduces competition from visitors and ensures that you have you're able to park in the evening.

Um, or it makes it cities still have limited space, but it gives you a better chance at least.

Um, and so I found that over the years my family members complain about it a bit less.

So I think it is uh it's good in that sense, and folks will appreciate it.

Okay.

I'm gonna turn this one over to Jerry as well.

So, this is uh recommendations for garage and lock design moving forward.

Okay, so it's more of our parking um is converted from surface lots into parking structures.

Um it's important to kind of have a checklist of um of guidelines for parking structure development.

We want them to be light, airy, safe, um, you know, built with the best practices that we know today.

So we're recommending that uh that these checklists be developed, um standards and guidelines for things such as security cameras, uh signage and wayfinding, uh protected pedestrian routes, um, and also uh design principles that affect ramp slopes, stall sizes, lighting levels, uh again, security features, very important in parking garages.

So these key design principles we um we recommend it, we recommend be adopted uh on paper and um and enacted so they can be uh enforced and and and put into the uh site plan review procedures for any new parking garage.

So thank you very much, Jerry.

So six, um more and better more and better parking.

So the city has been very successful, uh growing municipal parking spaces by partnering with developers that build in the uh downtown overlay zone and elsewhere.

So we recommend that we continue to partner and incentivize private development of municipal parking spaces, it's a way to grow our municipal parking supply.

Um we do want to recommend considering a more centrally located structured parking facility or facilities or part of a new facility, like you have with Skyline or something like that, uh, to address specific needs.

So um, well, New Rock and Transit Center, as I've I've said, are underutilized, um, distance and convenience are relative, right?

So we want to improve walkability and accessibility from those facilities, but walkable is dependent on ability, on mobility, on weather, on preference.

Um, I'm I'm an urbanite, I grew up in a city where I walked everywhere, so that's normal for me, but it's not the case for everybody.

Um also when I hurt my back a few years ago, walking suddenly became very hard and slowed me down.

So for those folks who driving is not just a convenience, but something you need to do.

We do want to make sure there are places for them to park in the downtown core, even though we would love as many people to walk and bike and scooter as possible.

So just keeping everybody in mind there.

Um and again, I I think the sky uh the skyline garage is a great example of that work, and you've expanded that recently as well.

Um so the second part of this is the local development corporation as a means to kind of centralize some parking operations.

Uh and so I'm gonna turn that over to Jerry to discuss the LDC.

Okay.

So so we heard the words uh parking authority fairly often uh during our uh partner study process.

And at one time, New Rochelle did have a parking authority.

Um from my perspective, the parking authority is the ultimate centralized parking operations.

Parking authority does everything.

They they build the facilities, they maintain the facilities, they enforce the facilities, they set um, they set the pricing, they they purchase the meters, they do the collections, they bank the revenue.

It is a completely centralized system.

So over time, the um you know, the the current system has become more decentralized.

Where um parts of the operation have been outsourced to uh to LAS.

Uh we have the police department doing enforcement.

Uh so um so it's it's always to um you know to implement some of these changes.

It's always a nice idea to try to have some kind of centralized structure to uh to be the driver of some of this change.

And uh one of the things that's available under New York State law are local development corporations that can be specifically put together by municipalities for specific functions.

And a good example is in Yonkers, who uses local development corporations to develop their individual parking garages.

And they have a set and they have a set role, and those roles are established by the city government.

So we're saying that that's something that can be considered uh in lieu of a parking authority that uh the city would still have complete control over, uh, whereas a parking authority is a semi semi-autonomous agency.

And I just wanted to give you a little background on uh how we might uh look to implement some of this change.

Thank you for that.

Jerry, I'm gonna go back real quick to one thing that I I realized.

So this okay, so in addition to pricing, I wanted to touch on residential permits for um uh off-street facilities, so municipal parking.

Um we did do a comparison with other cities, uh, particularly Westchester, Yonkers, and Mount Vernon.

Um New Rochelle does have fairly low residential permit parking prices for those facilities.

Um so for recommendation for reasons of improving facilities and things like that, um, considering raising those is a recommendation that we make, and we um but another part of that is we also understand that in some of the new buildings, there's a price differential between the on-site parking in those buildings and using the public uh municipal parking.

So bringing up those public facility prices as well.

We want to encourage, along with the residential on-street permit to kind of get more folks to use that excess capacity in those buildings, right?

That it's a convenience, it's there, the city has approved them, and so that's part of that as well.

So my apologies, I missed this earlier, and I wanted to touch on that point.

Um now I will go back to strategy seven, curb management, and I will again turn it over to uh to Jerry.

Okay, so curb management is another very very uh very hot topic these days in the parking industry where you know the the parking meter was always considered you know the king of of the on-street.

You have to have meters, you have to have turnover, you have to have parking right in front of my store.

Um however, things are changing like you live down there.

Things are changing.

Uh we have DoorDash, we have Uber Eats, we have Lyft, we have FedEx, we have UPS.

We have so much competition for these curb spaces that it's starting to change the way that that planners and and and developers and parking developers are thinking.

So uh so the term curb management has been used to describe how we can get all these diverse groups of uh uh of curb users uh using the same spaces and turning over as quickly as possible.

So um so this is the map on the left is a uh this is a concept for um for a pilot program on Division Street where we would set up a um a paid loading zone.

So basically that purple area you see is a paid loading zone, and it could possibly be one-hour parking.

Now the first 15 minutes are loading minutes.

There they could be free, but after that, the next 15 minutes will cost you four dollars.

The next 15 minutes, another four dollars.

The next 15 minutes, another four dollars.

So if you leave your car there for an hour, you could pay $12.

So the idea is again using pricing to incentivize people to get in and get out.

This way, the most number of cars and vehicles can use that dedicated area, and we can um and we can start uh you know getting reducing double parking and getting more use out of the curb space that we have.

Um so there is, uh I guess in the next slide we talk about the legislation or oh um yeah, yeah, there it is, it is a camera-based uh system.

So you would have cameras basically mounted on street balls that would uh that would be monitoring all this activity.

So if you are double parked, you would receive either an invoice or a citation in the mail.

If you don't pay through the app or through through texting, you would receive either an invoice or a citation.

Uh but that is not um that is not permitted today under New York State law.

There's a village on Long Island that just got in big trouble for instituting such a program, similar program, uh, which was not approved by the New York State legislature.

So legislative action is required.

Um it's not impossible.

New York City uses uh, and I believe Yonkers uses cameras to enforce no parking zones.

Uh so they they received legislative approval in Albany, uh, and then they were able to deploy that program.

So we would have to do the same thing here.

Um and some synergy with the previous presentation as well.

So the city of Hoboken is a vision zero champion.

They've had zero uh road-related fatalities and crashes in the last nine years, and they won a complete streets award this year for of all things for implementing this program, which is increased safety outcomes uh and is also helped with convenience and self with revenue generation as well.

So there is synergy between the these and other safety actions as well.

Okay, so um valet improvements.

Um so what we did is uh so the city has uh a valet program uh and and one of the ways that it's used is to reduce overall parking requirement or minimum parking requirements for mixed-use commercial and residential development in the downtown overlay zone.

Um, but it has led to some some challenges and some inconveniences.

So what we have done is uh we've prepared a draft ordinance with revisions to amend valet operations and mechanical parking.

Um so in the short term, we recommend that uh we adopt amendments to ballet and mechanical parking.

So we recommend that um parking plans submitted by developers require uh in the DOZ are required to be more robust and to facilitate timely review, we recommend having a parking consultant expert or engineer review these plans to recommend approval or modifications to the planning board.

And to facilitate timely review, we recommend having a parking consultant expert or engineer review these plans to recommend approval or modifications to the planning board.

So that because they will become more robust, they will take more time to review, and so we recommend having somebody on staff or on call to do that.

And then long-term uh enforcement will apply to queuing as well.

And so the change to mechanical parking is to require uh redundancies to make sure that anyone proposing a mechanical parking unit within a mixed use or commercial or residential development, they have a plan for what happens when it breaks, and that they show that they have the capacity to avoid queuing.

And so that is an extra requirement.

It will require more work on behalf of the developer.

Um but to speed that along, we recommend uh the extra layer of review uh to come in as well.

And then finally, um, electric vehicle master plan implementation.

So, this is one of the plans that we we uh mentioned earlier as being um complementary to what we're doing.

So, what we want to do is um align with that plan to incorporate electric vehicle parking best practices into parking lot design in terms of where EV spaces are located and safety-related improvements, uh things like higher-powered sprinklers for cars that burn hotter and things like that.

Um, so we generally align with the EVMP.

Um we want to underline costs for charging EV vehicles are in addition to the charges that we have recommended, right?

That those are separate things.

Um but how do you expand uh your electric vehicle parking, right?

So we recommend a combination of requirements and incentive incentivization of EV parking spaces where appropriate.

So um it's almost easier when something is new or being renovated or changed, you capture you know that that developer, that application.

And so if you have a rule of requirement, you can require a certain percentage of your parking spaces to be EV for make ready or something like that.

Um I know that that's something that's the city's uh working on or doing, and um, but for folks that don't come before the planning board that don't apply for good development, how do you get them to adopt or add extra EV spaces?

Um, and that's incentivization uh and promotion.

And so to incentivize those existing property owners uh that are not preparing development applications, uh we recommend uh partnering with private providers that have models that provide income to property owners, right?

Passive income if you install um an EV, like a blink or or um its electric or brands, and I believe there are a few actually located in the city that we promote that, have them adopt that so we increase our stock of EV charging spaces.

Um I think the key part is streamlining permitting, right?

So for a property owner that would consider doing this, um, how long is it going to take?

What are the rules and regulations to implement it?

And so that is our next recommendation.

And so um to grow the overall stock of EV parking spaces uh through a combination of requirements and um incentivization.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um there's a few names here.

My two bosses are on there, Rashna and Joe.

Uh, they are obviously not here, but they do say hello.

Uh thank you all, and uh please we'd be happy to dive in and answer.

Thank you so much.

Customs or uh colleagues, questions or comments, questions or comments, thoughts, suggestions from my colleagues at this time.

Councilman.

I'll start never searching okay.

Um there's a lot to absorb from 154-page reports, so if you want to learn more, are you done back again because there's gonna be an awful lot of questions?

So some of the questions I have, and you know they're ongoing problems right now, is that a lot of the new buildings uh when they were built, they were filled with um ballet component um built into that.

And what we're starting to find out is you know the ballet component, uh, most of the lifts will handle it with two cars at a time.

They have a few ballets that are moving on.

And one of the things that happens is that most of the buildings have insufficient staging areas so that when people come home in the evening, um there are numerous cars that are pulling up and parking in the street in areas that would normally uh be used for other types of parking spaces.

Uh that's that's number one.

Number two, when people leave, um they have the same problem.

They'll bring the car down, leave it in the street until the people come out of the building to get the car.

Now the complaint I hear from people living in a number of the buildings is that they have to call down 45 minutes in advance to get their cars out because the cars are stacked in the parking garages.

Um, as we're going forward, and I saw that you had that uh recommendation of uh looking at the uh valet system and possibly changing it for the future buildings, but we have buildings that have already been approved that allow, am I right?

As we're going forward, and I saw that you had that uh recommendation of looking at the uh valet system and possibly changing it for the future buildings, but we have buildings that have already been approved that allow right uh they are allowed to do valet in a number of the new buildings, right?

It's already in the code.

So again, you know, we're we're playing catch-up on a problem that we now know exists, but there's nothing we can do.

Is there a way of incentivizing uh something to get those developers to possibly change their minds and eliminate the ballet, you know, on the existing buildings?

Yeah, yeah, you know, something to to get them to uh maybe cut down on the amount of spaces like that because if you have five buildings at 300 units per building or 350 units uh per building, the problem that exists on the street is only gonna get worse.

And what is gonna happen is if we implemented a parking program for parking spaces on the street, and we put cars next to these buildings and they're parking there in metered parking now.

Uh where are they gonna put those cars that they have to stage?

They're gonna double park them or there's no place to put.

So those are the kinds of things that you know.

I was on Main Street for over 50 years, so I've seen all the different itinerations that came over the years of different ideas and concepts to take care of the parking.

Um it's interesting because I was at a couple of seminars that at um NYU about uh this demand parking, this uh the prices, and uh it's probably 15 years ago, so it's finally starting to make its way through now.

Um but you know, that was one of the um major problems.

The other was that two of our parking garages make up about 70% of our off-street park, which are both sort of positioned outside of the downtown, especially where the restaurant row is and things of that sort.

They're pushed off to the side.

And you know, the when I see you know about the incentive of parking there of a dollar twenty-five versus two dollars.

Well, you're gonna go to a restaurant and you're paying for uh chicken farm dish 28 or 30 dollars, you're not gonna care that you pay an extra buck or two to park closer to the restaurant.

Uh so you know, I don't know how that's really gonna work.

You know, some people might utilize it, but I also think it's unfair for some people that you know are struggling and now they're forced to pay more to park closer.

Um so you know, again, I think there's a has to be a uh continual dialogue on this document here because I think that there's so many things that nobody we're not gonna remember all of them right now, what what should be discussed?

So I think we really should have some group put together to really go through this and dissect it and and come up with a plan that will work because uh I see you know what we have here uh it makes sense until you bring it to the public, and then you're gonna hear something different, and you know, uh I think we need to really do our homework before we bring this to the public.

Well, I I'll just want to sort of mention a little bit something that you said, the the buildings with the valet.

We have started to look differently at the plans that we're approving.

So, you know, in the last three years, um, you know, the buildings that we've approved through the planning board have much more robust queuing.

In many cases, uh, on the last project that we approved, um, we actually added a ramp into uh an underground garage that could handle the overflow should be you know, the the the queuing that was on at grade for the valet uh could the overflow could be directed inside the building.

We also required an additional lift so that there was more capacity.

So we are looking, we we did work with the parking consultant, and we've been um requiring the developers to provide parking consultant reviews and opinions on the design and configuration of the parking operations.

Um the valet is one of the things that we are looking at uh addressing in this latest DOZ amendment, uh specifically to codify some of those practices that we have just required based on lessons learned.

I can tell you that there's another project that we looked at that was in the pipeline.

They proposed a valet, and I was like, it's a deal breaker.

This is never gonna work with the valet, and we actually made them build a self-contained uh you know, self-parking garage facility.

So we are very aware in the Department of Development that the of the issues that the valet operations cost, specifically the ones because they're they are capitally on the capital side, they're cheaper to implement, but on the operational side, they're much more expensive.

And so we're seeing the issues now from the developers that it's it's actually a drag on the operating cost for the building going forward.

So it's like an investment that we're requiring them to make up front because it makes everyone's life easier down the road.

I think that is a lesson learned.

Unfortunately, it's at a great, you know, it was at a cost to us because we approved a bunch of buildings at the same time.

Um but before uh mine I was uh the commissioner by the was it was something that I think it was a lesson learned.

I don't think we you know, but but in it it's something that we take very seriously, and a lot of the insights we learn from these guys have actually uh created more criteria and better language to codify those requirements and to involve those professional reviews of these buildings before they even get to the planning board so that you know we don't have to continue to approve buildings that do the same thing that they've always done.

So that's really usually I don't know if you want to add more to that.

Yeah, so that so the one thing I'll add is uh so like your first presenter, uh the commissioner of arts and recreation.

I originally there was a lot more slides, or if we we're limited on time, so it for existing units it it is difficult, right?

It's ex it's it's very challenging to change this the mechanism that got them approved.

But we do have a term sheet and a new set of regulations and requirements for ballet operators that we recommend, um, which should hopefully address some of those challenges.

So um having that information present for the operators, uh more information sharing with the city, um, more access to information to the city as well.

And so that's kind of the kind of the more kind of boring sausage making part on that side to reduce the existing problem.

We do have um recommendations for that as well.

Okay, yeah.

And I just want to make one more comment just on your just to follow up on your other comment about the parking garages being located away from all the areas of interest, right?

So the other side of this is the public realm improvements, so we are making investments to increase the walkability from New Rock to basically Division Street, which is the restaurant row and and main street.

But um, you know, we have I've been talking to uh folks about how to improve that pedestrian connection, either you know, looking at several options, one of which is reopening that pathway between the skyline garage and the skyline property, another one is creating a better pedestrian access route through the garage, but also we're making improvements, you know, mid mid-block intersections through these tactical urban improvements that we're talking about, and also increasing the lighting just to make the experience of walking, should one decide to from either the library lot, the library south lot, or the new rock garage, to get to the downtown to make that experience um just feel safer, cleaner, and more inviting.

So it's not just like hey, walk really far.

We're actually trying to improve the experience of walking, even though we understand that it's a long-term.

Well, one of the things we'll happen as soon as you go to two-way uh when you're driving to a restaurant or whatever, uh, if you're coming one way or another down the main street, you do building to actually uh psychologically look at it as a smaller, uh a shorter ride uh getting to the parking garage.

So uh you're going to visualize it as being a much shorter route than going all the way around to get to the parking lot.

I was one of my favorite parts of this project was getting uh folks from New Rochelle in touch with some of the folks I work with in Hack and Sack.

They did a two-way conversion of their main street, and it was you know, local businesses on Main Street, the Main Street Business Alliance love the outcome of it.

So I do think that will help.

I I so I think like the practical constraint is like I said earlier, folks distance is different for different people, right?

So part of the behavior change, which we have to be up front is a long-term project.

You know, my hope is uh more younger residents will opt to use a scooter, we'll have to walk, we'll have to bike, you know, folks who are able to do those things.

And the city's done a great job making those options available.

Circuit NR is awesome, right?

That these are great programs.

Um, so continuing those, that's I said that because you want people to have that as being their kind of default or reflex for traveling in the city, right?

Um, but we also have to consider residents who have different long-term habits or have different mobility needs.

Um, so you know, from my point of view, I would like to shrink the number of people who choose driving as their first thing, right?

I'm an urban planner, and I my favorite place that I lived was Jersey City, right?

Like I like that sort of thing.

Um, and I think that's possible, and I think it's reasonable.

Like, even like my dad drives, but when he goes back home to Italy, where he grew up, he goes, he goes to Body or he goes to Cateto, and he's like, I walked everywhere, it was great, I lost five pounds, you know, and I was eating costs the whole time.

You know, and I was eating costs the whole time.

And so I I believe that people can change when they can.

Um, but so I do want to shrink that pie, but I am I also recognize like cars are convenient, they help you carry kids, they help you carry groceries.

Uh you need them.

Sometimes you visit newer show from farther away.

So we want to address that too.

So it is a it is a long-term project.

Um, and the price differential that you mentioned as being kind of slim.

We do think that should be, and we state you know, in the plan, that should be analyzed over time.

And I I do foresee over time that if you implement that, you will increase it, right?

You will increase the high demand spaces as you notice benefits for more people being able to walk or bike and things like that.

Um, but I think throwing super cold water on people right away with a big, big, big dramatic change might be something we don't do right away, right?

And so um so that's why oh please, thank you, Chairs.

Yeah, I just wanted to add to that as well, because there's another thing going on with the Meal Parmesan.

So we just upgraded.

So we might necessarily gonna get the people who are eating the Ville Parmesan to go to the parking garage, but the people who are serving it and who are making it.

We're finding there's a lot of employees on the streets who are hopscotching their car around or rolling the dice that they're not gonna get a ticket.

So by by jacking that up to two dollars, it's gonna hurt their pocketbooks.

We're hoping to get them into the parking garage.

I have one other question about the valet.

You know, is there any new project coming forward?

Is there a way of us create of you know making the developers create a ramp at some place in the building that allows for the overflow?

Um that's a good thing.

Yeah, that's that's exactly what we did at 570.

Well, I'm talking about with the others that have already been approved.

Can we go back to them?

Because that if they're gonna do ballet, that is one of the way, the probably the easiest way of resolving a lot of the problem, the fact that, and then also, you know, I've talked to some of the valets that the guys that are working in some of the buildings when I'm downtown, and you know, they have two guys handling valet, and even though you can only move two cars at a time, by the time they get upstairs, by the time they they they really they all say the same thing, they need more than two valets, and I know you know, running ballets 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 uh you know days a year is expensive, but when the zoning was put together, they were rewarded for putting valet by having less spaces.

So they've saved a lot of money, so it's you know, my my thinking is that going forward, you know, either pay us now or pay us later because if you build the spaces in the building, when you build a building and you don't need the valet and you let people self-park, uh you have nothing else to do.

But if you're gonna do it the other way, you're gonna have a constant cost that you're gonna have to deal with.

Uh and you know, I don't know how you convey that to the developers.

I'll go back.

I don't I suspect it won't be one answer.

I think there'll be different buildings have different but I you know no, but I think that the ramp issue could alleviate some of that problem and enough staging area off the street because that has become I mean if you go by the leaf building in the evenings or even on a on the in the morning, or you go by uh the arc uh center avenue uh either in the morning or in the afternoon.

Uh there's cars, it'll it signs up everywhere, no parking anytime.

There's cars all over the street.

So if you start implementing these programs, people are gonna start getting tickets, and they're gonna be the residents sitting in a building that don't know they got a ticket, but the they got a ticket because they have LA left their car out there before they got there.

You know, there's a there's a lot of problems that can arise, and we need to anticipate them.

So I I think you know what I'm saying.

I've in my head I'm thinking you know, a million things, but I think it warrants that we go back and need each other.

Thank you.

Other questions or comments on this presentation?

Yes.

Um thank you for this.

It's it's timely, it's it's a high demand issue.

Um we hear about the the lack of parking downtown all the time, and usually these things tend to be a utility problem.

So we do have the spaces, it's about getting people to them and from them safely.

Um we're making a lot of changes downtown.

Uh well, I asked a number of questions that I forwarded to you guys, and thank you for weaving them into the presentation.

Um particularly the parking authority idea with the you called it the LDC, a local local development corporation, local development corporation.

Well, I mean, we have one.

We do.

The CLD is an LDC, as is the IDA.

So it's like a it's the special part of a special purpose.

Maybe this is I would see this as potentially a CLD.

Well, we'll have the conversation.

But thank you for including that in the presentation.

Also I'll just go through the questions that I forwarded you.

I'm not gonna go through all of them.

I actually have one here with responses to it.

So please go for it.

Yeah, I'm ready.

Homework, homework.

Except it's 55, so we're ready.

No, no, but we're not we're not gonna go through all the time.

Because we still have like this is the third item on the agenda.

It's a seven o'clock dinner, so we hand dirt out maybe about the second slope.

Um I didn't hear anything about line parking.

Line parking, so when you sometimes it's done for meters, but it's also a safety thing, right?

If you have you had a vision zero presentation, physical barriers are the best thing before physical barriers, you can paint and stripes, and those are a little bit less expensive.

You can reduce fender benders by having striped parking.

I find it to be a better thing in the same way that you do a practice called daylighting, indicating where you can't park through the the light, um the the sticks that you'll see in the paint there as well.

So um, yes, you can squeeze a little bit tighter if the lines aren't there, but I do find the lines to be better than not having them in high demand areas in kind of the more suburban areas or or less densely populated areas that are less necessary.

Does that answer the question or was it related to something?

Well, I just wanted to know if you like them or not, so it's good to hear that you like the idea of them.

Also, you know, so this goes to my a mapping question.

I noticed that it did not have the main street, North Avenue, Clinton, uh locust block included, and I was wondering why that was off of the map, because that would seem that like it would fit into the dollar fifty increase.

So, okay, so for the demand pricing.

Yeah.

Um, so it's not in the map at all.

It doesn't have a rate to it.

It doesn't seem if I saw the map correctly.

It's northwest of the where the map location is south.

South on the other side of the ancient east.

Yes.

Okay.

So there's probably a stretch.

That's uh yeah, this is adjacent to the concept, it's gonna need to be fine-tuned.

Okay.

Um where the meter parking currently is would all be zoned in a way that corresponds with this demand pricing.

Right.

Okay.

So we wouldn't be taking anything out.

And that area is currently metered parking to a certain length of locus.

Okay, and then just a quick walkthrough of how exactly does the residential permit uh impact getting the people that are in the new buildings to utilize their own parking.

So walk us through that.

So there's it's not we're not uh we're not forcing them to do it.

But oh no?

Well, so well, there's two layers to this.

One is my recommendation, if it is feasible, and and this is a conversation you always have, you know, with the council is in those buildings where we know there's excess capacity, you do not allow folks who live there to get the residential parking permit.

Right, they will be required to, right?

So um the city of Baylon, which a different state, different regulatory system, um, they do this through the redevelopment program, is they don't allow folks in the new multifamily or high-rise buildings to get residential on street parking permits.

It's part of the developer agreement.

So some version of that.

The second thing is if it's 300, and I'm making up numbers just for argument's sake.

If it's 300 to park in your apartment building, and it's a hundred to park in the parking lot across the street, it makes sense that somebody would make that choice if they have that choice, right?

So it's logical and normal.

So one is again, you ban them, you don't let them do it if you're if you're able to do that.

The second is if you bring that price higher, which and more in line with cities nearby in Westchester County, it will you're reducing those number of people that are gonna say that's the more attractive option.

It's actually better for me to just park my own building.

So those those are the two ways I'd recommend that.

And the same applies with the on-street with the on-street permit program.

If folks are parking on-street instead of in their own buildings, you know, the residential parking program is intended to get them to incentivize them to stay in their public.

Or you say you can't get the on-street permit because you live in you know uh the leaf or one of those buildings.

So perfect segue uh for the next presentation that we have on this, it would be good to have a direct comparison between our pricing and the pricing of White Plains, Yonkers and Port Chester, the locations that we're most often compared to.

The last presentation they did it comparable to the other municipalities, both in fees and parking.

It's October.

It's October K5 plus there's a lot of information outside.

It's in the plan.

I the only one I would talk about.

In the actual big document, yes, being slightly different is um I the comparisons that we used were designated cities in New York State as opposed to villages or towns, just because they're you're dealing with slightly different uh regulations and rules.

Um so we can do Port Chester.

In fact, um Jerry's work there in the in the past, it was a it was a while ago, but um we had the cities we felt were better comparisons, but we can do a comparison to Port Chester.

Yeah, and the only reason I understand like the the logistic the quantitative reason to do so, but qualitatively as we speak to constituents, that's who they have on their mind, so it's just good to continually make the comparison and then the parking it's not gonna get discussed here, but it has to be a long discussion.

Where do we have blackout areas regarding loading zones, parking time limits, and things like that?

I think White Plains does very well with it.

I parked for 10 minutes outside of one of one of the tea shops that I like.

Yeah, um so no, but it's all it's a long conversation about you know, well, for this space and area, is there a loading zone?

Is it a limited parking time?

Um, how would the camera network work if the state were to allow us to move it forward?

That's uh that's that's an extensive conversation.

I mean, and again, I bring it up.

I think I brought it up three times.

The city manager and I met at Casaroma, and I bought up the loading zone issue, and then he we both got to see it that morning that we met, where like loading zones took up an entire strip of potential parking that obstructed us.

You know, that will be part of a one of the recommendations, one of the actions.

I I think it's kind of a medium to long term.

We were we were gonna you know seek authorization to begin that petition process for the home rule request.

So, you know, for the for the resident park, and we would start engaging with the community, collecting feedback and gathering whether or not uh you know there's an interest of those residential communities that run the out the downtown to participate in something like this, and again, I think for the curb management enforcement with the cameras, we have some uh ideas on where well they recommended some ideas and we met with DPW, where that those zones could be.

Um so we can we can start that process um in the next couple of months.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then pick up and drop off locations as well.

Not just for pickups of deliveries and things like that, but let's say a family is driving to one of the restaurants downtown to get their what was it, the veal Parmesan?

Um but they're dropping off their non-ambulatory family members before they go park in the locations that we would prefer them to do it.

It'd be important to see well where those are.

And then the last part of that is how are we relating with our businesses as far as communicating?

These are the locations around you.

This is what the parking looks like.

Can we uh you know work with our own uh tech team to maybe throw some embeds into the map of well, this is where your business is and relationship to where our parking is, so that they could put it on their website.

I'm just looking for all of the ways that we could communicate this.

So if they they could put this on the front page of their website right next to their contact information of, hey, these are all this is where we are, this is these are all the places around us to park.

It would be valuable for them.

And maybe we could weave that into the program that we contracted for through the IDA, the with the the you know, locations of all the vacancies and all the the possibilities downtown.

I don't know if it would be that or another, but it's a different thing.

The live XYZ because it's very data intensive on how it can manipulate data, maybe it's another parallel.

I've been incredibly impressed with the city of New Rochelles with their interactions with local businesses, Jorge from uh economic development who was able to get survey responses quickly as good relationship with them.

Um it's it's not a part of our plan to do that, but it's look but combining those two things I think is something the city's very capable of doing.

And by you know, just robust communication which you guys have uh mixed with where those end up, those curb management areas go.

I think that's uh that's a great step.

Sorry for all the questions, but the curb management system that they're proposing would account for the private person dropping off one or you know, running into the store to get their real farmers on or whatever they're getting.

All of that, that that that's the beauty of the system that they're proposing.

It's really it's not about commercial vehicles or anything like that, it's just managing the time, the utilization of that space for that.

And it would work from beginning time, so let's just say 8 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

That would be an effect.

So it wouldn't impact overnight parking.

Um it's free for the first 15 minutes for someone who has to drop off someone with a mobility issue.

If you want to drop off kids, like that sort of thing, I think that's the right thing, or for a seamless driver because you have 15 minutes in and out is fair.

I think the idea is to dissuade folks from staying there longer through the higher prices.

We use delivery vehicles as the but it won't differentiate between delivery, non-delivery, it's vehicles, but the most common complaint we receive is for delivery vehicles in particular.

Okay.

And double park delivery.

Last one, I promise.

The our parking enforcement stuff.

It I I'm enjoying the double parking enforcement that we've been doing downtown, doubling our ticket amounts, and I would love for that to be sure that we can't save enough.

Um, but there's also the communications aspect, they are on the front line seeing people as they're ticketing them or telling them to move along or whatever it is.

Could they also be a force for providing information?

Hands-on, this is the area that you're in.

This is where you could have parked to avoid the ticket I'm about to give you anyway.

So our hope through the automated license plate reader and the improvements to the software suite is free up some of the monotonous work so that uh human beings outside walking around can do more of that.

We we want to increase the revenue you get and get more people to comply by automating some enforcement, and hopefully that frees up time for the PEOs to communicate more with members of the public.

I think you know that's I I can't give that order by by any means, but I but what I can recommend is by freeing up time that you can have that conversation more often.

Could the automated enforcement come with instructions of this is how you could have avoided this ticket?

That's a good that's a good idea, isn't it?

Uh I didn't expect that we're conversation.

But we it's very location specific, ever probably require a high degree of like program.

But we can look into it.

Okay.

But thank you.

Signs indicating costs for things is good.

Signs it's low tech, but signs work.

And so then there's a lot of signage recommendation, especially in real time.

Yes.

Okay.

Other questions or comments.

I think just before we move on, and I'm not I'm not you don't have to we don't have time.

Um just it's it's such a hot topic, right?

And it arguably affects everyone, because if you're in the north end, it's trying to encourage our northern friends to come to the downtown and you know, and then even for the small businesses, so I think that's the the space.

If we could just um there's probably low-hanging fruit, you guys can identify that just so we can start chipping away at some of this, because it doesn't sell when we keep saying like we're studying parking.

You know what I mean?

Like the I have some low-hanging fruit I can just talk about, like real quick.

We talked about um, I think in the next meeting, I wanted to suggest that we increase the violation amounts.

So I would submit legislation that would increase the fine for the overtime parking.

Um, I would remove that same day discount.

People are paying $15 if they pay the the ticket at the same day, that's less than paying at the meter the way you're supposed to.

So people are doing that a lot, and I think we should make it.

You could pay the the the face value of the violation the same day, but not a discount.

I don't think that's helping with compliance.

Um, I was going to suggest that um we look at the stadium pricing.

I think that's a pretty um low-hanging fruit.

I think it it would be consistent.

It's something that um I think we've read about, we've heard uh from a lot of communities that have had good luck with it.

I would I would recommend that, but I I can you know I can feel you out over the next uh you know a couple of weeks of the next uh days, I should say.

And then um, I was thinking permit costs uh to we I would want to do that this year before January only because if we do it as part of an omnibus, you know, then it wouldn't take effect till next year, and then you know, this year's renewals we do in December.

So we want to get the we if we do want to do the permits in the in the lots, we would want to do that you know, this year.

So like you know, until June, uh yeah, June July, like around there.

Helpsman Tarantino had a question about whether uh you would need a public hearing for we need public hearing for any.

I don't believe so that's not as part of chapter one fifty.

It's not the zoning order.

It's not a zoning ordinance, so it doesn't require chapter wise to let the public notes.

Yeah, I have those I do have those notes here.

You know, we put it out there and then it happens.

I think that's about communication to public.

Sorry, communication to the public.

Um, well, I mean, we would certainly communicate as part of the implementation of it, but I wouldn't want to tell them we're doing something that council, so it's like a chicken and egg.

We kind of would need the authorization before we want to communicate.

Right.

Okay.

I think we have to put a whole schedule together.

Right.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

All right.

We are moving on to item number, oh no, item four and five are subjects of public hearing this evening.

So item four is the proposed amendment to chapter 312 of the code of the city of New York regarding vehicle impound authority.

And item five is a proposed reallocation of CDBG benefit funds.

Questions are I mean, it's a public hearing, but if any questions are comments, I just had a question on five.

Um the money that we're moving around, you know, they it doesn't really give us a detail of where what we're doing exactly what we're doing with it, like we're using some of the money uh like toward the link project or toward the downtown.

You know, I I noticed that on the downtown a lot of the locations where we were putting in new traffic signals.

We haven't repaired the sidewalks and things of that.

So is this been being used?

Repair those that's part of the ongoing contract.

So those will be some of them year and a half that are.

There's been a delay in the contract.

Yeah, so there's still major work that has been.

But they still have the money of part of that contract.

Yes.

I just want to make sure because it's uh some of them are starting to sink and little data.

He's responsible to maintain this one question.

Excellent.

Is that no?

I think that's it.

Thank you.

Item number six is um a proposed amendment to the code of this evening, Michelle regarding parking regulation change at 39.

Um BD Lane.

Hi, Commissioner, how are you?

Hi, good evening.

Thank you.

Anything we want to add to this, or it's pretty self-sufficient.

Um it's pretty much self-sufficient.

We had sent an email.

Right.

That was fine.

Council members.

Okay.

All right.

Um, may I have uh any questions or comments on item number six?

Seeing none, may I have a motion and second to move six to the consent agenda?

Kay and I need a second.

Uh Peters, all in favor say aye.

Any opposed.

Item number seven is a proposed resolution regarding FEMA building resilient infrastructure and communities, also known as BRIC grant program application via the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

Commissioner, anything you'd like to add?

Yes, so this item is um seeking uh uh approval from council to submit an application for these grant.

Um these grant would help us fund well, I wouldn't pell them, which is a project that's um way underway in terms of sign.

Um we identify these these grants as a great opportunity, these grants seeks to fund uh shoulder ready projects, and this is pretty much where we're at.

Um we were ready to fund these with the flood mitigation program funding.

Uh, but the reality also is that these project uh joint design evolved into a much more costly and complex project.

Um so DC's uh really good opportunity to possibly secure these grants, um, which would essentially give us access to 5.5 million with the investment of 1.3 from the program.

Um and the idea would be to navigate the grant approval while we um relocate utilities uh which are required for these projects.

We've been working with Gornetti Son and Violia.

Um that work um is set to commence uh later in the summer, and um it would work out pretty pretty nicely with the timing if we secured these grants while we relocate utilities.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Questions or comments on item number seven.

We have a motion in a second to move seven to our consent agenda, please.

Uh Lopez and Australia, all in favor say aye.

Any opposed.

Moving on to item number eight.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um, it's a proposed amendment to the 2026 budget for parks and rec.

Uh looks like we are making some amendments around the budget.

Yep.

This is uh not asking or requested any new funds or any new additional dollars.

This is this movement of um from trust accounts to active expense accounts, just so we could get some things done.

Just movement of funds because right now it's restricted.

Questions or comments from my colleagues on item number eight.

Council member K.

Um project says it's gonna support and um the idea of creating accounts that are more transparent with the way the budget's presented and less cumbersome, so you're able to access the funding more easily.

But um how we're appreciated if some thought can be given to providing even more transparency in terms of like what's the total amount in the trust accounts, when they're being accessed, and then um and what specifically they're going to fund.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

Other questions or comments on item number eight, council member stern.

So is this moving any of the um funds out of accounts so that they can be used like outside of their original parameters or no?

No.

No, okay.

No, no, no.

We're we we can't from procurement standpoint, even with our outside audits.

We can't, you know, we can't buy soccer balls with you know dog park money.

Yeah, okay.

Just being able to spend it.

What we're doing is we're taking money that's in a in a trust account that's and allocated there for specific purpose.

We are moving that money into the budget to the operating budget, so now we can actually access it.

We can't go directly to the trust account.

So it's more of this is more of a bookkeeping or an accounting exercise.

Right, okay.

But but the the trusts are very specific in what and that says in here what we can use the money for once they go into those accounts.

I have no problem with that idea.

It's like a chart, maybe at the end of the year, like in November to see like where all the trust account funds went, because maybe like in real time too, just so that again specific I'm thinking specifically on like the garden trust accounts, like th they might have opinions about like are we zeroing out the trust account for this project when they have a higher priority to make sure that I know those communications are ongoing, but yeah, just think of it.

Exactly.

I think that the sorry paper and process.

Yep, absolutely.

Any other questions or comments on item number eight?

Seeing none may I have a motion and the second moving eight to our consent agenda, please.

Um Stern and K.

All in favor say aye.

Any opposed.

Moving on, thank you so much.

Item number nine is a um proposed amended authorization regarding the 2020 stipend account funds provided to the new reshelf fund for educational excellence from council from then council members Freed and Haydn and current council members Kay and Tarantino.

Umasure.

Yes, so this was uh 2020 resolution that had authorized stipends to go into the uh newer show fund for education excellence for a certain program at the time, the virtual reality program.

That program was actually never launched, so the funds were never used.

Um so we had it received the letter from the NeurShell Fund of Excellence if we could um reuse that or we all allocate that money to a new uh initiative they had, which was the uh support of the installation of a new LED sign along North Avenue at the NewerShell High School.

Um so they were asking if we could take that money and use it towards that initiative now.

Questions or comments on item number nine?

Um I don't have a question.

That's just so much in terms of process because this is an interesting thing, so I kind of want to know a little bit more about that.

In relationship to um formal council people have allocations that were not necessarily utilized or didn't didn't happen.

Uh to what degree are we able to understand that going going back?

Which could that's I actually like the um I guess we have this our city manager or someone would tell us if the month the funds have been allocated.

Yeah, what's the question like no the question for example if there's been preceding uh people representing district three different different things are associated with statements that different council people have perhaps been allocated, but every reason the projects may not have gone forward.

I kind of want to have a better sense of that.

Because we're gonna go back and see what the spending is were.

But you know, yep.

Okay.

The process has always been that we when you guys ask for authorization when you guys ask for a stipend to go somewhere and you give authorization, the check is basically cut and and handed off to whether it's the greenhouse, feeding Westchester, whatever it may be.

There's not a whole lot after that of oversight on it.

The only thing I'll say though is in the past you had to write a letter.

I can answer about the stipend because I think Sarah was involved in it, but when we gave the stipend the school district had gotten from the business improvement district uh virtual reality equipment, and they would kind of create a program in the school.

Um and then what happened is we we allocated our stipends to give them 20,000 toward building that program.

And what happened is the program really never took off.

They had a lot of students were interested, but internally they had their own, there were changes to superintendents and things like that.

So never materialized.

So what we had done when we gave that, we put a restriction on the 20,000 dollars that it had to be used for the virtual reality.

Normally, when you give a stipend, you give it to an organization and there's no restrictions on it.

But in this particular case, there was that restriction.

So I'm the I sit on the board of the fund, and I can tell you that they have been wanting to see what they can do with that money.

It's been sitting in an account dormant because they couldn't use it because of the restriction.

So what this is doing is it's lifting that restriction so that they can use it for something other than letting it just sit there doing it.

I think that's a good I think it's a good idea.

I'm just trying to consider how I can.

No, but what I just been doing is that in most other monies that are given, they would go to an organization, and it doesn't say they only can use it for this or that.

Most of the money just goes to the organization, they could use it whatever way they want.

And there's really no way of knowing whether they used it or not.

In this particular case, because of the restriction on their if you looked at their filing, there's that $20,000 just gets carried over every year, every year, and doesn't go anywhere.

So that's why this stood out as a situation where they had to come back to this the council to approve this.

Usually checks are cut and their cash.

Yeah.

And actually the the one that I also uh gave to the program, how well do you know me?

It had the same restriction and had to go for that first.

Correct.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not the paybe that's what he's asking for.

That's not what I'm asking.

I think it would sorry, that's a believer, but it would just be good to get an audit of did the funds go out or not, that's all.

I just recall in the past it used to be used the film that I recall in the past, because I don't get the stipend as mayor, so obviously I haven't done it in a few years, but in the past, we would vote here, but the organization had to send a letter to the city manager requesting disbursement of funds.

And I have I can share the information as I have it.

So it wasn't maybe you've changed the process, which could good on you and good for the orgs.

But because I remember an or I thought the money went out, and they I was told they had to write a letter requesting it from the city manager, and then from there, there was like a template.

Okay, and then from there.

So my point is if an org didn't do that, then maybe and again I don't know how the accounting works and if the money's you know, I'm not I'm not I don't know that part, but I'm just framing that that's not the process how how I experience it in my terms as counsel, my term as counsel.

We'll look at it because I haven't seen that letter.

There you go.

New people, new new process.

Additionally, so if you guys authorize it within a week or two, I'm usually the one that then will write a voucher up and get that out there.

So we guarantee that we don't forget about it and then the money goes out to the organization that you're looking at.

Critical of that, I'm I'm trying to uh find ways of seeing if there's more availability relative to things like this happening because it could because I remember when I first created my council they asked this question around whether or not there were these funds were available from one year to the next, and I was told no, it was limited to just a year, and I'd come to find out that that wasn't the case.

So now I want to know more about this around what's going on.

Excellent.

Okay, moving on, item number 10.

Um council member K.

Sorry.

Um I have a motion and a second moving number nine to the consent agenda, please.

Um Tarantino and K.

All in favor say aye, any opposed.

Brilliant.

Number 10 is uh proposed that we had this presentation, it's we proposed adoption of the city of New Rochelle LSAP plan.

The memo describes this has to be adopted.

Um and then the next item is related to a grant that is tethered to this plan, or this plan is the predicate to a grant application.

Any other questions or comments on the LSAC report?

We have a motion and a second moving 10 to the consent agenda, please.

Uh Ash and Lloyd and Peters, all in favor say aye, any opposed.

Moving on to item number 11, which is said grant, which was described, I believe, at the end of the LSAT presentation.

It is proposed authorization regarding submission of the U.S.

Department of Transportation FY 2026 Safe Streets and Roads for All Implementation Grant Application.

Um, summarized for us previously, but any questions or comments on item number 11.

Councilmember Stern.

That's confirmed.

So this particular grant is not really for a complete streets overhaul North Avenue, so much as like signals and a few other, you know, correct.

Because the federal guidelines kind of don't like some of the concepts in our complete streets plan, but the idea, and so therefore they won't fund them.

So the idea here is to uh make the safety improvements and then think about uh you know any additional treatment.

We'll be thinking future in as we design the different projects to accommodate bikings and things like that, but likely they wouldn't be included in the grant application given this administration's focus.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on item number 11?

Hearing that a motion and a second moving 11 to our consent agenda.

Um Stern and Lopez, all in favor say aye.

Uh any opposed.

Thank you.

Item number 12 is a proposed acceptance of a grant award regarding Bloomberg Philanthropies, youth climate action fund.

I guess I can do this one.

Um so just through some of the work I've been able to do through Bloomberg, they um reached out and encouraged me by extension our city to apply for a youth climate justice fund, and we received 50,000 dollars that we're gonna be able to work on.

It's it's involving youth.

So when they first reached out, I reached out to Councilmember Kay, because obviously she has youth on the NREC committee, um, and we'll work with the staff and everything else on a plan, but I'm just excited that the work is yielding positive results for the city, and anything that involves our youth is always a positive thing.

So thank you, Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Um, any questions or comments on item 12?

Around the book for our mayor.

No, we don't need a round of applause.

We can get a motion in a second, and we can vote.

Yeah, I just want to say if you had your own stipend, maybe you could have been able to match these funds.

I just want to put that on the record.

I don't know how one gets a statement, but thank you very much for the consideration.

Another questions or comments or for number 12.

Motion, motion, stern and K.

All in favor say aye.

Any opposed.

Thank you very much.

Item number 13.

Sorry, I scrolled down.

A proposed amendment to chapter 331, the zoning code of the city of Michelle regarding occupational schools.

Uh Commissioner.

Uh it's located at 37 Plain Avenue.

It's uh there currently is an electrical company work, electrical contractor there, they're going to share the space.

They're going to rent about a 800 change foot uh space on the second floor.

It's called the Institute of Trade and Business.

They are applying for zoning.

They I received a referral from the buildings department that organization expressed an interest in starting this occupational training school for electrical and low voltage uh trade vocational training.

And um the the use is not currently permitted under the zoning, so we are coming here to uh request for a zoning amendment.

I've spoken to the the school owner, and you know, he's very excited to work with our existing vocational and workforce development programs and explore the opportunities that there are for that.

Um he was really enthusiastic, so I think it'd be a great addition to our city to have something like this.

I don't know.

The light industrial zone, you know, we have a very limited light industrial zone uh in in our shell.

And you know, when we put this into that light industrial zone, what other areas of the city to some a business like that operate besides you know a neighborhood business zone?

How where else can they operate?

Um specifically, I don't know.

I'd have to get I'd have to get back to you where where as of right they could be currently because I don't know if the top, I mean I don't I don't have a problem with the college.

I think it's a great great idea.

You know, my concern is that I I do know from talking to people that I know down there, this a very you know, we're the light industrial zones in all the communities are shrinking, getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And you know, if we're putting in businesses that can locate anywhere else in other areas of the city that uh are without having zoning changes, you know, you really prefer to save that kind of space for businesses that can only go into a light industrial zone.

Or the other question is can we allow it in there on a special permit that would limit us how many of these we can put in there because you know all of a sudden you start getting people starting to fill in other spaces with another category that's allowed in the area?

Um, and then we lose even more light industrial uh zoning.

I'm just losing no no, I'm talking about losing light industrial zoning.

I do.

I I think this particular type of school is you know very consistent with you know to support the businesses in the light industrial district, right?

They need employees.

So, for instance, this power com the company that owns the property, they own two buildings, they're talking about you know uh you know, doing renting or leasing a portion of the second building on the second floor.

They can continue their operation, and it actually helps to build a pipeline of employees that support that light industrial use.

So I actually think it very much complements uh as long as we keep it to like the type of uh vocational occupational training.

But you know, I can I can I'm just curious because I I again I'm very concerned about losing light industrial space in the city.

I mean, everybody, I mean, we're running into problems that you know, people with different types of businesses are just running out of places to open their businesses and they leave.

They go to Mount Vernon, they go to the Bronx, and you know it's still part of the fiber of what Neuroshell has always been is that that zone.

So I I just want to make sure that you know this doesn't open up the zone to not only businesses like this that are tied to the light industrial zone, but other businesses that fall into their category because I don't understand what the category would be.

Would it be schools?

Would it be uh occupational training school for uh but what would it be?

Yeah, but what kind of category would it be?

A school category or would it be uh tied to light in it had to, you know, could we make it where it's tied directly to light industrial use?

Or a um almost like what we do in some places where it's accessory to the light industrial use so that it limits it to that use, that type of use.

I can I can look into that.

Just certainly relevant for this.

Uh that uh we need in motion.

I understand.

Can we hold that or can we then get figure that out?

I think we can make the change between now and the uh meeting.

And what's the change?

I'm sorry.

The change would be to add the use of a uh occupational training school to the list of permitted uses in the light industrial district.

Okay, does that affect an accessory use or but we can modify that that's the change ultimately, but we we would add language to modify that that uh the subject matter of the school has to be accessory to one of the approved underlying light industrial uses in the district.

So you that's a sentence you will add to item number 13.

Correct.

So I don't think it's on consent agenda, then I think we would then kind of I don't know what the formal how you say it, but we have to have a public hearing.

Oh, wait, 13 and so 13, 14, 15 are related.

Actually, good call.

So I can still add that they could vote to have the public hearing at the RLM.

Would that be sufficient time between you're gonna have to now change the what the oh yeah, because your notice you can have a the amendment is short enough?

Yeah, yeah.

So I think you could vote on 14 and 15 and then make the changes before the notice for the public hearing.

I mean yeah, I mean if you're okay with that, I'm okay.

I mean, yeah, that's I you can have the changes.

I'll have the changes, yeah.

We'll have the changes.

Should we have a motion and the second acknowledging the changes?

And then and then a motion and a second, yeah, pursuant to the changes that we adopted.

Okay, to the notion.

I mean, I can, but I mean if we do it now, M and then whatever we need to do.

We could also change it.

It allows to move forward and it allows us to have the ability to do what we need to do implementation.

I feel like it's a regular amendment.

Yeah.

Motion and a second to amend to include the second definition.

Yeah.

If it's approved and a motion and a second to set the public hearing the legislation as with the voted on amendment, yes, frame.

Okay.

This was a cute one at the end.

Um because actually the current change as proposed says that an occupational education school is one conducted in an approved secondary school or classes which prepares individuals for gainful employment after leaving school as a semi-skilled or skilled worker or technicians, sub-professionals and recognize occupations or new emerging occupations.

Um so we can just clarify that language that it has to be for a use that is an accessory to one of those already committed in the LI district.

Right.

May I have a motion and a second?

Don't move.

Um to amend the proposed amendment to chapter 331 to include the language that you just said to include that the subject matter of the training school has to be an accessory to one of the uses already offer permitted under the the light and existing light industrial zoning.

Motion and a second to adopt this amendment, please.

A motion and a motion to adopt a uh our second item 13 with the amendment of including the language to uh of the definition of a what it what type of school did we call it again?

Occupational training school training school, yes, as as stated as modified, which we'll have to go back and yes.

Can I have a motion and a second?

I think I did that right.

Madam Clerk, can I have a motion and a second to the adopted the amended language for item number 13 for the proposed amendment as indicated in item number 13?

Motion and a second, please.

Tarantino and Peters.

All in favor.

Any opposed?

Brilliant.

Back to the drawing board, friends.

Okay.

This has now been intro.

Okay.

So now number 14 is a motion to and the second.

We're voting to designate the public hearing regarding the proposed amendment to chapter 331.

Motion and a second, please.

Set the public hearing.

K and Stern, all in favor say aye.

Any opposed.

Great.

And that public hearing will actually be on five.

Oh no.

Uh 6-9, June 9th, 2026.

Okay.

And then item number four 15 is another vote.

Proposed lead agency need agency status regarding proposed amendment to chapter 31.

A motion and a second to adopt item 15, please.

K and Oshan Lee.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Great.

Taking a breath.

Okay.

Item 16.

Is oh this is a good one.

Okay.

Proposed authorization to negotiate and execute.

With the humble bumble book LLC for train station reads.

So see how much I'm smiling and you saw where my vibes were, and I got the right back up.

Thank you.

Um Commissioner, anything you'd like to add?

No, we're really excited to welcome this great use to the train station complex.

It's 615 square foot space.

We're gonna have a bookstore.

Um it's gonna start with a dollar per month lease and graduate to 1400 per month by year three.

Um and it's consistent that that end lease is consistent with the costs of the cost per square foot of the other leases in the facility.

Excellent.

Questions or comments on item number sixteen.

I just want to say that um thank you because it is extremely important to make sure that women own businesses are kept in the Rochelle and having that stored there.

I think it's a great opportunity for everyone who goes to the train station.

So I am looking forward to stopping that humble bumble.

And I should point out that Otilia was an active uh you know vendor in all of our holiday markets since the beginning, all the street fairs, everything.

She always really adds a lot of vitality and really understands merchandising and aesthetics of work, it's really it's a win-win for us.

Yes.

Any other questions or comments on 16?

Just uh very quickly, we know the humble bumble is amazing, but besides the Trader Joe's, a bookstore in our downtown is actually the number one type of retail people have asked for regularly.

Yes.

So that that's actually number one on the list before supermarkets and everything like that.

We we actually did several studies for it, and it was always a bookstore number one.

Yeah, so glad to have a bookstore in our downtown.

Any other questions or comments on 16?

I'm just gonna say I am thrilled because it's not just any bookstore.

Yes, it is Miss OT's bookstore.

And the only thing I'm sad for is all of my discretionary funding, which is gonna go to your store because books make me happy.

The to be read list is exponentially long, but I'd rather they all go to you.

So we're so thrilled.

I'm so so excited about this, honestly.

Um a motion and a second to move 16 to the K and Lopez for girl power.

All in favor say aye.

Aye, any opposed.

And item number 17, another burillions one.

I was so excited to get to the end of this agenda, not because it was finishing.

Um proposed authorization to negotiate and execute a lease agreement with Juicy LLC for train station retail space.

They are our how long have they been on division?

18 months?

Yeah, right?

Yeah, beautiful aesthetics, sisters, great food.

Questions or comments on number 17?

Right next to the console.

Thank you.

I look forward to going to the toy station.

I should take the train more.

And books.

Can't ask for a better train station, humbly, humble bubble.

Um question, I think we'll call it 17.

Sorry, everybody's like a number 17.

Just a comment that you know, everyone should compare the state train station location with the location on division street to see which one is better.

Keep trying them back and forth to figure out which one.

Yes.

The one on division street is also next to the assignment store that people should check out to test that.

No, it's great.

It's super great.

And it'd be great if we could contract them for our dinners between our cows and citizens to be heard in.

And if we keep talking, we won't get dinner tonight.

So on number 17?

No.

No, can we do motion second 17?

I'll repeat.

Motion and a second on 17 to the consent agenda, please.

I'm gonna uh girl power it again, K and Lopez.

All in favor say aye.

Any opposed, it's sisters.

Um city manager, please.

Just one small item.

I'm going back.

Sorry about this.

Um back to item seven, which was the um resolution to apply for the grant.

Oh, Drick.

Thank you, Commissioner.

There's no specific mention of the project name in the in the memo of the resolution.

So we want to make sure that the project name, you know, white window power is in there in the event that we do get the grant.

That the grant agreement is specifically referencing that location.

Okay.

Want to add that location into the we'll make the change for the consent agenda.

Procedurally, do we need to revote this amendment?

You can take that administrative.

I mean, should you leave?

Okay.

Um just mentioned projects generically.

We have this meeting, and then we have one more to clean up.

Um I'm advised, unless something has changed in the last four hours that there are no executive sessions.

May I have a room meeting?

No, I have one thing.

This is a little out of the north ordinary, but I just, you know, I've been thinking about this, but I was going to bring it up last month, and I've decided I'm gonna bring it up tonight.

You know, we have a citizens to be heard every every month, and it's called citizens to be heard.

And you know, with all that's going on in the world, not everybody who comes up to speak to us is a citizen.

Uh we have people on student visas, work visas in Neurochell.

Um we have you know just community residents.

So what I was thinking of, maybe we need to consider changing the name of the the um public hearings to uh community be heard.

And it's more about the Neurochell community as opposed to Neurochell citizens.

And I just wanted to see if anybody on council had any thoughts on that, if they agreed with it or not.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, I just I just think it's more it's more inclusive and makes people more it's more welcoming, I think.

It's just something that uh, you know, just watching the people coming up to speak, and you know, if some people are just not, you know, they're they're up there, they have a they have issues they want to talk about.

And you know, I try to put myself in their place and see how it feels to stand up there and you know you might not be a citizen, but we need to hear what you have to say.

So procedurally corporate counsel, what does this look like?

Okay.

Okay.

Just something that I would just like to add the comment that our next step in this would be the as lifelong Neurochelians to figure out how to be more inclusive of new Neurochelians.

I think that we should have that conversation collectively to be welcoming of their ideas, as we have been, but we should encourage it of our residents as well.

That's it.

Uh but at 6 40 37, a motion and a second to adjourn this meeting, please.

Um, K and Lopez move faster.

All in favor say aye.

And we'll see you at seven for public comment.

Thank you so much.

I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Good evening again, and welcome to the public comment portion of tonight's meeting.

The we have two public hearing items, at the conclusion of which we will shift to citizens to be heard.

Um for both topics, you are time limited to three minutes, and we ask that you state your full name and address for the record.

With respect to comments related to the public hearing notice, they must be germane to the topic of the public hearing notice for citizens to be heard.

However, you may speak of any topic of your choosing.

Um, I have some information I must read.

The first item on our public hearing list is a proposed amendment to the code of the city of New Rochelle regarding vehicles and traffic relative to a proposed amendment to Chapter 312 of the Code of the City of Neurochell entitled Vehicles and Traffic in Relation to the Removal and Impound of Vehicles and the Definition of Abandoned Vehicles.

This was published on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026.

We have one registered speaker for this topic, and it is James O'Toole.

Good evening, James O'Toole, 230 North Avenue.

I commend the police commissioner and fortunate to getting this thing passed by you folks.

I hope it does pass, because if you go into the New Rock Garage or the transit center, you can see multiple vehicles with dust with about this much on it.

It's incredible.

Just drive through those two garages and look what's going on in there.

It's very, very bad.

There's abandoned vehicles everywhere.

I talk to um Sergeant Solano all the time.

He sends through cars, they give tickets, they put these stickers on them, they put boots on them, and they're still not moved.

But we can't get them, we can't get them out of here because you gotta wait, I don't know, 30, 60 days or whatever it is.

So if this thing could get this through faster, it will be a great thing for the city.

And I know all the dead end streets in No Rochelle have them.

Not really on the main streets because they get them out of there right away, but on the dead end streets, ask any people that live on a code de sac or like that, they'll love this law.

So thank you for getting it through, and thank you to Commissioner Reynolds.

All right.

Thank you.

Um that was our only registered speaker for item number one on the public hearing agenda, so I'll close call that to a close rather.

Our second matter is a uh public hearing notice, notice of a 30-day public comment period from April 15th, 2026 to May 15th, 2026, and a public hearing on May 12th for substantial amendments to the 2020-2024 action plans and 2019-2026 CDBG budgets.

The city is proposing to amend its 2020-2024 annual action plans and the 2019 to 2026 CDBG budgets as follows.

Repurposing $666,445 for ADA sidewalk and roadway improvements, supplementing the 150,000 dollars already allocated in the 2026 budget, repurpose 170,928 for downtown gateway improvements, and realign 103,744 dollars in unused administrative funds from prior years within the facade improvements program to direct program expenses.

Our registered speaker for this item is also James O'Toole.

Again, James O'Toole, 230 North Avenue.

As far as the gateway money, that is a great thing.

And I hope it's used when you come off I-95 exit 16, because that looks like I I don't even know.

All that work was done on a bridge, but that can use major improvement.

And I know it's MTA and all this other garbage that you gotta talk to.

But guess what?

If we go in there and just do it, they're not gonna say nothing.

It's gonna be a major improvement.

I mean, we just gotta do it.

Coming off into the great, I mean, what we want to say is a good downtown or whatever you want to call it, but coming off that exit, it looks like crap.

I'm sorry.

That it just looks and I hopefully this money is going to that and off of exit 15.

Same thing.

I know we did some improvements down there, but coming into this city, we want to say with a Queen City of the sound.

You know, do would you stand there coming on like welcome to No Rochelle with all that garbage behind you?

I don't think so.

So hopefully reallocating this money is a good purpose.

And also if you can do it, the presentation that was made through the uh parks and rec today.

Allocate all the money to them, those programs, because they really need it, and we it was actually shown today how many programs they have.

So thank you.

And please consider that.

Thank you.

Uh, he was the only registered speaker for item number two, so I will call that public hearing to a close.

James, you might as well stand right back up.

Shifting to citizens to be heard.

Mr.

O'Toole, you are also our our first and thus far only registered speaker.

Again, James O'Toole speaker to North Avenue.

I just want to say I heard about this parking plan today.

And this is probably the 30th one I've been through listening to these meetings.

I have piles and piles of parking studies.

And I think Albert would contest to the same thing.

He's one of the longest standing council members here.

Parking is a bad word in No Rochelle.

But I live in the middle of downtown between on North Avenue, between Main Street and Yuguenut.

And I can tell you for a fact, it is an absolute disaster with the double parking.

Every single day.

And I'm sorry, the police officer comes, you know, the CSO comes and they're just beep, beep, beep, beep, you know, with the horn.

That just can't happen.

They gotta get out and give these people tickets so they learn.

And what that study guy said, signs make a difference.

They do.

Put up a sign and say, if you dare double park here, it's a hundred dollars or whatever the fine is.

We did that years ago.

Noam Bramson did it.

But he got criticized.

They were like, oh, the signs are too bad.

But the study guy just told you tonight, signs work.

Put the signs up.

Double parking in this area is a hundred dollar fine.

No questions asked.

Now I know you don't have control of the courts downstairs because I've sat through and I've told you this many times.

They don't enforce the fine.

So the next time you appoint a judge or whatever, just make sure they know that they got to enforce that fine.

You know, it's yeah, I get it.

You know, the judge says, oh, yeah, I understand you're trying to make a living.

I'm trying to get around downtown.

You go up Main Street, North.

It's it's a just a complete nightmare.

And there's plenty of places to pull over for five minutes, like the guy said to put your Uber driver or your DoorDash.

I have plenty of room right in front of my building.

It says no standing.

They don't even pull up if there's an open space, they don't even pull into it.

It's a nightmare.

So please, I mean, tell the police they have to have either walking or drive, whatever.

I think the walking one is better just to go up and give a ticket.

And don't beep the horn and say, you know, come on, move.

No, write the ticket, then they'll learn.

And then they'll be sold.

It's like white planes.

You double park in white planes, you automatically get a ticket in two minutes.

I don't care what it is.

I work in white planes.

I have Uberids come up into front of my business.

They can't even pull up.

They got to go in the parking lot.

Or they're automatically fined.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was our last registered speaker for the evening.

So I hope everyone has a good night.

This meeting is adjourned.