We'll just get started in the spirit of just giving as much time for for conversation.

I do want to open by thanking all of you for taking the time on a really nice weather day to come and learn more about some of the work plan that the city has for districts one and two.

I want to make sure that we give a special like opening round of applause to all of our staff who's here today after hours to engage with you.

So I want to extend my gratitude to them for taking the time.

Every department is represented here this evening with um with various levels of of leadership within the teams, and so it's a really good opportunity to connect and ask questions around things that you are facing as residents here in New Michelle.

Um the format for tonight, I'm after myself, you'll hear from Martha Lopez representing district one and Al Tarantino representing district two.

Then we will hear from our city manager, Wilfredo Melendez about the work plan.

For me, when I hear work plan, what I hear it as is the budget in action, just the way that the budget will be impacting.

Some of what he shares will be citywide, but some of what he'll also share are from projects in districts one and two.

After that, then you'll have an opportunity to speak with all of the departments here.

This is our fourth event for this year, and the feedback from the last three is that it's been great to sort of ask a question about your tax bill, maybe check in about registering your dog, asking a question about I don't know, pothole, sorry, Commissioner, um, or connecting with PDE.

In other words, you can kind of really engage with a lot of different departments and get some good information.

And for our staff, I think it's great that they hear directly from residents um what their concerns are so that they can consider your feedback as they develop policy and continue their excellent service to our city.

So I'm gonna step aside and open the floor up to Martha Lopez.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor.

Hi, good evening.

And uh as our mayor was saying, this is an opportunity for you to go to each table and really speak to them and ask them about your concerns about your needs.

It is very important because I do get many phone calls on a day daily basis, and actually I was just speaking to the Department of Economic Development about uh a problem that we were having at the Hageton building, and uh when I spoke to some of my constituents, they said we have already spoken to them.

And uh he said to me, we are taking care of that.

So it is extremely important that you let us know what your needs are so that we can attend to all of those needs.

And I'm gonna be here the whole evening, so please come and talk to me if you want to do it privately, if you want to do it you know, publicly, I would be more than happy to speak to you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Martha.

Thank you, Yudira.

Um I wanna first thank everybody for coming tonight.

Um we had a nice crowd here tonight.

So give yourselves a round of applause.

Thank you.

Um to add on to what Martha was saying, it's an a perfect opportunity to s to speak to people in all the different departments in in City Hall.

I mean, you can go and talk to people and ask them why your taxes are too high if you want.

Um I don't know if you'll like the answer, but you'll get an answer.

Uh you could also speak to people about uh different things that are being done in town that maybe you don't understand why, and you can ask them those questions also.

You can also at the end uh you know, with a question we're gonna do a question and answer or no question and answer.

We did last year.

We did the same format last year.

Same form okay.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

So uh, you know, if you need to meet with me privately afterwards, you wanna you have some questions that you want to answer, I'll be happy to stay and and speak to you.

But um we'll start with the uh program now.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you.

Thanks for coming out, thanks for the council, thanks for the mayor.

Uh I'm gonna say for the fourth time, definitely a uh great opportunity to take advantage tonight of every department that's here.

I want to thank our staff for the excellent work they do every day and um being available tonight um to answer any questions.

So um I'm gonna not take too much time through this because really the point is really to engage with our departments, but I'll give you just a brief uh view on the 2026 work plan.

Um like the mayor says, it's it's really starts uh we actually gotta start that process for 2027 in a in a couple weeks.

It starts in June, takes us through the budget cycle.

Um and uh it's an important exercise to really, you know, really look to see what our initiatives and what our concentrations are gonna be on for 2027 and you know make sure that we're budgeted properly for those.

Um so every year we do this exercise.

Um it's uh it ultimately serves as a roadmap.

It kind of guides us, right, as a department um to see what we plan and what our major initiatives are.

us through the budget cycle um and uh it's an important exercise to really you know really look to see what our initiatives and what our concentrations are going to be on for 2027 and you know make sure that we're budgeted properly for those um so every year we do this exercise um it's uh it ultimately serves as a roadmap it kind of guides us right as a department um to see what we plan and what our major initiatives are uh for 2025 into 2026 uh we made it a point to um really get feedback from our council so we we we at the beginning of the budget process we initiated uh kind of something new for for this year was to get really feedback from each of the different councils so what's important in your district you know what what what do you hear about what are the residents concerned about um and what do you feel as though immediate needs for 2026 and we what are the long-term needs so this year we did that exercise we got a lot of we got feedback from all of council and a lot of that work uh a lot of those things went into the 2026 plan so that was something that I think you know we were we were happy that we did and I think it it shows like you know transparency and collapse collaboration between council and and our different departments um just the you know so we said how we break up the plan previously the plan was broken up by departments and how like different you know what each department did we took another different look at it and we said okay um you know what are the major buckets that are important for you know a city to be really concerned about right so we developed these public safety a resilient infrastructure right um environmental sustainability and stewardship economic development and community building so we established these five buckets as kind of our guide right of what those initiatives are so every initiative we kind of characterized and put into one of these buckets uh for 2026 this kind of a lot on this slide but basically what this is saying so 2025 we had a lot of new things identified like a lot of new plans that were developed um you know a lot of planning exercises a lot of things were in motion in 2025 so we had a tight budget um and then we have limited resources so you know our idea my idea was like you know why don't we don't want to take too much on we already got a lot of things in the hopper um that are going to carry over to the next year um a lot of big things so um so that this year the main focus was to really accomplish things um we had obviously there's some new initiatives that we put forward there's always going to be new stuff but we had a lot of stuff that was still in the hopper that we needed to get done so that's that analogy on top we want to land the planes we've got a lot of planes up in the air that we identified last year and we want to get those projects done and those initiatives at least started for 2026 and that was kind of the underlying theme so on the first public uh safety emergency preparedness um so we had these public safety advisory meetings I'm just gonna highlight again not everything on the work plan is on this slide if you want to please go to the website the entire work plan is up there so one of the um initiatives that came out of the police department this year and spearheaded by our commissioner uh reynolds was to to develop um a public safety advisory meeting so to focus on emergency response because you know what's you know things are happening with everything now uh with emergencies you know prevention uh looking at our critical uh infrastructure so it's the police department um our public works department our fire department getting together having these meetings and really getting feedback and letting them know what's going on in their world and uh it offers you know build upon trust with the community enhance the transparency and it really forces some collaboration so it was a really nice initiative we had one meeting so far we're going to the goal is to have a couple more of uh before the end of the year public is welcome what's on your mind it gives you uh I think a little sense of uh comfort at least the city's thinking about emergency response and and how to deal with critical infrastructure issues also um and then again we have a list of things that we started in 25 that either we just completed or are going to continue for 2026.

So we have a CSO body cam program uh we expanded our public safety fleet we had vacant firefighter positions that we we did finish hiring we're always pursuing grant funding that is the one thing that we don't stop looking for is looking for grants that could help us fund different initiatives our police department is also working on an interactive data hub so if you go to our website right now all the stats are kind of static and they just tell you what's right there it's gonna be a whole brand new look where it's gonna be interactive you put your mouse over it you can see numbers change it'll be real time data and actually expand on that data so um a lot of things that are we started in 25 we're gonna finish in 26 resilient infrastructure um our local safety action plan this was an initiative that we started this year and completed it was a short time frame is really to identify some of the really high hazard traffic

It's gonna be a whole brand new look where it's gonna be interactive.

You put your mouse over it, you can see numbers change, it'll be real-time data and actually expand on that data.

So a lot of things that are we started in 25, gonna finish in 26.

Resilient infrastructure.

Um local safety action plan.

This was an initiative that we started this year and completed.