So just in the spirit of maximizing the time we have tonight, I just want to say thank you to everyone for coming out, and I want to start by giving a round of applause to the professional staff, everyone who's here around the tables for taking the time after work to come out and connect and engage with all of you here today.

So the spirit of these meetings is for you to hear from your councilman, my colleague and friend David Peters, and then to hear from our city manager Wilfredo Melendez about the well, you'll hear David's vision and thoughts on the district and from our city manager, you will hear more about the 2026 work plan, and there will be an emphasis on projects citywide but also in district three.

And for me, like it's like what's a work plan.

For me, I think of it as like the budget in action, right?

The council passes the budget, but what does that actually look like?

Visit the projects or goals or initiatives.

And so we found that this is a really nice way to sort of bring City Hall to your community, to different parts of the community.

Um and once our city manager is done, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions as many as you'd like of all of the departments represented.

As I scan the room, every department is represented by leadership.

And so what other residents have told us is they've been able to kind of ask questions of the clerk about maybe registering your dog, but then to finance about paying a tax bill to DPW to ask about an issue with composting, you can kind of really maximize your ability to engage here.

And so I really encourage you to take an opportunity to do that.

Our staff really are on the front line, they're so dedicated and thoughtful, and it's important for them to hear directly from you what your concerns are and what's top of mind.

Um, Councilman Peters and I will be here as well to hear and answer any questions you might have, and I'd be remiss to not recognize Councilman Ashan Loye representing District 4.

So I'm now gonna hand it over to Councilman Peterson.

Thank you uh everyone for coming out this evening.

Uh this is again, as the mayor had just mentioned, a wonderful opportunity for you directly to be able to get your questions answered and to begin to to to more deeply be involved in what's really important to you.

Uh one of the areas when the mayor just mentioned that we were talking about a vision for for district three.

We we recognize and understand that district three is a very diverse district, both in relationship to uh length of of stay here in New Rochelle, meaning that many of the residents have been here for many, many years as homeowners, um as apartment dwellers and the like, and in relationship to the changes that have been happening both downtown and in New Rochelle in general.

We also have uh the diversity in relationship to new people who have moved into New Rochelle because they consider New Rochelle a destination place for them for whatever their reasons are.

And so as we continue to think about this particular district, we it's in I would be remiss if I didn't talk about over the last several years.

There's been this desire and attempt to to particularly here at District 3 and the Lincoln Avenue district in particular, to kind of reframe and reunite uh the Lincoln Avenue district with the with the availability of of what it means to be able to be connected in many ways.

So over the years, the disconnection historically has been a big part of the lifeblood of New Rochelle for generations.

And so part of what has emerged uh is an attempt to try to make the connections more deeply so that as New Rochelle begins to grow, that there's there's not this level of people being neglected, being left out, not being able to participate fully in what is becoming the new Rochelle experience.

Having said that, we also know that there have been ups and downs, and there have been a number of ways in which people have emerged in this idea that we're thinking about, whether whether whether it's the link, whether it's around affordable housing, whether it's around development, uh whether it's around economic development, or or whether it's around quality of life life issues.

We recognize and understand that that that's that those are things that are important to people.

Uh we have the young people here, we have people growing older, we have people who find the difficulty to stay in place as they begin continue to grow older.

We also have in District 3 the majority of the low-income housing, if you will, as it's as it's been defined.

We need to change the way we, in my view, the way in which we characterize that, so we aren't looking and thinking about people in terms of their status being the condition in which they exist as human beings.

And so having said that, some of the things that uh that we've been attempting to emphasize is availability for for response time and for the city to respond to the very diverse needs within the district of district three.

And you can imagine that everyone is never necessarily on the same page around everything.

Um but it's really important to to understand that part of what we're looking to do is to be able to respond as effectively as we can.

And for your vision to grow with with all of us as we continue to move forward.

So that's the goal.

That's that's kind of how things are emerging here as we continue to move forward.

So I want to encourage you once again to speak what's on your mind, be very transparent about it, and also to interface with uh with the staff that we have here because they're here today to hear your concerns, and also I I want to add that if there if there have been ways in which you have found our city government here to respond to you in a really good way, let them know that as well.

You know, it's really important because when you know when you work in city government, sometimes you know you just feel a sense of whether or not you're you're able to be effective or not.

You don't necessarily hear people follow up with, I really appreciate what you were able to do when you responded to this or you responded to that.

That's a good thing to happen too.

So we want to be in relationship with you.

So the vision for district three is to be in relationship.

When you're in relationship, then relationships make it easier to get to what the issues might be.

We may not necessarily always have agreement, but what we're seeking is mutual understanding of these issues.

And so as we continue to move forward, the sense of mutual understanding could be something that people can come away with and say, um, you know, I I didn't necessarily agree with that, but I'm glad that you were able at least I have a better understanding of the why.

The why is important to people.

That's really important.

And so part of of what my job is, and part of what all of us as city government's job is is to also help you understand the why.

So you don't feel it you're experiencing it as an imposition on a way of life that you've made a commitment to for whatever their directions are in being here in New Rochelle.

So again, let's continue to move forward.

Let's continue to work through whatever needs to be worked through, and let's create a shared vision that makes sense for many, and not only a few.

All right.

So that's the goal, and uh, and I hope that you can catch that vision as we continue to move forward along the way.

So at this point, I'm gonna turn it over to our city manager to talk to you about the the work plan that's currently in play for you to have an opportunity to hear it from them and then begin to talk with everybody else.

So thank you again for coming out today.

Let's take advantage of this time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, thank you, council.

Um, and thanks for everybody for coming out tonight.

Um, I'll just touch on the 2026 work plan as was mentioned before, but I don't want to take too much time away because it's a really once in a year opportunity that you have here to have every department from City Hall represented, include you know, the commissioners, directors of every department here.

So please take advantage of that.

Any questions you have.

So we'll go into the 2026 work plan.

So this it's a process that we've got to actually embark on it pretty soon for 2027.

It starts early in the year and it culminates at the end of the year when there's the final adoption of the budget.

So, what is it?

It's a it's a it's a roadmap of what we intend to do and plan for the next coming year.

So it highlights some of the major initiatives that we plan for the year, and like I said, it's a roadmap outlining the strategic priorities and the operational steps and what it's gonna take.

Uh every every initiative has it could be simple, one or two steps to a long process, right?

So it's really looking at that, you know, identifying what those steps are, putting it into a plan, making sure we have money for it, right?

Budget, budget for it, making sure that we also have the resources to support that.

Um thing we did this year that was important for us was we wanted to get input from the council, right?

So we had uh interactive right in the beginning of the process, we asked city council to you know, let us know what's important for you guys in your district, um, and then we'll see how we could you know take that as a priority in the when we develop our plan, and that I think worked out pretty well this year.

So we got a lot of feedback from our council and we try to incorporate that into the plans.

We don't want to just proceed, you know.

We have the departments know their priorities, right?

They're intimate with their work that they do every year, and they know what they have to budget on the up pretty much on the operational basis and a capital basis too.

But this year we wanted to get input from council so that we could have a well-rounded plan for the year.

And that's kind of like how we go about it.

Uh last year for 2025, rather than break up the plan into like different departments, we created these buckets, you know, like these themes of what the plan should be for the city and and and so forth.

So this is what we came up with public safety, emergency preparedness, a resilient infrastructure to carry us not only through the media issues that we have here, but to carry us 20, 30 years from now, environmental sustainability and stewardship, economic development, and community building.

Environmental sustainability and stewardship, economic development, and community building.

So we identified those five buckets as major initiatives.

So in 2025, when we developed those buckets, and just I guess timing and everything, the way things were working out, you know, we had a lot of things in the cooker.

You know, things were being plans were being developed, initiatives were being talked about, and they were really gaining steam.

So 20.

I looked at 2025 as like the year of ideas and and you know, things that we wanted to do, but we necessarily didn't get to them, right?

So, you know, I said, you know, rather than take on too many initiatives, like let's finish what we got.

Like let's let's let's work on what we got in the cooker.

So 2026 was more focused on really the accomplishing those things that we wanted to do.

Um we used the the little analogy on top, like land the plane.

So we got a lot of planes up in the air hovering in 25.

We had a lot of good ideas, a lot of projects on the horizon, but we this year we want to try to get some of those planes down and land them and finally you know come through on them.

So, you know, we identified those things on the left-hand side, and then this year was the focus is to accomplish those things.

So on the public safety uh front.

And again, this is just the snapshot of the plan.

If you really want to see all the items for the complete uh plan citywide, just go on our website.

There's a link there that has a complete 2026 plan.

I just took a couple of them because I don't want to take too much time because we're here really for the for the departments.

So on public safety, one big thing that our police commission initiated this year was our um public safety advisory uh meetings.

We already had one meeting, um, and that the purpose here was to focus on emergency response prevention in our critical infrastructure.

And um, and what was the goal?

It was the goal was to really build upon trust with the community, enhance our transparency, and really to collaborate with the community based on emergency response.

So we had one meeting, and I think the plan is to continue those meetings and maybe spread them out.

Maybe we'll have one here at one point and spread them out throughout the city.

Again, it's a great opportunity to interact directly with the police department, our DPW department, and our fire department.

And then we carry forth, and I wanted to list a lot of things we started in 25, and then we're either just finished them or we're gonna continue to do them in 26.

And here's a listing of those things uh trainings, body cam program, expanding our public safety fleet, um, vacant firefighter position hiring, which I think we did already.

We have gonna add an additional 24 hour ambulance to the downtown for this year, pursuing grant funding like we're always doing.

Um the police commissioner is actively working on uh interactive data hub that's gonna really um revolutionize the way we see uh our crime data and the way that's communicated right now, it's very static view of that.

It's gonna be really interactive and really give really insight up to uh you know current stats and so forth.

So a lot of these programs are things that we started in 25, hopefully finished in 26 on resilient infrastructure.

Um again, one of the major uh projects that we've been working on very extensively throughout City Hall, different departments, DPW development is our link project.

And um you've heard uh heard a lot about the project.

I don't have to go over what the intent of, but very important projects for the city of New York.

Um, so right now we are currently working with our state partners, uh, most only most notably the the State Department of Transportation to finalize the final design report.

There's a lot of administrative steps that have to go into the project.

Uh it is state land, which is uh a major undertaking to convey that state land to the local municipality.

So we're in the process of working that out right now.

Um, and as soon as that's done, we would we would concurrently we've initiated it, but we're starting the um that that land transfer process and with the intent of you know we've secured funding, we have uh a lot of uh um grant funding and local funding that would hope us help us to start at least the initial phase of that contract, which is going to be concentrated on Memorial Highway to improve some of the safety conditions at um Memorial Lincoln, um, and then start to uh address some of the stormwater issues there also.

So with the intent is to um you know work with our state, finalize those administrative details and let out a contract.

The good news is that we are fully designed for the project.

Um so we are just waiting for um a work permit to start that work.

Uh some of the other major initiatives we had on on this year of development of a local safety action plan that identified some of the high-hazard corridors, traffic corridors throughout the city.

Um it was a process that uh took us a couple months to do with a lot of stakeholder engagement, public outreach, but it's a plan that helps us tremendously.

It's a it's a tool that we could use later on to really um apply for grant funding to take care of uh our traffic, our high hazard areas of traffic concerns throughout the city.

Um the Webster Avenue Corridor, uh major design initiative from all the way from Main Street to the Hutchin River uh Parkway, all along Webster Avenue to uh replace all of the existing traffic signals and all of those intersections to upgrade those traffic signals, put them into our our system, uh improve the pedestrian crossing hardware at each of those uh intersections.

Um and then we have a lot of things going on in that particular corridor.

Uh one of the things that we introduced last week was a pilot program for our school zones.

It was uh initiated by the state.

We actually got final approval to create um a red light uh traffic speed zones within our school zones, and then on a separate track, we are initiating an effort to to put into our code um the area about Lincoln Avenue between Memorial and Prince Street that we've have concerns about and putting that into our code as a um school safety zone.

So we're getting some data on that, and I anticipate pretty soon we're gonna introduce that to add that into our code as a school safety zone, which would then make it eligible for this program in the future to create these um red light um, I mean not red light, um speed zone areas.

Um storm mitigation front, we have a lot of projects scheduled this year on the stormwater uh front, a lot of capital work scheduled to as part of our 10-year stormwater mitigation program.

I just noted one here, a mini drainage improvement project for localized flooding condition on Mayflower Avenue.

Uh over in our parks and recreation over in the Lincoln Park pool.

Uh we've for those who don't know, we've we uh secured a swim grant for one million dollars with our 250,000 match to eventually um rehab or replace that pool.

Um so we're in the process of finalizing that grant agreement that will make us eligible to start that process to get a designer on board to identify what has to be done with the pool.

Um, and those are the next steps there.

Um, and then after that, we'll determine based upon what the design tells us, we could actually determine what the true cost would be and see what other funding that we need to make that project a reality.

But the good thing is that we got the grant and we'll start the design work to identify what's needed to rehab that pool.

Uh on the comfort station, um, that's the adding of new bathrooms that'll be available citywide.

We are currently in the design phase for that right now.

Um, hopefully um end that design initiative sometime this year, and then identify funding, which we do have or assemble the funding for construction uh hopefully in 2027.

Some of the other additional or carry-forward initiatives that we had.

Um, there's a Ruby D kiosk activation, so over in Ruby D park in um in the downtown.

We have a safety kiosk that we're uh hopefully going to cut a ribbon on in a couple weeks that'll enable us to as an outpost for our police department to increase the safety and the police presence in in the park area.

Uh we're currently on the way with our downtown two-way conversion.

Um it's an active contract to eventually convert main street and Huguenot into two-way uh streets.

Um we don't think that's actually gonna happen until 2027, but the work is being done right now.

Um we're gonna upgrade our street lights, meaning those ornamental street lights that you see on Memorial Highway in the downtown, those green posts.

So we're just going to make just replace them and just you know create a nice vibrant look to those corridors.

And some other initiatives that we have department scanning to you know to uh make some of the paperwork more efficient and scree up some room in our building department.

We're acquiring a uh site uh west side to create more parking, 38 First Street, and we're doing some uh dock improvements at the marina.

Uh environmental sustainability and stewardship.

Just I'll just highlight some of the big projects the over at the IT Center, ITC Center, we have a solar array project to install rooftop uh photovoltaic voltaic systems at the ITC.

It just advances our clean energy goals.

Um we have the community forest management plan initiative that we started again in 2025, and we are about to finalize that plan, which basically identifies locations that was complete survey of the entire city uh of every tree in the city's right-of-way and um identifying them, doing a condition assessment, um, also identifying places where we could plant new trees.

Um, and trees are important, especially when you get down to a more urban area, you know, you have that heat effect uh action happening.

So that plan is uh for this year, we're gonna extend expand our urban canopy by over 300 trees.

So between the spring planting and the fall planting, so by the end of the year, at some point we'll have 300 brand new trees planted, and I have to say I don't have the the exact numbers, but probably for this district, they're gonna receive most of those initial plantings uh that were identified.

Um so we're gonna enhance our equitable access to through earthly forests, uh promote biodiversity.

It's really a um uh you know, forced the community engagement, so a lot more to come on that front.

So as we plan this initiative for tree planting, there'd be more public outreach, so everybody knows where the trees are, what's coming, what are the benefits of this program, and we're gonna really increase those efforts.

Um and then some of those carry uh forward initiatives are listed down below.

Economic economic development, opportunity, prosperity, and growth.

Um some of the things just to highlight, we recently in the beginning of this year, uh acquired the city acquired these two facilities, the Haggador Building down by Main Street in Pintard, um the uh the old Carnegie Library.

Uh so we acquired that building as part of the eminent domain process, and also the CVS uh facility at 625 North Avenue.

And whenever the city acquires something, there has to be some sort of public benefit to it.

We just don't get stuff just to get, right?

So you know, we have to identify what that public benefit is.

Um so over at the Hagadorn Building, uh there'd be uh, you know, we put put in a um a uh a grant application for the National Endowment of Arts, so be a community kind of community asset art kind of related use to it.

Um we're developing an RFEI, a request for expressions of interest to see how what you know what are the what can we use that building to uh promote and actually connect with our community there and actually all of the city and their shelf and the CVS the same thing, uh looking to take a property that was just sitting there empty, blight, you know, um and it's just making it into something that's really gonna be an asset to the community, and thanks to to Councilman Peters and his effort, uh really pushing that.

Um so we're in the process of developing that RFE also to see what those benefits are.

Uh hopefully by we're thinking by like September or so that that request for proposals should should hit the street, and then we could start the process, right?

Get the get the vision, get the ideas, and eventually enter into agreements in order to build the spaces up.

Uh over at the black box theater on Main Street.

We finally uh finalized an agreement.

We've got uh an operator currently working on the space to renovate that specific upgrades that are gonna be specific to programming that's gonna happen there for the arts.

Really um really excited about that because you know, like every downtown needs a theater.

And I think you know, bringing the arts to to any vibrant community is very important.

So we're we're really made a lot of progress this year on that and getting an operator, and we hope to have that programming start in 2027.

Community buildings, just a couple things to highlight from uh this year's work plan.

We establish a uh program for um non-for-profits to easily apply to to the city to really um you know um pitch whatever they think uh and we evaluate what could be beneficial for the city.

We look at non-for-profits as an extension of what we can't do, right?

The city cannot do everything, right?

So we need partners, right, to do certain initiatives.

So we created this grant program.

We allotted uh a hundred thousand dollars for this year.

Uh we had over fifty something people apply for different types of things.

We created some criteria, uh, we evaluated those, and we were happy to give out like 12 grants to different organizations that would provide some sort of benefit for the residents here in NeuroShell.

So more to come on that.

We just gave them out a couple weeks ago, and we should see really the results of that work towards the end of this year.

Uh some uh a new program that we initiated and uh is called participatory budgeting.

It's a chance for the residents of New Rochelle to really be involved in or a small part in in the budgeting process and to see how um you know what's important for the community.

What do you think on a capital basis do you need in your community?

Um so we are piloting this program over uh around the city of New Rochelle High School, um, where they would, you know, with there was a lot of things to the program, put a committee together, get ideas, vet those ideas, and then actually initiate those ideas.

So we've seeded the program this year with some money to see how that is.

We're gonna start it around the uh Nurshell High School area.

We're involving the students of Nurshell High School, the faculty of high school, uh, and created a steering committee, and we'll take those idea submissions, and those will be for would we could just really focus on capital improvements at this point right now, and there'll be a voting process and it'd be a chance for you to put an idea in, put a vote together, and then hopefully initiate that idea.

We started there as a pilot program with the with the intent of doing that citywide for next um next year.

Um again through the advocacy of council uh Peters, um, we've funded um expanded access to the boys and girls club, this facility for this year, um, which uh created you know um transportation opportunities for students who were not eligible to for free transportation from their districts because of distancing requirements.

Um so we allowed we were gonna pay for that busing and stuff like that, um, fresh snacks, um uh increased access here for uh you know the community to use.

We've you know, uh I think we've identified that it was a little bit of a uh a hurdle to get some access to this facility for uh for certain uh community groups, so we increased that action and to make it a little bit easier for them to do some uh some of the meetings and programming that they wanted to do here.

Um community engagement support the you know this year for the anniversary of uh 250th anniversary this year, July 4th of our nation.

We have a lot of community um uh activities and events planned.

We partnered with our chamber of commerce and our downtown bid for World Cup, which is in a couple weeks.

Uh we have two major events happening.

The first World Cup game uh United States game is gonna be shown at over at Flowers Park.

Uh we have a big uh programming event going on there.

I think it's June 12th.

June 12th.

What's that?

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

Next, yeah, we should have uh we should have a little ticker tape parade down Main Street from that.

Well, we gotta win it first, so game.

So we could do we could do a double celebration.

So we'll have that first game, United States game at Flowers Park on June 12th, and then the finale, the World Cup finale, we'd be showing it down at um Ruby D park on uh July 19th.

Uh some initiatives were workforce development, some improvements there.

We're amplifying our city communications, and our executive director John Jones is here, can answer any questions.

You might have noticed that there's been an uptick on you know getting the message out, right?

It's all about um getting that message out.

So we're you know really focus on that.

Um and the city council updates, so have you seen uh our mayor give nice updates after uh each of the city council meetings just to keep everything everybody informed, being transparent, letting people know what's going on.

That's that's the main thing that that's the real driver here.

Uh and that's kind of a major highlight.

But again, you know, this year was land the planes, really finished uh projects that we started.

Um the complete work plan again is on the website.

If you please go to that because there's a lot more items than I just mentioned up here.

But I'm gonna stop talking because everybody here is available.

This is again a once in a year opportunity to have all of the departments represented here.

And there's any specific questions, please please ask.

Thanks.