The Peekskill Common Council convened on Monday, September 8, 2025, for a work session followed by a regular council meeting. The work session focused on the appointment of a new city engineer. The regular meeting included five public hearings, adoption of 18 resolutions, and a lengthy public comment period on a proposed cannabis manufacturing facility at 710 Washington Street. Key outcomes included the appointment of CPL as city engineer, adoption of amendments to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) law, and the continuation of the public hearing on the parking payment-in-lieu program and the cannabis facility.
My gosh. We have a short agenda and then executive session for discussion of matters concerning the medical, financial, credit, or employment history of a particular person, persons, or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person, persons, or corporation. So at this time, I'll turn it over to our city manager. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. We had discussed this at one point. So uh in about a month ago, Chris Gross retired left the city as the city engineer slash DPW superintendent. Um since then, we have made a move to separate the job of engineer from DPW superintendent. And I would like uh to ask the council to consider appointing CPL, who has already been appointed on January 6th of 2025 as the engineer for the planning commission to fill the role of DPW superintends city engineer between tonight and the end of the year, at which time I will come up with um whether or not we're going to put that out to bid or if we're satisfied with that professional service or not. Um so we have had a working relationship with CPL. The code allows for a professional consultant to serve in the place as the city engineer, and for those reasons I would like to separate those two jobs because I think that it will put our DPW superintendent focused on what's right in front of them and not uh having to review documents for lots of different city departments as well as take care of the streets and infrastructure for the city. So I think we'll get a more focused approach. So if you're okay with that, I have included that resolution with tonight. Any questions? Matt, we're gonna use them at an hourly rate. Uh I notice there is a rate listed in the J 17. Um do we have any pressing projects or projects that we're in the middle of or anything that they need to jump on immediately? Uh so we we um we have professional consultants already engaged for the meat of those matters. I would say uh one of our most important lapses right now would be with development, and so having somebody who can advise us on development. I think that's one of the places where we need uh the services of a city engineer, and we just need general advice about strategy and um some of the projects, but we've we do have lots of uh engineers already on board doing the nuts and bolts of what we need done right now. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh how much is you gonna be the cost for that in the other question is about that thing is including in the budget or had to do in the for that? Costs are in the resolution. The costs are in the resolution, yeah. But how much? I mean, I wanted like the public judge. No, I just ask you. 170 an hour for a senior engineer and 205 an hour for a professional. And how much is suspected to be for the rest for the budget for the for the year? There are some how much is budgeted? Yeah. Yeah, so we have the rest of the salary of the city engineer. Um, so that we if you'll remember, we filled that position with uh another um position inside the city, and we haven't backfilled along the way, so we should have about eighty thousand dollars left in total to cover this um this time during the year, but we've also have most of the engineering services are covered either through the planning commission or through the project themselves. So I don't anticipate that this is gonna be uh a huge hit on the budget. So we have a 80,000 something, you don't spend like they we're gonna spend a the total. I believe that will be the savings for the payroll that has been shifted in different directions. Sounds good. Thank you. Anybody else? No. I think that's a good idea. Okay. Okay, and other than that, uh, I don't have anything. I do need to talk to you in executive session for the mini-cal. Okay. So for uh resolutions, Deputy Mayor. Yes. Public hearing one. Resolution two, eight, and fourteen.