The Peekskill Common Council convened a Work Session and Regular Meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Common Council Chamber. The work session featured a comprehensive budget presentation from the Planning and Economic Development Department. The regular meeting, which opened at approximately 7:00 p.m., included the Pledge of Allegiance, a moment of silence, roll call, public comments on agenda items, a recognition of the Lincoln Exedra Centennial, a presentation on good cause eviction, department head reports, four public hearings, and the adoption of 17 resolutions, including a censure of Councilman Robert Scott. The meeting concluded with a public comment period and adjournment.
We have a um budget presentation as well as well as a couple of regular agenda items and then an 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 corporations. So at this time I'll turn it over to our city manager. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. First up tonight, we have a budget presentation from Carol Sammel from our planning department. Carol. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. And city manager. I will um share my screen here. Um present my second budget to the city of Peaksville for the Department of Planning and Economic Development. Um happy to be here uh for the second fix this so I can see whoop. All right, technical difficulties. Why is it doing that? Stop sharing and then share again. All right. Um, so just as um a reminder, I think um, not only to the council but to everyone, the the mission of the department and the goals that we have as the department. Um first and foremost is promoting the responsible development of the city overall and improving the quality of life and increasing the tax base, which that is at heart much of what planning is about in general, and certainly what our um different uh boards and commissions are also aimed at doing the review of applications towards that end. And we do that also through creating and implementing plans, policies, and programs. Uh we obtain grants and implement those projects uh to provide public facilities and amenities across the city, and then we are just in general responsive to community inquiries from residents and property owners, business owners, investors in the city. Here we go. We do this this with a very lean staff. Um we have the director, we have an economic development specialist, two planners, a zoning coordinator, and our program administrator for uh CDBG. You know, we um put in for an assistant director that's still in review by the county civil service office, hopeful that that will proceed. Um but uh wanted to let you know that that's still in process. And then we have part-time consultants who work with us on project by project basis, whether those are uh planning services uh consultants who work with us on application review or the downtown revitalization fund or the momentum uh project management. Our achievements in 24 into 25 are numerous. Um I only have a partial uh approach here, laundry list approach, um, uh including some pretty significant reviews by our different commissions and boards. We've been managing 38 grants totaling 32 million dollars for 50 million dollars worth of projects that continues. We received two awards this year for the Safe Streets for All and then the mid-Hudson Momentum from for major infrastructure uh and streetscape improvements, and then we made two very important applications to among others, uh, pro housing supply and the Westchester County Complete Streets. Our momentum project, um, this was a really important year for us. Not only do we get the award, but got the funding agreement signed with the state, um, we identified the matching funds, and we started to implement, we have an implementation plan and we have a project management plan. We'll talk a little bit about what we're doing next uh to get those projects underway. Um this year we were able to complete and we're in the midst of completing uh some studies, including the highest and best use study around Louisa and and Lower South Street, which was looking at city owned uh parcels there. But with the Urban Land Institute, we're looking at a much broader area in that in that general vicinity. We have a technical assistance panel, which they'll be presenting kind of their findings in later in November, and you know, would like to open that up to the council as well, just to hear from all these different professionals about the Louisa Street and Lower South Street area. In the the downtown revitalization initiative, I'll just note that you know we onboarded our logo and brand team. Uh we engaged the working group and a design group of different designers from across the city and the public with a survey, and that work continues. And I wanted to just feature three different projects, and they're very different aspects of the way that we do work. One is the Peak Skill Arts Council, which the council created earlier in the year, but we have established that group. The board members adopted a municipal art guideline for the city and voted to recommend four new artworks, as well as created a logo, which you can see here in the bottom left. They have a website, social media presence. So they're really kind of upping the game for art in the city. Working with staff, they helped create this artwork signage, which and a map, an online map. This first time I think we've had this much of a robust of a presence for our art public art online and then in the city. So each you should see the signs around uh the city for each artwork, they describe the artwork, give a little history, have a link to the map online, so anyone could come in and um follow their way around the art trail and and get to enjoy the public artwork that we have. The next one to uh highlight is Pugsley Park, which is fully activated. Um this is really its second summer, but this is this first full year. Um, and we hosted events in that park almost every single weekend for four months, and it is just a raging success. It there was a learning curve, right?