The Peekkill Common Council held a work session budget meeting on October 15, 2025, at 6:00 PM in the Common Council Chamber. The meeting featured presentations from the Water & Sewer Department and the Department of Public Works (DPW), along with discussions on proposed upgrades, capital projects, and the employee benefits budget. No public comments were heard, and no votes were taken; the meeting concluded with a motion to enter executive session.
Today, October 15th, 2025. We have a couple of presentations from both uh water and sewer department and department of public works, and then a couple of agenda items. And then executive session. Correct, Matt? Executive 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. All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. Good evening. We have uh two of our largest presentations for you, the two departments that do all of the things that people see every day. And so we're gonna start off with our water and sewer. Some of that you don't see, but you've you know right away if it's not working, and uh the water department's been doing a great job at keeping it working. So Dave Rambo is gonna take you through the water and sewer. He's also gonna talk to you about the two memos that he has uh as part of his presentation. Thank you, Matt. Good evening, Mayor, Council, good evening, city manager and residents at home. Tonight I'm here to discuss the 2026 water budget. And I'll start right off with the uh we're looking for a general about a five percent increase. Uh the budget last year or this year I should say was a little over nine million dollars, and we're looking to propose a 9.589 million dollar budget for 2026. Um I'll take you through our mission statement, some of the overview, the bought the cost centers accomplishments that we had in 2025. Uh always give you a cost of the water and compare it with other uh municipalities in Westchester County. Um always good to hear about the grant update and projects for 2026. So our mission statement is to always provide reliable quality drinking water to the customers, consistent with sound management practices and while protecting our natural resources. Um we had our watershed inspector up here to talk about some of the um watershed projects that he works on to protect the environment as well as uh providing the city with the the uh safe quality drinking water. And I do want to remind you all um and those at home that we're a heavily regulated commodity. Um water and when I get into sewer, sewer as well. So um we're we're regulated by the EPA, the uh State Health Department, and the local health department, as well as the uh DEC. So it as I mentioned, the uh the cost of the budget and our overview. There's four cost centers within the water budget, the first one being the administrative line. There's three employees, and uh the salaries there are split between water and the sewer uh sewer uh finances, and then the source of supply, there's the one employee that's the uh watershed inspector, and the source of supply is the water before it gets treated, it comes into the treatment plant, and then speaking of treatment plant 8330 is the purification, um, the actual treatment plant itself that was built in 2010, and the distribution system when it leaves the treatment plant, it goes out into the network of piping into the distribution system and then to people's homes. I just want to remind everyone too that we we oversee three dams, four reservoirs, three pumping stations, a water treatment plant, five storage tanks. There's a roughly 62 miles of water piping within the city, and uh we treat about 4.2 million gallons a day going out to the residents and the businesses within Peakill. Uh so it's a it's a busy infrastructure. One of the accomplishments we're very proud of. Um it is not a hundred percent complete. We're about 90 percent is the Hollowbrook Dam, which we received some funding for uh over the years, and we started it last year, but due to or it started it this year, but due to weather constraints and some other items and issues that we had with uh not knowing what was under the water, and you can see this is with with no water out there. So it's it's it's easy to tell what we need there, but when there's water in that um up to that dam, it's it's very hard to predict and to um engineer a uh cost effective solution to what the DEC was looking for. And you see the boards all the way to the left, and it looks like a uh scaffold. We had to raise the height on that left hand side. The work that we have to do in 2020, late 2025 into 2026 is also the raise the uh the right hand side, the east end, so to speak, um, and also improve the intake structure, which was very deteriorated. And again, we didn't know what was under the water until we drained everything down. We can't just shut the plant down or shut the the uh dam and the supply off when we have to supply that 4.5 million gallons a day. Um this dam itself that's that was here served the city for about a hundred years. Um concrete is very sturdy, um, but the regulations changed. They wanted the walls to come up higher and the the dam itself to be uh a wider to affect all the uh additional uh storm water that we receive these days. So we we're hoping to design for the next 50 to 100 years. The guys, when I say the guys out in the trenches, uh I mean they're literally in the trenches, and you can see with these two pictures here. Um we did a lot of uh valve changes this year. And I wrote down what's the purpose of changing out the valves?