The Common Council held a work session on February 2, 2026, at 6:30 PM in the Common Council Chamber. The meeting covered three main agenda items: a Memorandum of Understanding with the Peekskill Racket Association for tennis programming, grant writing services for water and sewer infrastructure, and continued discussion of an immigration enforcement policy. The meeting concluded with liaison reports from councilmembers and a motion to enter executive session.
Tonight is the committee of the home meeting or work session, and it is um February 2nd, 2026. And we have pretty much a short agenda, and then we're we're going to be going into executive session for discussion of matters of concerning the medical, financial credit, and employment history of a particular person, persons, or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion to motion, discipline suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or persons or corporation, and discussion of matters related to proposed acquisition, sale or lease of rail property. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to our city manager, Matt Alexander. Good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council. Good evening. First up, we have Jonathan Zamora who's going to introduce the Peak Skill Racket Association and talk to us about the memorandum of understanding that uh we are proposing. Hi, good evening. Good evening. Good evening. So uh yeah, so I I come to you um really uh this is a very pleasant uh sort of uh outing because uh we have with us joining uh our Alex Smith, the president of the Peak Skill Racket Association. And the nature of our memo uh today is really to reach out and uh re-request that uh a memorandum of understanding be uh carried out in 2026 with uh recreation and the Peak Skill Racket Association to run our our tennis programs. Um so kind of give a little bit of context uh as to the progress that's been made uh over the past uh year and a half since um well, going back to 2023, um looking at our participation numbers for tennis uh for the entirety of the year was 53 residents. Uh going into 2024, uh which was really kind of more of a hybrid because it was half uh led by the city and uh starting into with the Racket Association toward the end, uh a modest increase to 55 resident participants in 20 uh 25, which was the entirety of the year that the Racket Association was participating in our programs. Um it jumped actually to 132 residents from 53. Wow. So um looking at just the quality of instruction, just the the fact that the organization is very passionate and and locally uh kind of homegrown uh with residents who are interested in tennis and bringing the sport to as many residents as possible uh is really very exciting. So to see the reaction from not only our residents but um some of our community partners like the school district, uh who's working more closely with us now in programs like these, uh this is really kind of what we envisioned uh coming forward to this. So um I'm actually gonna bring up Alex uh now to kind of share his thoughts and a few words on on uh on our collaboration so far. Wonderful. Thank you, Jonathan. Good evening, council um and city manager Alexander. Um yes, I am Alex Smith, the president of the Peak Skill Racket Association. We're also known as the Peak Skill Community Tennis Association. We're a 501c3 nonprofit, and uh we started working uh first with the USTA to become a uh community tennis association. Our um, since we have we were founded in 2024, our organization's mission is to bring together local tennis lovers, expand access to this great sport, um, to new ex and existing uh players, advocate for better facilities for our residents, and help make it possible for the Peak Skill High School School to eventually have a tennis team. As you may know, we're the only school district that does not have a tennis team in the surrounding areas. So we're committing uh committed to lowering the barriers for playing this sport by giving everyone in our community the opportunity to enjoy low-cost, high-quality tennis uh programming. So currently we provide lessons uh for the city um on Saturdays. We do adult lessons for um, we do adult lessons, three uh different youth uh lessons, kids from three to five, six to nine, and ten and above. Right. We do a Friday morning uh adult cardio tennis class, and we also organize social doubles play to get more people in the community involved. Um as a nonprofit, we um try to uh we use grant money from the USTA and you know, also private donations to try to just keep costs low. So our point really is that this is a sport that anyone can play, that everyone should have the access to play. It really it's it's really more like um basketball in terms of the barriers to playing tennis. We really just need a you know a paved surface in a net, and if we provide the resources, then it really we're telling everyone in the community that this is something that is um you know available to everyone and eventually we'd like to set this table for the tennis team for a tennis team for the high school. So those are some of our goals. And um, you know, like uh Jonathan has mentioned, we've really uh been increasing that community here in Peakskill. So we've um now we're just seeing at least, you know, by the end of the fall, we were getting at least 50 or 60 residents participating in either classes or this organized play. So we're really trying to um just be a part of the community and a new development is that we were able to work out an agreement with the schools so that we're actually doing tennis lessons um through the city um at Woodside, so we're able to keep now. Tennis is not just spring and fall, it's spring, summer, fall, and through the winter. So we've been able to get this as a year-round uh endeavor. So yeah, so we're very excited, and we just also want to thank you for your support and and allowing us to have this, you know, um this relationship with the city and and provide these these tennis lessons. Thank you so much. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Anybody? Okay. I just want to thank you because as a person that went to Peak Skill High School and graduated many moons ago. Um long time ago, there was a tennis team, and then it you know fell by the wayside as things happen. So I'm really happy to see.