We have a presentation from our planning department and a couple of quick agenda items.

And then we have an executive session this evening 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 Carol Sammel, our director of planning, and she's gonna talk to us about the comprehensive plan.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Council and City Manager.

I'm gonna share a presentation, send request.

And this is just an update on our resident advisory committee.

Um, which we've had open for a little while, and we're ready to move on.

Can you see everything?

Yes.

Yes.

Um, yes, so this is an update on the the really the launch of the plan and uh the planning process with the resident advisory committee, but there's some other information in here to share with you about the the comprehensive planning committee.

Beautiful picture.

All right.

Oh so as a reminder, um, you know, this is this kind of the structure of the leadership and of the decision making a bit that that is happening with the uh comprehensive plan.

And um all the way to the left are the common council and the planning commission, which are the two bodies that have an actual voting right within the the uh comprehensive planning process.

Um but an important role in this process is the comprehensive planning committee, which is made up of two components the steering committee and the resident advisory committee.

We'll talk a little bit about both tonight.

But then there are other uh ways that we will be engaging people across the city in addition to public uh events, but we have thematic working groups focused on the specific topics of the plan itself, whether that's housing or economic development, sustainability and resilience, or transportation and mobility.

Um those will be the subject matter experts that we'll be calling on from people from around the city and in the fields in the in those different fields.

We also have community ambassadors, which we'll talk about uh a little bit at the end, put another plug in, and these are our individuals who've kind of raised their hand to um kind of lead their community, if you will, or their group in engaging in the in the uh comprehensive planning process.

The the comprehensive planning committee, um it is a representative body, it's it's um but it's it's guiding, it's a sounding board a bit uh for the overall direction of the plan.

Again, they're not the decision makers, but they are to provide feedback, be thought partners, but also uh be help us reach out to the community and provide guidance on our engagement plans, building consensus amongst themselves and amongst the community, um, and connecting the planning process to the broader community.

The steering committee is kind of the the uh city appointed group of staff and officials.

Um we are there to provide technical guidance, policy alignment, policy feedback, and institutional coordination across the city.

Um but the resident advisory committee is a uh unique body um and it's it's intended to complement the steering committee.

Um, but it's it is really our um uh a diverse community-based group of residents that brings lived experience of peak skill, their local knowledge of the city and of of subjects, and a public perspective into the planning process.

Um and again, it's feeding into the the public planning process.

So this is not the end of the story, it's it's the really the beginning of the story with public engagement.

We've um invited people to apply.

Um we had it open for two months, which is a um a good period of time.

Um the applications were online, but we supported people uh applying offline um and had an open house in the middle of that, really, to talk to people about what the what the process might be and what kind of commitment they would be required to have.

Um we had some limitations on it.

Um you had to be a current resident of the city of Peakskill.

We wanted you to be 18 years or older, but if you were 15 to 17, which we encourage that age group to apply, you just have to have um parent or guardian um approval.

Um you could not be a current elected official that lives in the city of Peakskill, or a member of the Common Council, the planning commission, or the zoning board to be on the resident advisory committee.

They have different roles within this, um, as we just explained.

You we will have a voting moment on the on the plan.

We asked a lot of different kinds of questions, actually, a pretty limited number of questions, I say a lot.

We asked a variety of questions to really get to know the basics of somebody, whether what is their race and ethnicity, their residency, how long have they lived here, what's their occupation, have they ever worked for the city, those kinds of things.

We also wanted to understand their motivation to serve on the resident advisory committee, what are their interests in the in the planning process and the planning focal points, um, what's their general availability?

We wanted them to think about what their commitment might be, um, what kind of community groups are they involved in across the city and whether they have any relevant experience.

And um Interborough is really the group that took charge of this process.

So it was our our consultant looking at this information, um, making these uh gathering all the information and uh assessing it and putting the the list together.

But uh we wanted suffice it to say we wanted the uh resident advisory committee to be well distributed distributed and uh to represent Peak Skill across age, gender, race, and ethnicity, or geographic distribution across the city.

Uh we have a foreign-born population, we want to make sure they were represented, different tenures in in Peakskill, their living situation, whether they're a homer, homeowner or renter or otherwise, and an occupation.

We wanted to make sure that we had a variety of interests and skills represented.

Interborough looked at the list, removed ineligible uh applicants.

We had 114 applications, which is I think a really good number uh for a group like this, commitment like this, because we were only selecting 12 uh members.

But they removed ineligible uh people, uh, looked at the quality of their applications, wanted to make sure that they were had actually filled in the application, um, looked at their demographics characteristics, kind of put some weight to different things, and then anonymously you know, from their profiles, put together a um based on the kind of weighted values, the target committee and um until to we what we have today, which I'm gonna present to you.

So our committee, I'm gonna shrink this, um, is 12 people.

Um again, it's a a sounding board.

Uh I'll just say a little bit about them, and I'm not gonna read all of their bios.

This will be on our web page tomorrow for every for everyone watching.

Um, but Elizabeth Costaldo, who is an artist and an educator, Nicholas Costa, who's a software engineer, um, Glenn Elcock, who's a retired attorney, an immigrant.

Um, Ernest Faulkner is a retired NYPD officer and uh deeply involved in in the civic life here in Peakskill.

Justina Grayman, a psychologist and artist, uh Juan Guzman, who's a Peakskill native uh working in in business strategy.

Leslie Harden is a health care leader, Maggie Leoung, who's a librarian, Julia Miranda Roach, who's a lifelong Peakskill residence and resident and a young professional.