Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Affordability & Economic Development Task Force, chaired by Legislator Colin Smith, held a planning meeting on October 6, 2026, via WebEx. The meeting focused on refining the task force's goals, planning a community listening tour, and discussing data collection strategies. Multiple stakeholders from business, labor, nonprofit, and education sectors participated. No formal votes were taken; the meeting was informational and collaborative.
Listening Tour and First Event: Chair Smith announced the first listening forum on October 14, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Westchester Community College (WCC) during the college's common hour. The event aims to engage students, faculty, staff, and the broader community. Outreach is being coordinated by WCC's student life and support services, with student government assistance. Legislators Erica Pierce and Emiliana Uli emphasized the need for robust outreach, including engaging the faculty association and adjuncts.
Survey Design and Data Collection: A draft 8–10 question one-page survey was discussed. Tim Foley (Building and Realty Institute) suggested that the survey be consistent across all listening sessions to enable cross-community analysis, and include a "recency" question to identify affordability stressors that have escalated since 2023. Legislator Pierce stressed adding demographic questions to allow regional, age, and income-level analysis. The use of QR codes for online access and paper copies for those without digital access was supported.
Role of Existing Data: A significant debate emerged over the necessity of a new survey. Noam (HGAR) argued that extensive data already exists from organizations such as Pattern for Progress, WCA, and NPW, and that the task force's time would be better spent analyzing existing data to develop policy levers. Jan Fisher (Nonprofit Westchester) and Vlor (Westchester County Association) confirmed that their organizations have already collected substantial data on affordability and economic development, which they offered to share. Chair Smith acknowledged the point, stating the survey would be supplementary to existing data, not the primary focus.
Partnership and Outreach: Participants suggested leveraging existing platforms—NPW's meetings, faith-based organizations (via Westchester Jewish Council and legislators' initiatives), and other stakeholder events—to distribute surveys and gather feedback. Dr. Belinda Miles (WCC) noted the college's food pantry and support services as touchpoints for vulnerable students.
No formal votes were taken. The meeting adjourned at approximately 3:00 p.m.
Good, thank you. That's good. Okay, awesome. Thank you. This meeting is being recorded and summarized. All right. So good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. We're gonna just I just wanted to uh call this uh meeting to give a an update as to where we are with things with respect to the work of the task force. Um I'll note that we have a number of people joining us, so um we don't have to uh take attendance or anything. This isn't a uh an official committee per se. Um so I think we're just gonna uh I think we have Kenny Burgos says he cannot hear. Can the rest of you hear me? Yes. Okay. So I don't know if uh there's something maybe going on with uh Kenny's Yeah. Um maybe if Kenny, maybe if you leave and come back. All right. So when we met last, we uh we talked and I'll broad strokes about what the task force attempt was was hoping to accomplish. We had some very good uh discussion and and conversation. There have been a couple of uh, you know, sort of staff meetings uh in the intervening time, and um we thought it would be a good idea, you know, when we one of the uh things that we had talked about doing uh at our first meeting was what we called a you know listening tour, or you know, setting up a a series of meetings um in different uh you know different uh venues, uh different communities, different industries to try and get a sense of what was the uh oh you know what? I'm sorry, forgetting myself here. Why don't we just do I don't want to take up too much time, but I think we do have some members, some people who are joining us today that weren't here at the first meeting. So uh why don't we just go around and uh introduce our ourselves? Um let me pull the screen up here. Well, you know what? Let me uh I will I will just note who's here. Uh we have and I'm I'm just going across the uh the screen, so this is in no particular order, and I and I will try my best not to uh mispronounce names. No guarantees on that. Um I'll note that joining us at the uh at the board is uh our legislators, Emiliana Uli and uh Anat Bambiar. Is there anybody else? Am I missing someone? Okay, and uh thank you both for joining. And not was here at the last one. I don't know if Emilyana, I'm not sure if you attend, did you attend the first one remotely?