The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance, a moment of silence for the victims of the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, and introductions of town board members and officials. Supervisor Ed Lachterman and councilmembers delivered a series of community event announcements and recognitions, including the holiday lights parade, a new business ribbon cutting (Shrub Oak Smiles), a holiday gift show, a card show, the Shrub Oak tree lighting, the Sons of the American Legion ham and toy drive, and upcoming events such as the Hanukkah Fun Day, the Polar Plunge, and the Yorktown Youth Council meeting. Councilwoman Susan Siegel expressed disappointment that two agenda items she requested—an RFP for field home improvements and a discussion on water meter changes—were not included, citing delays.
Good evening and welcome to the town board meeting of December 17th, 2024. If you could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Okay, and if we could uh remain standing for a moment of silence as remember and pray for the uh Madison, Wisconsin community uh after the tragic abundant life Christian school shootings there yesterday. Thank you to our honor guard. Uh if you could all uh sit uh sit down, please. Thank you. Amen. Our second. All right. Uh introductions to my right. Good evening, Diana Quask, Town Clerk. Luciana Howitt, Councilwoman. Uh Supervisor Ed Lacterman. Deputy Supervisor Sergio Esposito. Patrick Murphy, Councilman. Susan Siegel, Councilwoman. Adam Rodriguez, town attorney. All right. Um, luckily there's a lot of police officers in the room. All right. So just uh for record for the count, I just want to run through a few events that we had uh over the last two weeks. That uh we had some great community response, and it was uh so fantastic to see so many people. Uh on on the 7th, we had our holiday lights parade, uh, which was great. We had uh uh an abundance of floats. Uh we had uh people all over the place. It was it was really uh it's one of the great things that that Yorktown does through our parks and recreation department, and there was a tremendous amount of uh outreach there. So very happy to uh to have had everyone who attended, and I'm sure if you couldn't make it there, uh you watched it on the uh cable station. If not, it is available on our public asset access station. Uh then this past Saturday we had the we had a lot going on actually. We we opened another new business, uh Shrub Oak Smiles had their ribbon cutting uh over by uh Novicento. It's a new uh dental uh office. We had uh a holiday gift show at the Alberda Capolini Community and Cultural Center, uh and then uh prior to that we also had a card show there, baseball card show, and apparently they have plans for another show in the spring, both uh actually two shows, one a uh a craft show and one a comic book show, uh Yorktown's own little minic mini comic-com. So uh hopefully uh that goes off well. And uh we ended the night on Saturday uh in town with the shrub oak uh Christmas tree lighting or holiday tree lighting uh that was started by Tom Diana three years ago. Uh and uh the tree was generously donated by some of the uh shrub oak families over there, and uh that was it was really nice. We had the golden apple chorus singing. Uh there was hot chocolate being passed around and uh hot apple cider donuts. That was a wonderful, wonderful time. Uh and then on Sunday, the Sons of the American Legion uh completed their ham drive and toy drive for the uh St. Mary's Food Bank and for their Christmas gift wish list. And uh today uh we drove over 30 hams and uh I think it was uh another 14 turkeys plus a uh a nice trunk load of toys and and gifts for the for the children in need and some gift cards for the older kids. Uh upcoming uh this year uh Hanukkah and Christmas fall on the same day. Uh the first night of Hanukkah is Christmas Day. Uh the Chabad of Yorktown will be having their Hanukkah Fun Day. Uh that will actually be on the third night, fourth night. Sorry, the 29th. Yep, 1229 24 from three to four, followed by their menorah lighting. Uh there's no charge, all a welcome. That's at the uh Capolini Center as well.