Full Transcript

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Okay, for open session, we're going to start out with the first item on the list, and that is with James Britz, Long Island Housing Partnership, and its matters surrounding possible funding availability. For a plus one ADU program, and I have Dawn Thomas with it also. Quick intro. So the state of New York is offering their evaporating grants for accessory dwelling units, which is an ADU, up to $125,000 per home owner through the Department of Homes and Community Renewal. And we are eligible. If we are partnered with a not-for-profit housing developer, a.k.a. Long Island Housing Partnership. So I spoke to James about this a couple of times, and we're thinking it might be a good thing for the town to participate in. We have a good number of ADUs. We've allowed them for about 20 years. I think there are some that exist that are not permitted, and so this program would not only allow for new to be constructed, but also for existing to be grandfathered, and made code compliant. And so we have another thought about this, in addition to maybe giving people amnesty who come forward with those, and not charging them the double building permit fee for it, so that we can get them into compliance and make sure that the people that are using those residences are safe, and they're code compliant. So there's 10% of the funding is available. We would ask for $2 million. 10% is available for administrative costs, that would cover the Housing Partnership, their participation in the program. James and the Housing Partnership are doing this in a number of other towns, so I thought I'll just turn it over to him, and he can give you a little bit of a background on what they're doing, and how it would work. Okay. James, good morning. Glad to have you here. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you, Dawn, for the introduction. Yeah, so at the Long Island Housing Partnership now, we're working in the towns of Brookhaven, Huntington, Islip just launched, and Southhold as well. We've gotten $4 million in the towns of Brookhaven and Huntington. We're working on $2 million grants in Southhold and Islip. We have about 40 to 50 people who are eligible and moving forward with the construction or the rehabilitation of their accessory apartments or accessory dwelling units. It's a very valuable program, obviously, with the housing crisis here on Long Island, to be able to have that opportunity to bring in some rental income for homeowners who may be struggling and may not want to move out of town. So, again, it's a 10-year grant that's forgivable as long as they maintain compliance with the program through New York State. And obviously, we would be happy to work alongside the town of Riverhead on this initiative, and, you know, I'm happy to answer any questions about the program. It's a $125,000 grant for each homeowner. The maximum income is 100% of the AMI, Area Median Income, for Nassau and Suffolk. So right now, if you're looking at, say, a household home, you're looking at $1,000.00. If you're looking at, say, a household of four, it's $156,200 is the maximum income, and then it depends on the household size. A household of one would only be $109,350. So there are income requirements from the state. And then in regards to the rental unit, there's no requirements from New York State on who they rent to, how much rent they charge, or any AMI requirement for the rental unit. So really, the restriction is on the homeowner in this program. And they do need to be owner-occupied. And they keep – the grant will fall off after 10 years. If they refinance or sell in the meantime, then it would have to be recaptured by the state. But we have the ability through our Department of Community Development, Dan Thompson, who does our home improvement program, could work with the Housing Partnership, and we could do – I think we could have a really good system of moving these projects forward and getting people some of the things they need and getting some other units in. Can I just ask, what was the requirement, the income requirements of the homeowner? The max would be 100% of area median income for Nassau and Suffolk, which as James mentioned is $156,000 for a family of four currently, which sounds crazy. It is crazy. That's combined income like husband and wife together? Yeah, whomever lives in the house. Including children? Yeah. Yeah. That's the total household number. Okay. So it's – So it's kind of high. Yeah. That formula has been really outdated for a long time. Yeah. And it's not fair, honestly. With the prices of real estate on Long Island, it doesn't really match versus the salaries and what you can get done for your dollar. It just doesn't – it's a shame. It makes more people eligible for this program because it is so high, which is kind of nice. But yeah. I agree. It's not – But honestly, yeah. It's a crazy number. So is it up to four? So if you have, let's say, one child and you're under 156? So it's – Or if you live alone. If you have one child – Both by household size. So if it's a single parent with one child, the maximum for a household of two is 124,950. If you have a household of, say, six, it goes up to 180, 1,200. So it goes by – I have a chart I can send over to you. Okay. So it's – [transcription gap] I have a chart I can send over. If Dawn doesn't have it, she's clear. I have a chart I can send over. If Dawn doesn't have it, she's clear. I have a chart I can send over. If Dawn doesn't have it, she's clear. I have a chart I can send over. If she's clear. I have a chart I can send over. If she's clear. I have a chart I can send over. In this case, that's the max income you could have to qualify. Right. Right. So if you make more than that, then you wouldn't qualify for the grant. Right. But it makes a good number of people eligible. And what we'd like to do is also – The county has a first-time home buyer down payment assistance program. um down payment assistance program now that we've been collecting money from our loyal and workforce housing fund we'd like to piggyback off of that so people who qualify at the county to get the thirty thousand dollars that they're offering we would like to add to that so in the beginning of the year we'll be coming back to the board with that program so if you were to buy a house in riverhead we're going to try to target certain areas i think they're going to be targeted on their own because they're more affordable in the downtown area or in polish town with uh that funding and so if you bought something and then wanted to do an adu you'd have a nice source of a good a variety of resources available to you including our cdbg program which could partner up with this as well so where would you you said so 30 000 from the county which i understand but we would who's we the town of riverhead we've collected funds through our Long Island Workforce Housing Program. And so those funds are to be used for affordable housing. We can use them. And because we know it's important for us to get owner occupancy, and so that's why this program is even more appropriate for us. Rather than the rentals, we have a good amount of rentals. We want people to buy and invest. And so in areas like downtown, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, all of those areas to get people owning in there will help stabilize those areas. Same with Polish Town, not over-product housing. It'll be more, we bring more people into the competition because when you have predatory investors, they're bidding for houses based on the number of people they can put in the house legally. And so the rent becomes the value, and they'll pay a lot of money. And that takes the properties out of the competition for regular working families. And so this will help bring those people back into the competition, and maybe we can wrestle some of those places back. And get those neighborhoods stabilized, people who live and invest in those neighborhoods that need that. Don, just for your information as well, we have a New York State Affordable Housing Corporation grant that's called Long Island Down Payment Assistance and Rehab that we can put in additional money for the down payment program with residents of Riverhead. So it's up to $40,000 if you're at or below 80%. So once you get that launched, we can talk to you about our initiative too. So the more money you can give people, the more money you can give them. That's fantastic. Thank you. [transcription gap] have to buy properties here on the IA. Yeah, fantastic. That's great news. So that's the story. We hope that the board will be interested in moving it forward. It's the housing partnership would take the lead in the application to homes and community renewal. It starts with a letter from us, which we've already worked on drafting. James sent me some samples. Real simple and see how we go. One question for you. So the state says where the municipality may opt to have their own monitoring compliance system. Can we set up regulations if we do a project like this that those applying be specifically Riverhead residents? So that's tough because we want people, you know, if people are buying we want to attract homeowners to Riverhead. To limit funding that comes particularly from the federal government, which most of this trickles down through to Riverhead residents is illegal under fair housing and so it has to be available to anybody. And that's really, we're kind of hamstrung with that. Because I always felt that when we do programs like this it does, it just brings people from other municipalities to come here but we're not necessarily helping those that are growing up and living in Riverhead that trying to want to maintain a home, buy a home, live in Riverhead. There may be some opportunity and we can discuss to do first responders and that that's been talked about and done in some other communities. I don't know if we could do with this but. No Huntington's done it. Yeah. Can we, because I'm full support of this, but before we pass a resolution to like accept this, should we consider doing a resolution to create our own compliance? So we can't limit who can. But even if it's veterans, we can't limit them. But even if it's veterans, we can't limit them. So we can't implement veterans, first responders? So we may be able to do a little bit of that but we cannot say you have to live in Riverhead. And truthfully there are people who were Riverhead residents who now had to leave because they couldn't afford it. Maybe now this will give them the opportunity to come back depending. But the limitations of federal law are very strict and you cannot violate them or you get in big trouble. And I understand that but even if I would even be more favored, like I'd love to see if it was for veterans or for first responders in the community. We'll see what we can work on that. Just other ways to help. Yeah. But does that have to be implemented or put in place prior to accepting this? I think we would make it part of this program if we can. So we'll look into that a little bit more but we've, you know, obviously I think we would love. And I've said this and although some people disagree and I don't know how James feels about it but the, I've always felt that people would be more open to affordable housing programs if they were limited. Mm-hmm. If they were limited. Mm-hmm. Not limited but preference given to people from the community. Jim Morgue argues with me on that but I think that people are so fearful of that, that they oppose. And a lot of times not realizing that, you know, some of the people that qualify for affordable housing are making $140,000 a year. They're not, it's not, yeah, it's, there's a lot of, I mean, we probably should not call it affordable housing. We should call it attainable housing. There's a million other names you could call it but we're just trying to make it available to people who, and home ownership in particular because that's an equity building thing. And so if you are now eligible to buy a home and do an ADU and actually build equity and build wealth, you know, you can have life changing results for people who had no such opportunity in the past. And so those are things that we're trying to accomplish. Yeah. Yeah. Just so the council knows with the ADU program that it's for existing homeowners only. So that would be only for town of Riverhead current residents and homeowners. Oh, okay. So that's good. I didn't hear you. What did he say? He said it's for existing homeowners only. So it's not to buy and build. Right. What I was going to ask was, right, there's one part of this that talks about ADUs and now we're talking about home ownership. So how are the two coming together? Well, our home, our ADU code currently requires ownership. Right. And the home currently requires owner occupancy anyway. Right. This program as well. So you have to live in the house where you construct the ADU. So, I mean, you could buy it. We had a three year and we were looking to remove that three year wait period. So you would buy a house and wait three years before you could build an ADU. We're looking to get rid of that. So you could buy a house and then apply. So you would be a new Riverhead resident. You have to live, you have to be the owner to get the ADU funding. But we're talking about first time home ownership. Now we're talking about. So that's a little different. So that's a piggyback. Yeah. So that's a piggyback. So if you were to buy a new home in Riverhead and you qualify for income, income qualify, the County of Suffolk offers down payment assistance and then we would piggyback on that. So if you received funding for, you know, theoretically this would attract more new homeowners to Riverhead to buy available housing stock and live here and invest in our community. We could give additional. Right. So that's a really nice chunk. And that's the hard part. When you're renting now, it's very hard to save that down payment. You know, even a 5% down payment is a tremendous amount of money for a young family. And so these kinds of things get the leg up. They have the income, but they don't have the savings. We can get those people into houses faster, make them residents of our community and invest in our community, be part of it. And, you know, on we go. Dawn, I just want to piggyback off of what Councilman Rothwell was talking about. I think it's important to think about the cost of living in a community that's not a community. And I think that's a really important part of it. [transcription gap] I think that's a really important part of it. I think that's a really important part of it. I just want to piggyback off of what Councilman Rothwell was talking about. [transcription gap] go. Dawn, I just want to piggyback off of what Councilman Rothwell was talking about. I know it's important to bring people to Riverhead but I think that our primary responsibility here is to help our younger generation, our current residents that are already here that are unable to afford to purchase here. We have to be able to find something for them before we worry about bringing other people from outside Riverhead to Riverhead. This will work for those people. This program will 100% work for those people that are already here that need that assistance. They can apply, get the funding, build the ADU and supplement their income. Whether it's a young family trying to retain their house or it's an older person trying to supplement, you know, that income. This will work for them. The down payment assistance program is for new residents but they could work together too. But I think it's essential for the town of Riverhead to find some kind of assistance for our residents. To have some kind of, you know, like first responders, something in place for for our kids. It's horrible right now. It's hard. This will allow them to do it. If you live here and if you are a first responder you would be able to get this funding provided you income qualifier. In terms of bringing funding to existing residents, that's a tough thing to do. I don't know there's no programs that i know of that do that but this will would be something very good i think for a lot of people but even adding if it was you know requirement or a point system however you set it up like for volunteer fires nassau suffolk long island's primary volunteer fire department area yeah i see all the time municipalities invest we kids come out of high school they're 18 19 they join the fire department we spend an enormous amount of money training them getting qualified and stuff the time they realize they're 21 22 they realize they cannot afford to live in long island and what they go yeah and it becomes this gap in volunteers where you have initial people that are in the fire department for a few years and then there's a long gap from like you know from 25 to 35 40 where there's there's none no one is joining an age because you know they moved off the island or they have other people that are retired that can't they can't volunteer yeah so if there's any way to help you know our volunteers to say hey you know you'll be you'll be primary or considered first in these applications so we can we'll talk about that and get back to you on that i think um just to make sure we're not violating any laws by doing it so the three-year um aid uh adu costs thought we were gonna we know we discussed that's coming up i have a draft of that legislation that would remove that um requirements so we'll be in business uh we should be doing these things all together um this application is due january 15th so we wanted to make sure we got that rolling quick one other quick question because i've always been kind of confused on this and i totally the ami is totally wanky because it includes i mean you're looking at we're included with south hentai so head head head head head head head head head head head head head head head head head head head which makes no sense. Does HUD, who does this? Who sets the AMI? Is it HUD? Is it the federal government? Well, I don't understand. All the data is there, the economic data, but individual towns is there. When I look up the economic data for Riverhead, the AMI is about $73,000. So in this case, it works well for Riverhead residents because it really gives you a lot of income you could earn, even though you might be earning $73,000 in Riverhead, you qualify for these programs if you earn up to $156,000. But that's family of four. Yeah, but if you lowered that number to what it is, you're going to knock out a bunch of people. So here's an example, because this has come up in conversation before. Let's say that there's a couple living in a house, and they want their kid who's got a job here to get an ABU. What's the? For two people, what's the AMI? 120-something, I think. Yeah, 124,950 for the ADU and 124,950 for two people. So if they exceed that as a couple, their kid cannot live in an ADU. That's where, OK. But if you knocked it down to 73,000, it would be a lot worse. Because if they had two folks. That's single. That's for one person. That's one person. Oh, you're talking about the Riverhead? Yeah, I'm sorry. That's just for one person. Combined household income. Yeah. [transcription gap] So what's one person, Jim? Well, one person is 109,350. That's my point. It's. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Doesn't make any sense. But this is, yeah, federal government sets these guidelines each year. It's based upon an area of Nassau, Suffolk. So Nassau and Suffolk have the same AMI. But yeah, it encompasses the whole region of Long Island. Yeah, it's unfortunate. But I agree why one can be almost 110,000 and then you go to two and it's only jumping. And now almost 15,000 makes no sense in today's world. I love the program. Don't get me wrong. And I like the fact that we do amnesty for a period of time. Yeah. Let people get their stuff squared away if they've done it without dealing with code. We can work with them and make sure that they can continue with their and not worry. I like the stability. I like the stability factor that this is going to go to homeowners. And these are going to be stable people moving in, not transient people traveling through. Yeah. Yeah, no short-term rentals. You can't use your AT for a short-term rental. That's this program. Of course, we don't allow it anyway. But this program prohibits it too. So those are all good things. You could lose your grant if you do things like that. And if you take advantage, you know you're selling your house and you take advantage of it, and you sell your house. You're not going to. Yeah. You're going to pay it back. Yeah. Right. OK. Yep. Will we have to change or modify any of our town codes for accessory dwelling units? We do. We have to remove. Well, we don't have to. But we are going to, based on our comp plan, we're recommending that we remove the three-year wait period. That was put in place sort of when we first did it. I think people were fearful that it was going to be like a wild rodeo of people coming in for apartments. And it really wasn't. In fact, we had originally had an accessory apartment review board that ultimately got dismissed. Yeah. And it was disbanded because there wasn't enough applications to even maintain the board. And so it became an administrative function of the building department, which has been happening. And I think altogether over the last 20 years, we probably have a couple of hundred that are out there, not a tremendous amount. So I don't expect that this is going to create any kind of wild. No, I don't either. Yeah. But to the extent that it could be beneficial to some people, I think it's well worthwhile. Absolutely. Just one other quick question. Jim, I know you're doing this in Brookhaven and Smithfield. I'm in Smithtown. Do these require an IA system, or do they hook up into existing septic? They could potentially require an IA system. The county is working on fast tracking anybody in these programs. There's funding for them. We've been working with Sarah Lansdale and the county on that. It could, depending on what construction is needed. A lot of the times, it can be a conversion of an existing garage for the ADU. In those cases, it's changing the footprint of the home. It wouldn't. But if you're building any type of additional structure onto the house, it definitely could come into play. And the county has their grant funding program to assist, and they're expediting people who are in the ADU programs already to push them to the front of the line on that program. Thank you. Okay. You're welcome. So that's our story. Great. Very good. Very good. Yeah, and so we'll move forward with a resolution, get that approved. And check in to see if first responders could be- Yes, we'll be working on that. We'll take a look at that. We'll report back. I just don't know if we have to change or modify any codes or create our own compliance system before we pass this or that. I don't think so. Okay. And I look forward to the chart because that would be useful for people that are interested, clerks or whatever. Yeah. All right, great. Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, James. James, thank you. You all have a happy holidays. Yeah, very nice to meet you. Same to you. Happy holidays. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. All right. Thanks. Okay. Next up we have matters surrounding the monthly police report with Chief Frost. How are you guys doing? Good morning. Good. How are you?

All right, call volume's down a little bit from last year, which is good, I guess, for me. Domestic's are a lot higher. I don't understand. It's Thanksgiving around the holidays, sometimes the domestic's do go up. They use it Christmas time as well, unfortunately. Political chats at the Thanksgiving table. Maybe, yeah. The big is the criminal incidents. It's 206, again, you really cannot compare to 2023. You go to page 203. Okay. [transcription gap] Three. Three. You see October we had 210, now this month is 206, so you can see we're kind of like leveling out finally with a good picture of it. Councilman Merrifield, you asked about the aggravated assault and simple assault. I did look into that. Aggravated assault would be an assault with like a weapon, a more aggravating factor. Even a menacing would fit into an aggravated assault, even though that's a misdemeanor. So this, if you look on this month, we had four aggravated assaults. So one was a menacing. They were all domestic related. So one was a menacing and the other three were assault seconds. That's why I was curious, where are they putting strangulations? Strangulations. Because that's typically a domestic assault charge. Yeah. Hold on a second. I do have some. I was curious if they were putting that with assault. Is that a problem? My business. It's actually not funny. It's common in domestic violence. It's very common. Really? It's not like we have Jack the Ripper around strangling people. It's just common in domestic violence. Stalking would go into an assault. A simple assault. Okay. What were you looking for? Strangulation. [transcription gap] Strong arm. It's not listed here unfortunately. I'm just curious where they put them in this rubric. Yeah, it's kind of funky now. I'll ask you another time. Yeah. I'll look it up. I'll email it to you. But the assaults, that's the assault answer. Okay. Just going back. Did have three non-fatal overdoses. A male 24. Female 24. A male 24. A female 24. A male 24. A female 24. [transcription gap] A male 34. and a female 23. Narcan was administered in all cases, one by us, and actually the other two were civilians. Oh, good. So that's pretty much it for my report. You have all the basic charges that are to chart. I've changed it a little bit so it's colorful and it makes it a little bit easier to see, and then obviously the breakdown by sectors. Not a lot of deer strikes for the month of November. I'm surprised with that. There was a lot out. We all did. You did too, yeah. Tons. I just think it's not reported. Oh, it could be. They hit a bump. Well, I mean, it could be, but you've got to, if you go to your insurance, you've got to have a report. Not anymore, though. You don't have to report it to the, when I hit deer, $6,000, I went to the police and said, you don't have to report this. I went right to the, because there's so many of them. Why did you not tell us you skewered the statistics here? Yeah, skewing them up by doing this. No, I, I, but your insurance company didn't request a police report? No, no, no. They don't anymore. There's just so many hits. I was shocked, too. Yeah, the last time I hit one, it was, had to file an accident report. Yeah. Last time one hit me, I had to file an accident report. I had one of those that ran to the side of my car on the sound avenue. It just ran right into the sound. I'm like, unbelievable. So fast. So quick. Yeah. Obviously, with the holiday season, I ask everyone to the public, drive safe, get a designated driver, use Ubers, cabs, let's make it a safe holiday season for all and other people in town as well. Good advice. Pretty much, yeah. I was downtown walking around yesterday, talking to the business owners. It was a nice day. Good. Pretty much it. You guys have anything for me? Excellent. I do not think so. Cool. Thanks, Chief. Yep. Hey, thanks. Thank you, Chief. Yep. Thank you. See you later. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. Okay. Next up, we have matters surrounding the monthly Justice Court report. Looks like we're going to have Counselor Howard. Yes. Yeah. Victoria is in county court this morning. Okay. So, uncovering. All right. So, has everybody looked? The November report? Okay. It's pretty straightforward. Same thing Victoria typically provides. We had one parking calendar date in the month of November. We collected $525 on that. And then across all the town code offenses and associated fines that we got judgments on in the month of November. Those totaled $16,530 with a projection of about $1,000. About $2,400 in surcharges for blight mitigation, $1,590 for human services, that category, and it's like other... Oh, she broke it down. So... $100 for the fire marshal. $100 on a fire marshal, that would be a Chapter 231 violation. And none under what are called... And all the other various town code trials. So, we got judgments. It's about 5,700. 5,700. A total of just over 23,000. That's good. The surcharges really help. Yeah. The surcharges are helpful. We've been working with accounting on tracking those. And, you know, part of the problem is when Justice Court collects the money. They have to run it all through the state comptroller. And then it gets sent back to... Gets sent back to... To accounting. So, the one thing that we need to work out with Justice Court is just them advising us when these are actually paid, when we actually get the money from a defendant on one of these. We need to know the specific amount so that accounting can properly track the... Which surcharge fund to put the money into. So... But otherwise, everything seems to be proceeding well. Eric, just a curiosity. Does the surcharge... Is there a limit on the surcharge? A limit? Well, there is pursuant to our code. So, okay. So, when we adopted the surcharges, we assigned a specific amount for specific town code violations. And... I don't have them off the top of my head. No, no, no. I don't expect you to. I would just like to see those at some point. You know, I mean a list so that we could... Maybe, did they need to be adjusted like on an annual basis? Well, I think it's... We only adopted this about a year ago. And then we... I mean, we're not going to... We're not going to be able to get that out a year ago. Yeah. So, I think we should maybe get a little more data before we... I think we'd like to see like maybe by the end of January or something like that, we can have a 2024 yearly report to see how we did over the course of the whole year. Sure. And maybe perhaps what was actually, you know, deemed by the court and what was actually paid by him. Did we receive full payment and all that and so forth. Get a little... You know, a little idea of how we did over the course of a year. And what categories they fall into. So, in terms of... So, in terms of collecting that, I would just need to know probably from accounting what the turnaround is on getting the money back from the state controller. That's what I said. We did the end of January, February. You know, just to go back and say, how did we do over the year? Yeah. I'm just not sure what the lag is. So, but I mean, I would expect probably sometime, yeah, probably the late January to mid-February, we should have an idea. Cool. As long as it's not like a significant amount of time that we're waiting on this money back from the state. Yeah. I think that would be helpful to see how we did. Yeah. And where they're falling in and how much money we're accumulating in like parks, for example, and things like that. Yeah. See how we're doing. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Those are the questions? Okay. Okay. There it is. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have matters surrounding the monthly town clerk report. We'll take a look at that. Okay. Thank you. [transcription gap] I'd really like to get a better understanding of how much time and what it costs the town, what it costs the residents for these foils that are put in. We have had to answer some of them over the course of four years, and I know myself most recently, Riverhead Local put in foils, and it took days and days to sit at the computer to go through things, and then it's got to be reviewed ten-thirty or a year. What are these foils actually? The residents should know what these foils truly cost the taxpayers. It doesn't. That's a very good point. I can work that up only because I know that everything comes through my office and gets rerouted through my office, and then we have to disseminate where does it go, who gets it, and then, of course, if it's not answered in a timely manner, who do they call as us, and then we have to research it. It's probably, well, I'd say every morning we've got two girls that work on it. There's like a way to figure out hours that are spent, and then we determine. I never realized how many people wanted to know something. Two retakes. But we're paying employees per hour to sit in and go through these emails for sometimes just these wide range of requests, and then I want to be obviously open government, but maybe sometimes there's got to be restrictions on narrowing down more specifically instead of these broad requests. Every conversation you had with Mr. Smith over the past four years is very wide-scoped and takes an enormous amount of hours from your office, the attorney's office, our office. It's a lot. Well, we may need to hire an employee. That's their sole job. And there's some that like... Our talents that have that. And there are some policies in place that maybe can be massaged a little bit too because sometimes somebody just wants to come in and get a copy of their deed, and they have to fill out a FOIL. And then get the FOIL request, and that gets sent over, and then they've got to go over, and then they've got to come back, pay me a quarter, and then go back and get their deed. But those are very specific. They're very specific. But it's still time consuming. These broad range does that come in. Oh, and some of it is absolutely... You're right. And most of it's denied, especially when it comes to First Amendment rights and stuff. There's a way to keep track of it like that. I certainly will. We do it here a lot. And what I'm doing this year, which hasn't been done, is I'm doing a year-end wrap-up in January. I want to know exactly what we did over the year as far as the number of licenses, and the number of hunting licenses, and death certificates, and birth certificates. We have to report also to Planned Parenthood. We have to report those, the fetal, and everything. Just all the stuff that we do in that office. And like right now, I'm downstaffed. Vanessa's off, and so is just Carol and I today. And you don't realize that when, like we just went through this master plan update with the local law, what's involved with getting that not only in the paper, but to get it published and get it to the state, and it's got to go to the other clerks. And there's a lot involved even with something like that. And that was a big undertaking. The planning did a great job with it. But now it all falls on me to make sure it gets out there and gets codified. And there's more coming. Which is okay, because I think it's the last time in our lifetime we'll have to do it, because it really is the finality of the building of the town. But it was a good undertaking, and you guys did a great job with it. Thank you. And just out of curiosity, so when, like, because I know building gets a ton of foils, for example, right? But they end up also going through you as well? They come through me first. They come through me first. Yeah, this is, you could shut down a town of 20,000 people decided to foil something different every single day. You could shut down a town. Well, the only good thing is that you can, you know, you can do a response that we received your foil. Right. And there are benchmarks to say, you know, look, we're going to need more time, and then you can extend it 20,000. You can extend it 30 days. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, it's not that we're ignoring you. I think you prioritize which ones you need to do. And it really comes down to why you're looking for it, really. I mean, if it's something benign, you're going to answer it right away. But if it's something more involved, it's going to take a while, really, to pull all those facts together. So, and then that's it. I mean, I love that we're coming up on a year already. I'm still learning. But I didn't realize how much was involved with it. And it just keeps me going. I feel like I'm 20 years old again, you know, sometimes. That's interesting because you did serve on the town board for so long. I never realized. And you had never realized how much. No, I always appreciated what Diane did. And, you know, I always advocated for her to get my help there and Spanish speaking and all that stuff because we are, I mean, most people come to the town clerk's office. That's, even when they don't belong there, you know. No. And I'm like, oh, she's got to go. Well, you're on the first floor. So everybody just goes right to you. Well, we help everybody. We can. We really do. So, and the dogs and stuff. But. Jim, what are the hours now for Spanish speaking? I have her every day from 11 to 2.30. 11 to 2.30 every day? Which is good because it really bridges. I mean, we know that if somebody comes in there, we communicate as best we can, you know. But if they come back at 11. That's perfect. And Noelia is her name. And she's learning. She's been here. This is her third week. And she's doing OK. So, you know, we'll see how it works out for her. She enjoys it. So. Thanks. But it's good five days a week. That's great. Excellent. And that's it. Request for death certificates, not 3,353. I was going to say, what is it? No. It's. We had 39 deaths. I was going to ask you about that. 39 deaths in the month. I was really busy last month. Our population. I just remembered the deaths are the ones that handled at the Connick place. And they're not all rivet residences sometimes. They're all places. It's like, we got many people. Yes. Yeah. It's true. This is a month. Very good. Anybody have any other questions? No. Have a very Merry Christmas. You too. You too. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a great Christmas. Good job. Likewise, Jim. All right. Next up, we have matters surrounding the 2025 recreational rental fees with RayCoin and Ashley. Come on up. Good morning. Good morning. You guys have the. Did you guys bring your paddle? Got it? You ready? All right. Just have a summary for you guys to just take a quick look at. We'll go over that first. see where we get the numbers from okay so the first portion of the report our facility rentals for 2024 so Ashley's going to go over the numbers this is her report so I kind of condensed everything as much as I can I know how you guys love my details before so go ahead Ashley okay so it's just broken down by different things that we charge for different locations that we that we do the application fees are just that what are attached to when people are submitting for something that they want to rent the next is our Community Center so GYCC just showing how many single-use meetings that people are doing or if they do recurring meetings like the garden club or anything like that it's pretty self-explanatory on there of when these events are happening how many there were and how much revenue that we've brought in somebody was asking me the other day at the George Young Community Center there is a kitchen there right yes a stove and a refrigerator there is okay so food can be heated up if they rent it out for a party well yeah I primarily deal with the facilities like our athletic fields or picnics or any of that so if you're seeing the facility use attendant and cleaning fees this just has our group and picnic rentals picnic and beach party rentals and then the highlighted one there is a park attendant cleaning fee because we have people our tenants be there to open the bathrooms and pick up extra garbage people are supposed to be cleaning up after themselves but you know that doesn't always happen yeah the highlighted items are items that we added last year as new fees last year's facility fees I just want to point this is a revenue report from that and then our field rentals are the next category and some other additions there we rent the fields hourly people rent the fields on the weekends and then we rent the fields on the weekends and then we rent the lights a lot of our ball this is for like baseball softball we've turned the veterans park ball fields also into multi-purpose fields we're doing lacrosse out there as well we added for this year lines which is be painting of the lines for those additional lacrosse fields and also preparation would be for like the ball fields if we're dragging and lining them for games so that we're getting additional revenue there but also that material costs a lot of money and if we rent the lights we're going to be paying for the ! keeping it the same for every type of rental it wouldn't really be fair additionally this year buildings and grounds built as two canoe kayak stand up paddleboard racks that you can rent similar to a bike rack but at South James Port Beach so we charge $150 a slip for the season and we were able to fill 11 of those slips this year and we're going to build another rack this year so that we have a total of 18 over there they'll stay at South James Port Beach. we considered the beach the other beaches but we're trying we don't really want to promote people taking the kayaks out on the sound considering there's always seem to be like lost people and it's more dangerous. Water can change in an hour. It's very treacherous at times. So I just got a question. I know Ray and I spoke about doing some at is it Willow Park? Weeping Willow. Weeping Willow. Because then you could get on to the river. Yep. Yeah it's something we want to promote down there or even rent something out down the road. Rent out kayaks and canoes. That's a perfect area to launch. Yeah so if we start out with racks there and then maybe get into rentals or something. Yeah I remember having that conversation. I just want to emphasize on the field rentals especially at Veterans Park you can see how many hours are spent there. I know there are some reports that I heard that we don't do a lot of activity out there. That's totally false. You can see 737 hours alone just for people using our fields. That's just the groups using it. We still have residents come on and do baseball practices, Little Leagues on there. So I just want to emphasize that point. It is busy up there. So and then that's just kind of a comparison at the bottom of the different years and how things change. Maybe we change the rates and all that. Yeah that next page. The grand total kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Breaks it down in total for you. So you can see as we've gone up in the years. It's gone up. I know 21 to 22. We're still in a way. Recovering from COVID. So. We were down six percent. But then 2023. Up three percent. And then 2024. With all the additions. We're up 16 percent. And this is just money. We get from rentals. It doesn't cost us anything. Besides. Just a field prep. Which we're not charging people for anyway. Okay. I'll jump down to the East Creek docking facility. The revenue, total revenue this year in East Creek was $282,750. It's broken down by three categories. Administrative fee of $2,400. That's what we charge the initiation fee that we're charging now for next year to get people to retain their slips for the following year. The revenue itself was $248,200. Electric was $6,000. And the metrics of it, we kind of try to see the size of the boats and how much we're bringing in per boat and see if it changes, fluctuates. So the average boat size over there is 24 feet. We charge $85 a foot, so the average revenue per boat is $2,057. The total expenses this year was $273,892. And I highlighted the electric expense because I had changed this on the... You've got to raise those rates. Yeah, the electric has gone through the roof, and we have to now pass it along. Because we lost money on the electric. Overall, the East Creek had made money. This was one of them. The debt service, which is the bond payback, was $113,400. Good news is that ends in 2027. The 15-year bond ends, and that money will now be right into the East Creek, which will help with the improvements, especially the bulkhead was something that we're looking at. The other expenses were $148,000. Those are all the different expenses for East Creek. I just noted that water. It was an anomaly this year. It was over by $4,322. We had two major leaks over there, which has since been corrected by buildings and grounds, but that is the reason the water went over. Otherwise, water has always been stable for us. So the next... I'm not going to read all this for you. You can just take a look at it. It just kind of breaks it down in detail of everything I just said. I underline it's worth knowing that electric service provided $6,000 in revenue. The associate expects... It's expenses were $12,000 and a loss of $6,000. So the conclusion, what we would like to do, since East Creek still makes money, but we made marginal money this year, and the electric is the area we'd want to increase. So we have boats that are between 20 and 29 feet. They're paying the same amount that a 40-foot boat. So we did some research. They broke down all the numbers. And this is what we kind of broke it down to. So if you have a boat that's 20, 29 feet, you're not going to use a lot of electric there. So we... 400. So for them, it's just a $25 increase. If you're 30 to 39 feet, you can see we had eight boats then. 525 per year. 40 to 49. 625 per year. And the boat's 50-plus. And we don't have any boats that are 50-plus as of now. It's 800. And I did base this off of other municipalities. We're doing this gradually. To meet the electric, I didn't want to throw this all at them at one time. But it will get us to the point where we need to be. Then you see the bond payoff scale. Like I said, 2027, we're done. But you can see in 2025, it goes down from 113. Then it goes down to 107. Then 1035. So you can see that going down. And then we're done with it. And like I said, that's a big plus for East Creek. And we can then use that money and begin repairing. The docks as they're starting to age. I mean, it's concrete docks. So they're still in great shape. But there are other areas in the marina. And I know we had a meeting last night. One of the East Creek members brought up the idea of adding another section of floating boat rental docks. Which is an idea we spoke about years ago. We have room over there. We can make more revenue over there. Be for smaller boats. But we'll approach it when there's money there for us to be there. How's the waiting list for the docks? It's gone down, but still over 250. So you're looking at about a three-year wait. But it used to be five to seven-year wait. So it's gone down a little bit. But we manage to now call people now. Because the biggest complaint we got years ago was that we weren't calling them in January and February. They already committed to the marina. So as soon as November 15th hit, even before that, we start calling. But we always see like a 10% turnover. At the facility. So we start calling people. Doris is on top of that. And she's already filled the missing slips already for 2025. Okay. Any questions on that? I'm just going to jump to the beach tickets. One question for you, Ray. Sure. The increase in electric. Because I've just read recently where the electric increase this year in general has probably gone up about 7%. What percentage have you gone up? You have a rough idea. I mean, I don't know. This is going to. Say we. Took about six in with this. Considering the same amount of boats using the same electric would move us up to about the 10 to 11,000 range. And our expenses were 12. So like I said, I didn't want to. Since the overall facility made money, I didn't want to throw a huge expense at the boats. Because you're going from 375 up to some boats to 625. If the board would like me to increase it, I can. But I figured we do. We do it like we did with the foot. We increased it gradually. We'll do the same thing with electric. I thought that was the best approach. But that's why I'm presenting it to you. If there's something you'd like me to change, I have no issues changing it. I think that this is very fair, honestly. Okay. That's what we were looking to do. Because you're right. You know, a 20-foot boat is not going to use the same amount of electric as, you know, a 48-foot boat. Yeah. Yeah. And that was. We've had people ask us that before. They're running refrigerators and everything else in the bigger boats. And the smaller ones aren't. Right. Yeah. So I figured they'd take the bulk of the electric because they use the bulk of the electric. And to my boater friends, don't hate me for saying that. Well, we didn't kill them. And that was the one thing I wanted to do because I don't want them killing me. I can't believe you just increased it that much in one shot. We're gradually going to do it. We just want to meet the electric. And again, it's a healthy budget at East Creek. So we had the ability to do this. But again, if, you know, we have until the town board meeting, I could always take it off. Okay. If you want to discuss it further. Well, you lost money in 2024. So you have to make it up. Yeah. We lost money just in that category. Yeah. Just in electric. Yeah. You have to make it up somehow. Okay. So the beach sticker overview. This is the features that we're looking to do in 2025. Now, the first feature is the family guest pass. And this is something we discussed with you the last time. This was an issue with many of the residents that they do not have the ability to bring guests to the beach. Often their kids come or their parents come and the car seat issue. And it's been an ongoing issue. So our solution was to do one resident guest pass per household. They'd have to fill out an application. And we would do it to 25 per year. So there's two things I wanted to go over with you with that. First thing is the supervisor asked me to look at South Holden, which I did. They're the other municipality that does this. They charge $40 per vehicle per visit. I thought that was a little much for us. They also said that is a nightmare for them administratively. So I figured to start at 225 this season. This is for the whole year. One per household. If you lose it, you tire it, it's bad luck for you. And then we gauge it and see how it works. I also received it. And I think actually you have this too. The application that Southhold uses, it includes a notary signature. I figured we'd do that. We just model the same. Um, so we did have a meeting last night, uh, as per the supervising town board request with East Creek and beach committee. Unfortunately, we only had two people show up. I had, maybe there was a, some kind of conflict. Yeah. One from East Creek and one from the beach committee. Um. We really couldn't gauge, uh, data. So I am asking the board if you'd like me to keep this on for January, or I can move it, uh, take this section out and move it down the, uh, down further so we can gather more data. And the reason we can do this is because they are hang tags. We have not ordered them yet. Um, and we can get them in within a week or two. The other beach stickers are arrived. They've been already counted. They're ready to go for 2025. So it starts January 1st. Yeah, we're ready. We're ready. So we told people January 2nd, uh, cause they'll start coming in. Yeah. We won't be at January 1st, but January 2nd, they'll be in at eight in the morning. People want that first sticker and they fight over it, believe it or not. Uh, but we also have a system that blasts out to all the people that had stickers before online. You can just click a button and renew it right then and there, and we'll mail it right to you. So that's the big feature. So I'll defer to the board on that. Um, the two other jump in on that. So, um, as liaison to beach and create a beach was on board with this. This is why we brought this to a work session and the supervisor suggested that we have the discussion with East Creek. There's only three members on East Creek. One showed up. I will call the other two and make sure that they're on board. But I do not think. Okay. So I'm going to call the other two and make sure that they're on board. And I will call the other two and make sure that they're on board. [transcription gap] Um, so, okay. So the next two that we're doing, this is just, uh, things that we're doing. It has nothing to do with the fees. Just wanted to throw that out there. Maybe we can get it marketed right away. Um, one of the issues that we got this year moving into town hall was being on the second floor. Um, it's a lot harder for, uh, seniors to get to us. People that have issues walk and get to us. So we, Rebecca, uh, Rebecca's team is in charge of customer service. She. She. Couldn't be here today. I wanted to come and talk about it. So they brainstorm ways that we can solve this. And the one thing they came up is drive through Thursdays. So every first and third Thursday from March to may, we'll be outside in a section of the parking lot. Like probably where the bank area is. We'll make sure it's safe and cordoned off and everything like that. And residents can come through in their car and we're going to do it. We're going to model the Chick-fil-A. I don't know if ever you've been to a drive through at, at Chick-fil-A where they have their iPads out one car, they take your order. They go to the next car. We're gonna do the same thing. We're going to get all. The information. So it's seamless. It'll go to the next person with the sticker writing out and boom, and we'll just keep moving the cars along. Um, we want to use our technology, advanced technology to do this. And I think we can, because we have the system to do it. So we figured we're going to market this heavily. So people don't have to come upstairs and then we're going to go to the senior center on April 30th. I might add another date that as well. And this way we can sell stickers exclusively to the seniors, especially the seniors at the. Senior. Senior. Uh, so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so So the next, what you guys have is the fees, and the only changes that we made were from the report are East Creek. Well, the non-resident boat launch trailer we spoke about, that was one. The resident guest pass was two, and the hotel motel I know we discussed were the three increases and additions to the beach stickers. And then East Creek, the highlighted portion with the electric is on the following page. Every other charge that's not highlighted is the same exact one. 2024, we felt it was a healthy year, and we'll just keep going that way. Any questions, comments, concerns? I love the detail of your report. We actually scaled it down. Ashley had five pages of Excel spreadsheets. She's great. And like I said, if you want to think more about this guest pass, we can remove that. It's scheduled for the first meeting in January. I don't mind taking that off, too. If you go further on, it's a huge... Well, to help someone with Wusky's point, if she can get the information to you, whatever works. Okay. Yeah, whatever's easier for you guys. I just wanted to say that's easier for us since it's not part of the big bulk beach stickers that we do. That's everything. I just want to comment. The winter brochure came out, and as always, the brochure is top-notch. You guys do a fantastic job with that. Thank you. [transcription gap] More importantly, the creativity of the events and the programs that you're doing. I purposely go through it every time it comes in the mail because I like to see the stuff that you've added. And a couple of the programs you did, like with the trading the Halloween outfits. That's Ashley. I mean, that's just... That's so thoughtful. That's really thinking outside the box. And when you have a family with a bunch of kids and you're buying new costumes all the time, and I can't wear it. I wore that last year. And what happens to it? So stuff like that's a great idea. Thank you. And I really like the outside the box thinking. We have a great team in the recreation department. We truly do have a great team. Your creative ability is through the roof. Your visual stuff. I follow you on Instagram. It's top notch. And I did see twice parents, a mother with a daughter, looking for costumes. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. I didn't know she's so brave. [transcription gap] There's probably a lot of stuff around Town Hall from the shop, which is good. But all that stuff's being kept at a landfill. Our next one will be in March. We're going to do a garden swap over at Stotsky, though, because I'm not going to have people bring in wheelbarrows and stuff in here. So they can swap all stuff that they want to do for that. And sporting equipment, too. You know, like lacrosse. My garage is still filled with stuff that nobody uses anymore. They're just places to take it where people can use it and still get good use out of it. Yeah, it's nice and safe. Keep in mind, also, if you have things left over and you're really adding up a lot of the Christmas stuff, the Salvation Army would probably take that stuff. Yeah, we've kept it to put it out for next year to have a little inventory to start. And then we'll just keep. Don't listen to Ray. We're not throwing it in there. Yeah, I threatened at the department meeting, we're going to throw it in a landfill. Then all the departments came and took some. It was a good choice of words. Thank you. We appreciate that. You guys do a great job. You did. Can I just ask, could you tell the public again about the ice rink? Yes. Yes. Thank you to Councilwoman Merrifield. We're doing a holiday skate at the Peconic Ice Rink. It is now next Friday. I think it's the 27th. And that is from 11 to 3. Yeah, 11 to 3. Okay. And then Sunday, we're doing it Sunday evenings. We want to do one afternoon, one evening, one weekend. One weekend, one weekend. And that starts at 6 o'clock. It is free to the residents. All you have to do is log on to our RiverheadRecreation.net. We put the link in the front. Click on the link. Follow the instructions. Bring the receipt to the front desk. You're in for free. And they have to do that prior. Yes. They have to be able to do it when they get up at the ice skating rink. Unless they have their cell phone, they can present that. Yeah. Other than that, the paper receipt would be. Ideally, they should do that before they get there. Yeah. And I know Ashley is offering a bunch of programs now for the seniors. I know there's been some criticism on it. It's been actually a very good thing for us so far. We have a lot of Riverhead residents that use that rink through hockey, through skating events, learn to skate programs. Not everybody is taking advantage of the discount, but we're getting that out now. But it's still heavily used. I get called out every time. Heavily used. Heavily used. And a lot of Riverhead residents take advantage of it. And you'll see the benefit. It just takes time to get . . . Right. I mentioned the other night at the board meeting, exactly like East Creek Marina was. Yeah. When that was developed years ago, you had the taxpayers saying, oh, it's only for people who have boats. Why am I paying for that? Well, in the beginning, there is an expense. But as it gets developed, it makes money. It's self-sustaining. That's what's going to happen eventually with the hockey rink. I agree. People fail to realize that. One thing people realize that they fail to realize too, it's an asset. Right. It's like a $2,000. Yeah. It's like a $2,000. Yeah. It's like a $2,000. Yeah. It's a $3 million asset that a town owns. So it's only beneficial. And as they make money and they are submitting their numbers to us and you see the progress that they're making, our expenses go down. And then soon, we're going to be making money from them. So to me, it's a great thing down there. And I just encourage people to just be patient. Yeah. of it as well if you're a resident. I like it's something the town can offer the residents for free while the kids are home from school and you don't know what to do with them and they've had all the candy and everything from the holidays. Yeah, yeah. People love the skate. We used to, at the Statsky Park ice rink, we used to have PVC pipe. We put water in the freeze and anytime we got the freeze, which was rare, we had tons of people there. And it's just nice. I learned to skate on the tennis courts up there. We closed that over every year when I was a kid. People kept asking for a hockey rink and an ice rink and we have it. It's our asset. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. John Ledecky, the owner of the New York Islanders was great over the summer. He had Islanders players, different players come out almost every day. Kids didn't know, they just showed up for camp and then all of a sudden there's a captain of the New York Islanders skating with them on the ice and all these other different players that have come out. So it's been like continuous, no surprises. Yeah, I told him to tell me that. Right now in Denmark. The NCAA comes out and skates just because we got a piece of the Ranger fans. That's the only one I would say. I love Messi. I hate the Rangers but I love Messi. It was great that he came down. It's a legend. A legend coming to Riverhead. It's nice and they all know about it. Was that ever reported? No, because what they did is they would just, no, no report. And the Islanders just want them to let them know that they appreciate, you know, they were a heavy financial sponsor to the Rinks but they like to just come out. They like to see it. They like to see the surprise of the kids, you know what I mean? Because they want to be out there for the genuine kids that are really like, that are doing it. You know, if they make an announcement, they come and the Rink fills up and then all the other kids that they just, so they just kind of show up on random occasions and it really makes it exciting. Look at, Deke himself showed up. I got to meet him first. It was a dream for me. I love him. Ed Westfall goes out there a lot. Yeah, his name. He walks around. He's so proud to see his name on the sign out there. He loves it. Yeah, yeah. So it's been great. Well, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Why is that horseback riding program? You did in the fall. It was Paige's wedding weekend, so I couldn't do it. We were dying to do that. That's another great idea. Well, we actually had to cancel it, unfortunately. The instructor had a death in her family. So we are going to retry it again. Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Because we, I know they kept saying, well, supervisor wants to do it. Yeah, he came to our office and asked about it. So we're going to have to redo it for sure. Again, that's thinking outside the box. That's just stuff that, you know, you don't see anywhere. So you're taking lessons, huh? Yeah. That's awesome. We're going to get challenged. How come you learned how to feed the horse and brush his hair a little bit? I don't know if I get it on.

I don't know. Okay, thank you again. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Okay, next up we have matters surrounding the Riverhead in Action 2024 recap. So the team put together kind of a little segment of all the different Riverhead in Action programs we did. So it's an end of the year type thing. A little montage. Yeah, exactly. A nice little montage, collage, whatever. We will see that. Hi, this is Supervisor Tim Hubbard. I hope you've enjoyed our first year of Riverhead in Action videos featuring the great work of Riverhead Town employees, area businesses, and town happenings. The team has put together a highlight reel of Riverhead in Action from 2024 and plans to include even more departments, employees, and businesses coming up in 2025. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy new year. Good to see you all. [transcription gap] Thank you. [transcription gap] Good luck. This will finish our open session of work session. Just a reminder that next Thursday on December 26th, which is the day after Christmas, work session is canceled. We do not have a work session next Thursday. The next work session we have will be January 2nd in 2025. So I want to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. and a happy and prosperous new year. You won't see us on the air again until 2025. I can't believe I'm saying that because as a little kid I remember somebody talking about, you know, George Orwell and things in the future and all this stuff. And somebody brought up the idea of 2020. And I remember sitting thinking in fifth grade, 2020, am I going to be alive then? And then I sat and I did the math and I'm like, oh, God, yeah, I will be alive, but I'm going to be an old man then. And it's here. I mean, and here we are now going to 2025. It's incredible how time flies, especially the older I get, the faster it goes. But I want to have everybody in the town of Rivet just have a blessed new year, happy holidays. And from the entire board, we thank you for all that you do. We thank you for being the residents of our town. And we thank you for all the input you give us over the course of the year. So happy holidays. Happy new year. Thank you.

First. Second. Oh, yes. Sorry about that. And we're going into executive. Motion to close. I'm sorry. It says that we're going into executive session. Yes. Motion we're going to close the open session. We're going to go into executive session to discuss matters surrounding change in status of an employee. That'll be with myself. And now we will close the open session. Can I have all in favor of closing the open session? Aye. All opposed? And open session is closed. We will retire to executive session now.

Second.