Tonight’s City Council Meeting has ended, coming in at only 1hour long, which was nice for my breaking of fast for Ramadan with a date and cup of the Chocolate & Mushroom Elixir from 4 Wall Farm with milk from Hudson Valley Fresh. A sufficient appetizer to hold me over until dinner/Iftar of a cheeseburger made from the patties from Eggberts Free Range Farm.

Several tidbits made it into this meeting, but the large projects discussed were:

Parade of Green: Generally hailed as perhaps the best parade in years by Mayor Lee, but the cars parked on Main Street and the shorter ending at Fishkill Avenue was criticized by the public. This is not the first parade that was cut short - the Halloween Hocus Pocus was also cut short, those organizers said, even though they requested to go longer. Businesses look forward to certain parades bringing them business or foot traffic, and this Parade of Green ending at Fishkill Avenue (the Yankee Clipper Diner) may have hurt some businesses. During Public Comment, a resident, Theresa Kraft, said that people were lined up on the other side of Fishkill Ave. waiting for the parade, but saw no parade. City Administrator Chris White said that the reason for the shorted route was due to short staffing of Police, that they still have 3 positions open, with two out on Medical, and one out on Paternity leave. He said he could not find enough officers to do the overtime. But in the future, he would consider the route going to Memorial Park, as Dummy Light exit is “chaotic.” But has been done before for years.

Beekman Street Rehabilitation Project: The first phase to authorize this project moving forward was tonight. Expect a topic of discussion to be the new bike lane on that street, and if it will be one-way or two-way. It is slated for one-way now.
Sidewalk Study is coming. To determine where the City of Beacon should focus on adding or replacing sidewalk that is not within income qualifying areas. Public input is wanted. Speak at the podium to request your sidewalk block, in addition to sending email to your ward representative and the Mayor and City Administrator.

The rest is in the video. Dinnertime now.

Gold Nuggets:

The Department of Homeland Security List that Beacon was on regarding immigration. Read more about that here.

The Loitering Law and marijuana after New York State de-criminalized it.

Councilperson Jeff Domanski bringing up Community Choice Aggregation again (the low price green energy deal that did save Beacon customers money that Jeff was connected to but it fell apart the first time after energy prices went up at the start of the war on Ukraine. The program is back for another go).

The so far undisclosed sale price or bidder for the Mase Hook and Ladder Fire House.

Speculation of what is in the “Personal” section of the private Executive Session when the agenda said there would only be discussion of “Real Property.” We do know that there were recently at least 2 suspensions in the Highway Department: Reuben Simmons and another person.