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MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF
THE VILLAGE OF PORT CHESTER CITY STATUS COMMITTEE
HELD: May 28, 2020
TIME AND PLACE: 5:45 PM, PC Village Hall Conference Room, 222 Grace Church Street, Port
Chester, NY and over Village’s WebEx platform
Chairman Frank Ferrara called to order the meeting of the Village of Port Chester City
Status Committee at 5:45 PM. A motion to open the meeting was made by former Mayor Neil
Pagano and seconded by Keith Morlino. The Committee approved the motion by unanimous
consent.
The following members were present:
First Name Last Name
Francis Ferrara
Luis Marino
Hattie Adams
Brian A Devaney
Gregg Hamilton
Joseph W Lodato
Keith Morlino
Peter Pascale
Neil Pagano
Joan Tosh
Also in attendance was Committee staff member Village Attorney Anthony Cerreto and
Committee appointed consultants Kent Gardner and Patti Dwyer of CGR.
CHAIRMAN’S REMARKS
Chairman Ferrara announced that the purpose of the meeting was to receive a
presentation on consultant CGR’s report that had been distributed to the Committee last week,
have the opportunity to ask questions, and then to move on to a broad discussion about the
report, its implications, and next steps. He suggested that this was “the end of the beginning”
of the City Status process where the Committee might soon consider making a
recommendation to the Village Board of Trustees (BOT) that appointed us.

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APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Hattie Adams made a motion to approve the minutes from the October 23, 2019
meeting, which was seconded by Joe Lodato. The Committee approved the Minutes by
unanimous consent.
PRESENTATION BY CGR ON THEIR REPORT REGARDING CITY STATUS FOR PORT CHESTER
Kent Gardner of CGR and Patti Dwyer of Sourced Solutions attended to present the
report, with Mr. Gardner taking the lead.
Mr. Gardner reported on their process, that included interviews of all committee
members that volunteered for the process as well as all elected officials that represent Port
Chester at one level of state or local government or another outside of the Governor, along
with Mayors of Villages and Supervisors of Towns that are related to Port Chester through the
Town of Rye. He commented about the depth of good will that exists for the Village throughout
the State given the visibility of recent Village initiatives and Mayor Falanka’s high profile
throughout the State as a result of his activities as Village Clerk over nearly 30 years.
His impression from the interviews was that this was a favorable time for this process,
given a unique confluence of events that favored the Village.
He then presented on the advantages to the Village of City Status, highlighted by the
Sales Tax windfall that if structured similarly to other cities in Westchester County would yield
over $9M more per annum than the Village currently realizes from the County pool distribution
mechanism.
The Village would have to spend to upgrade its court system to State standards, but the
State would be responsible for funding all Court functions, estimated to be about $1.5M a year.
The distribution of State Aid was less clear given the lack of formulas that are used to
allocate funds and the fact that aid is likely to be under pressure as the State had budget
pressures even before the Covid 19 Pandemic. But what is clear is that cities get far more than
villages. Even if Port Chester would be unlikely to obtain anywhere near the largest aid grant to
a city in the state, the smallest would represent an additional $2.8M over what it receives now
as a Village.
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DISCUSSION OF RFP SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
Chairman Ferrara opened the discussion by commenting how pleasantly surprised he
was by the seeming lack of political obstacles presented in the report, when he had expected
many. The report clearly states that Port Chester pre-empting the County Sales Tax pool would
be a non-event for village and school district budgets throughout the County, eliminating
perhaps the biggest single potential source of opposition.
And the fear on the part of the Legislature and Governor that large municipalities would
demand City Status after Port Chester was in part allayed by the report’s reference to the
Village’s unique urban density as compared to other large Villages and Towns and what the
report referred to as the Village’s “Unique Latino culture,” which would make it the only Latino
majority City in the State.
Former Mayor Neil Pagano called attention to Page 30 of the draft and the dire financial
direction of the Village it suggests should conditions not change. He mentioned he had
previously hoped that smart development would bring in the new revenues and growth
opportunities the Village needs, but that they have not materialized quickly enough. The report
goes on to suggest that without new revenues the only obvious solution for the Village would
be an aggressive upzoning and potential loss of character and current residents. Given those
options, Mr. Pagano suggested we have no alternative but to embrace the process and
continue our quest for City Status.
Several others spoke of the fear of gentrification should the Village not be successful in
its quest for City Status, but Mr. Gardner reminded the Committee that the Village as a City
Status candidate is “a good product to sell,” that can offer the Governor a number of objectives
he would like to achieve, perhaps most prominently local government rationalization with the
likely disappearance of the Town of Rye in the process. He suggested that based on their
interviews we might have a willing ally in the Village of Rye Brook that might welcome being
their own coterminous Town/Village, in the mode of Harrison.
DISCUSSION OF NEXT STEPS
Chairman Ferrara mentioned that the eventual goal was to accept and publish the
report and pass along our recommendations to the BOT. A spirited discussion followed and
while the sense of the Committee was a desire to accept the report, ultimately it was decided
that given the lack of clear guidance from the State on the City Status process, the
recommendation for next steps needed to be clearer in the report. Committee member Peter
Pascale suggested that with at least suggested steps we would be in position to fulfill our
mission.
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The Committee’s appointed advisor, Village Attorney Tony Cerreto, suggested that the
best course of action might be for he and CGR to discuss this matter with The New York
Conference of Mayors (NYCOM), with whose help we began our due diligence two years ago,
and whose representatives attended and presented at our inaugural meeting.
It was agreed that NYCOM would be approached to achieve a consensus on procedure
and that the committee would reconvene at the earliest time to review a redlined draft, and
reconsider acceptance and recommendations to the BOT.
NEXT MEETING
Chairman Ferrara suggested that Committee Staff and CGR would aggressively move to
clarify the outstanding issues and hold the next meeting within a few weeks’ time. He felt it
would be a brief meeting given the ground that was covered this evening and he thanked the
Committee members for their continued time and attention to the Committee’s mission.
ADJOURNMENT
On the motion of Hattie Adams and seconded by Peter Pascale, the meeting was
adjourned by unanimous consent at approximately 6:40 PM.
Respectfully submitted by Frank Ferrara, Chairman
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Minutes
Kent
He scoped out the advantages
I mentioned the lack of political obstacles
Neil page 30
PC bankurpcy
He thought we could solve that through the IDA
Without new revenues the only obvious solution is upzoning and effective character
Latino is the way to go – opens doors
Development will lock out current residents
PC just layed off over 30 people – are we oly gong to be police fire and dpw?
With have no alternative but to go down this road
Joe Lodato
Does thinking change with covid
Nothing has gotten easier
Aid is likely to conitinue to decline
Kent – you have a good product to sell
Form based code can upzone areas without changing the character
Joe Lodato – peoole are coming out of NYC and will come here – here comes gentrification
Kent – governor has two cookies
Latino city
TOR gone
Keith – what does TOR look like
Kent – you don’t need to take that fight on by yourselves
And it could take some time – need to be persistent
Neil what are next stes
Me – Charter
Kent suggests maybe not
Tony – uncertain path
But cannot be an advisory referendum
Hstty and Joe on minutes
Tony N and Joe C
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Peter Pascale
Path forward – would be helpful if we have at least suggested steps
Hattie Peter adjourn
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