Deputy Mayor Melkorka Kjarval’s Monthly Reports
Oct 10th, 2023
NY Forward :
As of September 29th we are waiting for response and commentary to our application that was submitted to the NY State DOS offices. Once the official review period is over we will analyze any feedback provided and will hopefully have the opportunity to invite DOS Revitalization Specialist Susan Landfried to tour our village in the hopes she will be able to provide us with insights into ideal projects to develop for future applications.
We are very grateful to all the community members who gave us input during Hardscrabble day at the Village booth (some of you won Village Patches!). We really appreciate the ongoing conversation with the public as they tell us what they appreciate about downtown currently, and what they hope to see in the future.
Red Hook Together:
Red Hook Together met October 5th, at noon on Zoom to discuss how the group itself could address the needs identified in community needs assessment, and what format and which specific need attendees would like to commit to exploring.
Childcare was identified as the topic for next month's meeting, which will be virtual to encourage local childcare operators to attend. Various attendees offered to invite either local childcare providers and/or representatives from agencies that are in the childcare arena.
Red Hook Town Economic Development Committee:
The EDC meets the 2nd and 4th wed of the month, at 8:40 am. This month they met on September 13th and 27th.
Discussion on the 13th focused on if the EDC would invite area Farmers and members of the Open Spaces Committee to discuss economic challenges facing the farming community. Discussion of why Red Hook has successful farm stands on operational farms rather than an active weekend farmers market proved a very interesting discussion. Considerations on if a market could benefit the agricultural community and/or downtown traffic was inconclusive. The Conversation on the 27th again focused on Agriculture. The discussion began with talk of easements preserving agricultural land, and how farmer-owned farms were becoming less of a common model in Red Hook. The growing cost of land and thin profit margins were cited as reasons why young farmers leave the industry and/or work underneath the umbrella of larger non-locally owned operations. More comprehensive minutes are available on the Committee webpage on the Town Website.
Village of Red Hook Communications Committee:
The Communications committee meets every first Wednesday of the month at 1:30 pm in the Village Hall conference room. At the Oct 4th meeting we discussed several content updates and eventual organizational changes that will happen to the website - as well as updating formatting and organization of the Mayor’s Newsletter.
Village Events Committee:
The events committee meets on the 3rd Monday of each month at 6pm at Village Hall.
Despite Saturday’s soggy weather, Neighbors Night and Hardscrabble were a success. A huge thank you goes out to the Events committee; It’s Chair Amy Smith for her tireless commitment to our community, Jeff Walsh
heading up the music subgroup, The Mayor for her consummate commitment to coordinating all the village operations needed to support an event like this, Dan Pucci for coordinating the local cider and beer tent, Nora Feldhusen for running our social media updates & Jamie Hoelzel who helped with multiple design projects right down to the wire! We also appreciate the many other people who helped volunteer on the day of, as well as the countless community organizations and community members that showed up and out for Red Hook in wet weather during the day's festivities.
Don’t forget that the Annual Village Halloween Parade is on Saturday, October 28th at 1pm! All ages of participants & human-powered floats are welcome! There is no age limit to attend!
Also, If you are interested in joining or volunteering for the events committee please contact the committee chair, Amy Smith by email at events@redhooknyvillage.org
Village of Red Hook Human Relations Committee:
The Human Relations Committee meets every first Thursday of the month at 7:00 pm in the Village Hall conference room. This month's meeting has been moved to October 11th, at 7pm.
The committee presented their InsideOut “We are Neighbors exhibit” on Neighbors Night, and again during Hardscrabble day. At next week's meeting we look forward to uploading the photos of the installation to the Global InsideOut projects website, and discussing our next projects.