Deputy Mayor's Report — November 2025

Deputy Mayor Melkorka Kjarval’s Monthly Reports

November, 17th, 2025

Red Hook Together meets every first Thursday of the month. The December 4th meeting was held at Olin Hall at Bard. Participants were prompted by RHPL’s Allex Gellar to offer topics and then the group was split into groups that would “strategically plan” on those prompts. We were not allowed to visit both groups. One prompt was Transitional Housing, and the other was Community Festivals & Events. The groups are now tasked to ‘take next steps’ on these issues after defining what the ideas to be addressed were. Newly named “Anchor Events”proposed that festival planners should coordinate with Red Hook Together to change dates to better accommodate schedules. They also identified communication as an issue and lamented that there wasn't a central calendar, there weren't any trollies for events to transport festival goers around the Village and that event organizers do not promote each other’s events. They also wanted to find out how to engage Tivoli. There was no mention of the Village role in Anchor Events mentioned.

The second group which I was allowed to attend discussed short & long term solutions for housing. We discussed last year's overnight warming shelter (organized with private donations that covered bedding supplies & a Hudson River Housing staffer for evening shifts, donated space & volunteer provided food drop-offs & evening/early morning shifts) & including challenges ahead for replicating the shelter this year. Also discussed were the different types of shelter options (intimate partner violence shelters, teen shelters, group homes etc as well as other models - and what needs we have here in the Northern Dutchess Region). Kris Munn has a proposal to the legislature (not yet adopted or funded) to have Municipal Investment grants for de-centralized shelters that would be available to municipalities. McKeon shared that there is a NYS town law that allows the town to spend $10,000 on Mental Health. For those who don’t know, Dutchess County is our NYS Local Department Social services district. That means that Dutchess County receives NYS taxpayer funding to provide social services within its boundaries. Many of those social services are located around and in the Poughkeepsie area. I shared that I found a training session called “Navigating the System - Housing and Temporary Assistance Programs” offered annually by the County incredibly helpful for understanding what options currently exist and also how much has changed due to COVID and since.

Both groups were tasked with meeting up the next month to take ‘next steps’.

Also of note Community Action Partnership, which the Village of Red Hook contributes towards is moving forward with plans to close its Red Hook office.

Town of Red Hook Comprehensive Plan: The Town committee meets monthly from 7:30pm to 9pm on the fourth Tuesday at Town Hall.

The Town hosted an Comprehensive Plan Public Workshop on Tuesday, November 25th. Discussion focused on upcoming “Kitchen tables discussions”, outreach and the Public’s awareness of the process. Kitchen Table’s are social events you can host in your own social circle to talk through the

comprehensive plan goals. Any responses collected will help determine the goals and priorities in the proposed Town Comprehensive Plan. If you are interested in hosting your own kitchen table email: comprehensiveplan@redhookny.gov.

I have also included links to some of the resources and webpages about the Town’s process: Webpage to learn more: redhookny.gov/578/Town-of-Red-Hook-Comprehensive-Plan Key facts: redhookny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4982/Town-of-Red-Hook-Key-Facts? What is a comprehensive plan?:

redhookny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4933/Town-of-Red-Hook-Comprehensive-Plan-Newsletter---Se ptember-2025

Link to the online survey: surveymonkey.com/r/RedHookVision

Town of Red Hook Community Preservation Fund: A new balance has not been released since the past report.

Full Statement available online at: redhookny.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/1057?fleID=19461

Village of Red Hook Communications:

I have continued to work with Tivoli on their Trash & Recycling Flyers & calendar, and finished customizing those designs. I am also beginning to work on the Villages calendar and considering if I can use a smaller format for trash pickup days.

Village and Zoning Review:

On the morning of Monday, November 24th at 9:30 am, the Mayor and I met with planning consultant Bonnie Franson and the Village’s planning lawyer Victoria Polidoro, to discuss the draft law and listen to their professional recommendations to questions posed by Trustee Uku’s written comments.

It was agreed that we should move forward with setting a public hearing for the Planning Study (Since the study will act as an amendment to the comprehensive plan it requires two separate hearings).

We also discussed the idea of working, at a later time, with a dedicated purpose and budget to fully re-examine all the existing use definitions and considering if updating uses to more form-based definitions was appropriate, as some of the uses seem unnecessarily specific, dated and/or seemed to overlap each other. We discussed at length the difference between Formula businesses (as defined in the code), Fast Food (as defined in our Code) and Restaurants (as

defined in our code). For a list of adopted definitions you the village website at Redhookvillage.gov navigate to Government tab > click in the side bar Key Information > select the village Code link> and find Chapter 200-5

Planning/Zoning & Building Department:

See attached Reports.