By Michael P. Walsh
Special to the Voice
Mayor Nancy R. Rossi has established a committee to oversee the city’s allocation of funding from the U.S. Treasury Department’s American Rescue Plan Act.
On Jan. 25, Rossi presided over an organizational meeting of the ARPA Committee in the Harriet C. North Community Room at City Hall.
Rossi called the late-afternoon meeting to order and took a roll call of the nine mayoral-appointed committee members.
City Clerk Patricia C. Horvath then swore in members Christopher Barstein, Kenneth Carney, Neil C. Cavallaro, Iris Diaz, Kenneth Ferris, Dwight Knowles, Michael P. Last, Gary M. Perdo and Rohan Smith.
The brief meeting included the nomination and election of officers and approval of the meeting schedule.
Carney was elected as chairman, Last as vice chairman and Knowles as secretary.
The committee, which met earlier this week, is meeting on the first Tuesday of each month at 5:45 p.m. in the Harriet C. North Community Room. The next meeting is March 1.
Barstein is the executive director of Benchmark Senior Living and was a hospitality industry professional and educator for more than 35 years; Carney is the chairman of the West Haven High School Building Committee and the West Haven Building Oversight Committee; and Cavallaro is the city’s superintendent of schools.
Diaz is the chairwoman of the Board of Fire Commissioners of the City of West Haven Fire Department Allingtown and was the vice chair of the city’s Charter Revision Commission; Ferris is a former two-term city treasurer and was a member of the city’s Inland Wetlands Watercourse Agency; and Knowles is the clerk of the high school Building Committee.
Last is the city treasurer and a member of the board of directors of the West Haven Community House; Perdo is a member of the high school Building Committee and the Washington School Building Committee; and Smith is an accountant at the West Haven VA Medical Center and was a member of the Charter Revision Commission.