The city has released its annual year-end report detailing its accomplishments in 2024 and goals for 2025. The 23-page document available by clicking here, includes entries from every city department including police and fire, the City Clerk’s Office and the Department of Public Works.

The report details perhaps the city’s most significant effort of 2024 — the assumption of emergency medical transport duties by the Kingston Fire Department last January. The change came after complaints about long wait times for ambulances from local provider Empress and after Mayor Steve Noble rejected an offer from the company to provide dedicated service to the city in exchange for $1 million annually. Instead, the Kingston Fire Department purchased four reconditioned ambulances, hired 12 new Firefighters trained as Paramedics or EMTs and engaged a company to bill insurers for service. The Common Council allocated $860,000 to pay for the new hires and the city has applied for a $3 million Homeland Security grant to fund the new service.

In the year since, the report details, the new ambulance service fielded 4,462 calls for medical emergencies of which 99.14 percent were handled by a KFD ambulance. Average response time to medical calls was three minutes. In 2023, the Fire Department instituted another ambulance service that pairs a Fire Department EMT with a mental health professional to respond to mental emergency mental health calls. Over the past 10 months, the service responded to 409 calls either for psychiatric emergencies or follow-up visits. In 206 calls, the team was able to stabilize patients who would otherwise have been hospitalized.

With a 2024 budget of $13,977,148, the Kingston Police Department is the single biggest recipient of city taxpayer funding. Last year the department responded to 20,048 calls for service and made 1,009 arrests. The department also issued 1,718 traffic tickets and investigated 796 vehicle crashes. The emphasis on traffic enforcement is expected to ramp up this year when the department assigns a patrol vehicle full time to the task. Other 2024 priorities include additional training for officers in procedural justice and unbiased policing, better coordination with a regional crime analysis center and development of a recruitment program.

The Department of Public Works used its $8,619,334 general budget and its $1,021,714 sewer budget to carry out a number of infrastructure improvement and maintenance projects. They include using 11,885 tons of blacktop to resurface 21 streets, totaling 4.6 miles of road. The department also replaced or repaired 42 catch basins and 117 manholes, collected 7,032 tons of garbage and 1,473 tons or recyclables. Sewer work included repairs of Bruyn Avenue, Cedar Street and Clinton Avenue. Goals for 2025 include continuing efforts to install ADA-compliant curb cuts, paving 15 streets and installing GPS systems on DPW trucks to help with routing and snowplowing.

In 2018, during his first term in office, Mayor Steve Noble created the Office of Housing Initiatives to study innovative housing solutions and coordinate with private and nonprofit developers. Under the leadership of Director of Housing Initiatives Bartek Starodaj, the department has been on the front line of efforts to address Kingston’s housing affordability crisis.

In 2024, the department worked with the Building Department to implement tough new restrictions on short-term rentals, including a registration requirement. That effort included implementing software that scans short-term rental sites and automatically issues warnings or violations to owners out of compliance with the new rules. The department also commissioned a feasibility study on the prospects for new housing at the city’s underutilized business park and another exploring a new model for housing creation that would rely on public investment and ownership.

Plans for 2025 include continuing work on the city’s first eminent domain proceeding in modern times which seeks to take over a long-vacant parcel in the city’s Rondout neighborhood to make way for a 300-unit affordable housing complex. The department will also conduct a new rental housing vacancy survey to comply with new standards added to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act last year.

Another first-term Noble creation was the Office of Grants Management. The office works full-time securing and administering state, federal and nonprofit sector grants and has vastly expanded the city’s grant portfolio since 2017. In 2024 the office oversaw a portfolio of 66 grants totaling $97 million while working with other departments to pursue 36 new funding opportunities. Next year’s efforts will include making sure that all projects funded under the American Rescue Plan Act are on track for completion by a Dec. 31 2026 deadline, assisting community groups with grant-seeking advice and seeking out new grant funding for projects already on the books.

“City of Kingston staff keep our city running smoothly — from the swift action of our Kingston Fire Department to establish ambulance service to weekly curbside pick-up of trash and recycling, residents rely on our employees to make their day-to-day life better,” said Noble in a statement announcing the release of the report. “With this annual report, residents will find much of the additional work our staff does, work that may not be as visible to the public.”