McPhail points to sidewalks and buildings, saying stimulus money should be used to hire city residents to fix them

NEWBURGH – The most hardcore inner city part of Newburgh was one of the stops on a day-long bus tour organized by Community Voices Heard, a low-income activist organization based in New York City, but with chapters in the Hudson Valley, including Newburgh.

Brenda McPhail, a Newburgh CVH organizer, said the point the emphasized to the visitors, and the two city officials who attended, was good money – the federal stimulus money - is not being spent the right way.

That was a point she made repeatedly as she pointed to abandoned residential buildings and crumbling sidewalks, just in the same block of the Newburgh CVH office on Lander Street.

“If you just train people in these particular areas, those are jobs for them right there”, said McPhail.

“A lot of legitimate points were made”, said the city’s new Director of Planning and Development, Edward Lynch. “The city will obviously be working with its residents in trying to address these concerns.