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Cold Spring Board Hears Comments on Proposed 2007-08 Budget Proposal
Voting hours and regulations considered at meeting
by Michelle Woods
An initial public hearing on the 2007-8 Village Budget opened the Board of Trustees Monthly Workshop on 10th April 2007: the proposed Budget for the coming year will be $1,448,263 and there will be a 3.07% tax increase.
With lively questions from Trustees and Villagers, figures in the proposed budget were scrutinized in light of previous year's costs. In particular, Villagers questioned the large decrease from 2006-7 in attorney special fees - down from $118,305 to $10,000 this year - and why the decrease did not result in more money to lower taxes. However, Trustees cited extra costs in other areas, such as increased medical insurance for Village employees, standard raises and increased retirement costs. Also, Trustee Ed Mancari explained that $36,000 had been taken out of the water budget to help pay for legal fees and needed to be repaid over the coming two years.
Mayor Anthony Phillips explained that last year's cost were due to one-off legal issues with the Marathon Battery property. Trustee Karen Dunn asked, of the $10,000 budgeted for legal fees this year "is that enough?" echoing some Villagers' concerns that a similar legal proceeding in the future "could kill our town." Ed Mancari said that "we hope we don't have litigation."
Villagers also questioned why $8,000 budgeted for sidewalk improvements had not been spent yet, but the Mayor pointed out that the Village was waiting for better weather conditions to continue work.
Newly-elected Trustee John Teagle asked whether it would be possible to add $500 to the Budget for elections to allow the Village to extend polling hours to 6am-9pm rather than 12pm-9pm, following complaints from some Villagers that they were unable to vote in the time allotted due to work schedules. Later in the meeting, the Mayor read correspondence from Liz Armstrong, an Election Inspector at the last election, who also asked for longer hours due to some Villagers' inability to vote in the time-frame and a widening of the election officials' pool to enable these longer hours.
The Mayor said that Village Clerk Mary Saari was contacting New York State Assemblywoman, Sandy Galef, in regard to State restrictions on absentee ballots, which had also prevented some Villagers from voting this time. The Mayor said that there would be a public workshop on the voting issue, allowing, as Karen Dunn said, the Village to "come up with a workable solution" for future elections.
With regards to ongoing issues with the Butterfield hospital site, Fire Inspector, Ralph J. Falloon, reported that 40 of the 80 fire violations had now been rectified and that "things were going well." He reported that the Fire Department had been given three sets of "knox box" keys to allow for emergency access to the building.
Though there has been "talk of Butterfield" being a potential site for a new Village Firehouse, according to Karen Dunn, she and John Teagle apprised the Board of preliminary suggested architectural plans for the firehouse on Main Street drawn up by local architect James Hartford. Ms. Dunn said that the Main Street building was currently "in distress" and "not large enough," particularly with regard to quarters for firefighters and in light of recent regulations, but she and John Teagle indicated it was important to explore keeping the fire company on Main Street.
Superintendent of Water and Wastewater, Gregory Phillips, reported that repairs had been made to two failures in an old galvanized line running from 9D to Fair Street and that it was likely it would need to be replaced. The Mayor said he had invited residents to the following Tuesday's workshop to discuss a way forward.
Several environmental issues and events were discussed. Trustee Seth Gallagher said that there would be an Earth Day related workshop on April 17th, to which Walt Thompson of Keep Putnam Beautiful has been invited. Mr. Gallagher also mentioned the Kent Recycling Center, on Route 52 and Horsepound Road, Kent Lakes, which is open every Saturday 9am-1pm. The Center recycles a wider array of materials and also has an "instant recycling share table" where items can be left for other patrons to pick up and re-use. The Board was also reminded that the Philipstown Dump, open the second Saturday of every month, takes magazines, junk mail and other items such as small cardboard boxes, and also that the Town-wide Cleanup will take place on April 28th at the North Highlands Firehouse.
There was also a discussion also about possible futures uses of organic fertilizers on Village lawns other than McConville Park which already uses them, as well as organic pesticides. Teagle informed the Board of an April 14th march across Bear Mountain Bridge as part of the national Step It Up campaign to "raise awareness of global warming" and call for a significant reduction in carbon emissions.
In other business, the Board approved the Michael Shortell Scholarship Run which will take place on September 8th 2007 at 10am from Dockside Park to Boscobel (5k run) and Indian Brook Road (10k run) and back. It also approved the People Against Domestic Violence march down Main Street on June 2nd at 2pm and the Nelsonville Fish and Fur Club's Kids' Fishing Day at the reservoir on May 6th.
The Cold Spring Board Monthly Meeting takes place on the second Tuesday of every month. The next Monthly Meeting will be on May 8, 2007.
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