City Council

Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday January 10, 2022 8:00pm  Call to order Mayor Kalaj called to order the Village Board Meeting at 8:17pm on January 10, 2022, via Zoom Webinar ID: 821 0837 9965 for the Village of South Blooming Grove located at 819 State Route 208, within the Village of South Blooming Grove, and having a mailing address of Monroe, New York.  Roll call The following persons were present: o Mayor’s George Kalaj – Mayor o Abraham Weiss – Deputy Mayor o Yitzchok Feldman– Trustee o Zalmon Rosner – Trustee o Joel Stern- Confidential Assistant to the Mayor o Isaac Ekstein – Legislative Aide to Mayor o Al Fusco, Village Engineer o Scott Ugell Esq.- Village Attorney Absent o Asher Guttman- Trustee  Comments: o Attorney Ugell explained that the Opening Meetings Law exemption. which was currently in effect only until January 15, 2022, today was voted on the Assembly in New York State and the digital platform exemption was permitted as we are currently doing it and it has been extended indefinitely which means there is no final date, it will just be left open until whenever someday they decide to change it. He doesn’t think it will be anywhere, in the near future, his guess is until late spring early summer. We will continue using this process legally, appropriately and by law. Anyone critical of that would be misinformed. o Mayor Kalaj advised there was a watermain break, unfortunately at Stonegate Drive. Water was restored the same day and luckily, we didn’t have to truck any water. With the ice and the snow please put your garbage cans, toys, etc away to allow for highway to salt and plow freely and safely. Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Ekstein on their new baby girl. o Joel Stern admires the vision of the Mayor and Mr. Ugell when everybody said Covid was over and to go back to regular meetings and you had the vision and saw this coming for public safety and public concern and guess what look where we are right now. You did the right thing back in the day and now the Governor has already extended this virtual meetings indefinitely. We are admired and inspired by your leadership and being able to see this through six months ago. 1  Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday January 10, 2022 8:00pm Attorney Ugell thanked Joel for his kind words.  Public Comment: o Gloria Gelletich she just go into the meeting and did not hear the meeting. She requests that a video be made available if you don’t want to redo the meeting. Place it online or on the website. Mayor Kalaj advised that we just started with the meeting. o Sue Anne Vogelsberg with all the development that’s happening in the village, she is wondering if we need to revisit the master plan for the village and she would be happy if you are going to establish a committee, she would be happy to help with any kind of future planning for the growth and development. It seems like there is a lot of foliage coming down and she is concerned about that because the kids all learn in school the importance of trees and how they help with air pollution, and we are loosing trees left and right here. It is something for the board to consider, future planning, strategic planning, a lot of places do that for the future, and it will probably behoove us.  Business o Resolution No. (001) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove establishing the polling location and hours of voting for Village Election on March 15, 2022. Motion to accept by Trustee Feldman, seconded by Trustee Rosner. 4 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, and Trustee Rosner. 1 absent- Trustee Guttman  Abstract o Motion to adopt the abstract by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Trustee Rosner. 4 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, and Trustee Rosner. 1 Absent- Trustee Guttman  Adjournment o Motion to close the meeting at 8:30pm. by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Deputy Mayor Weiss. 4 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, and Trustee Rosner. 1 Absent- Trustee Guttman Minutes respectfully submitted by Kerry Dougherty, Village Clerk 2