City Council

Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday MaY 23, 2022 8:00pm  Call to order Mayor Kalaj called to order the Village Board Meeting at 8:02 pm on May 23, 2022, via Zoom Webinar ID: 822 2190 3273 for the Village of South Blooming Grove located at 811 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 Yitzchok Feldman- Trustee o Zalmon Rosner – Trustee o Asher Guttman- Trustee o Joel Stern – Confidential Assistant to the Mayor o Isaac Ekstein- Legialative Aide to Mayor o Al Fusco, Village Engineer o Scott Ugell Esq.- Village Attorney o Kerry Dougherty- Village Clerk Absent o Abraham Weiss – Deputy Mayor  Correspondence o Engineer Fusco dated today, May 23, 2022 a letter regarding Clovewood MS4 Emergency Well lock up, a resolutions will be presented authorizing the Mayor to sign the MS4 acceptance plan for the SWPPP for waterline work at Clovewood. o Memorandum from the Treasurer transferring funds from the general fund to the water fund in the amount of $20,000, there is $98,000 currently outstanding.  Discussion o The Mayor advised and directed that nothing be placed in the sewer other than toilet paper. Sewer backups are a major problem and costly. If the residents would not flush, unflushable items many of these sewer back-up expenses could be avoided. o Engineer Fusco stated that we are moving forward on the emergency wells through the Clovewood Project, we have some approval for them to do some work, we are completing the plans for village use of water, but they are the Clovewood Wells but again we are only doing this right now, not for the project, but for the entire Village so that we can upgrade our water supply. Towards that end, one of the things that we have to do is stormwater pollution prevention which 1  Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday MaY 23, 2022 8:00pm we have been doing, they have silt fences up, the have gravel down in the road, they are doing everything properly, but we need to do some paperwork to back that up which is a MS4 according to the state, that is municipal stormwater system project that we have to approve their stormwater pollution prevention plan; which he has done. However, we need a resolution authorizing the Mayor to sign the documents so that we can move forward with the project.  Public Comment o Sue Anne Vogelsberg she submitted an incident report for property maintenance, there are multiple houses by her that the grass is really high and they pose as health and safety risk with ticks and vermon; 84 & 88 Peddler Hill Road and 216, 212, 267, 281 & 284 are on Prospect Road. At the last board meeting she asked about when Community Day will be because it is traditionally its been the first weekend in June, but she hasn’t seen any date on the calendar. Also at the last meeting on May 9, 2022 she asked for an update on the traffic light at Mountain Road and Route 208 and she called our regional rep at the DOT and they said that it is on their calendar for 2025. The body of water that was a body of water by the former Lemko Resort remains drained and again at the May 9, 2022 meeting she asked what is going on with that because she is a little curious. She hopes it wasn’t drained for construction purposes but hopefully you will give us an answer on that. Also with the Village Website, she has concerns because if you are looking for information, like Mr. Lowey at the last meeting had talked about the less than 2 minute emergency response from the United Jewish Communities Crew and they are not listed on the village web site. If they are going to be a resource for the village residents it would be helpful for all of us to have their contact information and the same thing with, she doesn’t see Mr. Fusco’s email on the village website, we need more information on our website for the residents to refer to, for example the Orange County Post is still listed, well that is not publishing anymore. She would appreciate it, no disparaging comments against our volunteer fire fighters but if there is another service that is being provided to village residents, it should be for all of the village residents that we all have access to the same information. o Dawn Salka why do we only see the person speaking, why do we not see the whole entire board? On December 20, 2021 she has FOILed and continuously emailed village hall and asked at board meetings, 29 Merriewold all of their information, their plans, the CofO, their permit and has not received that information. She has asked for the map of easement from the wells on the Lake Anne Property for the use for the municipality, she wants to see the map and the plans for that. So on May 5, 2022 she visited village hall asking to see them. 29 Merriewold and the well map were not available and she was told it is in Fusco’s Office. She does not know why it is in his office when it should be accessible to anyone who asks for it at Village Hall. She is also under the impression that any correspondence should be available 24 hours prior to the meeting and Kerry just read about Fusco having a letter prepared today. o Isaac Ekstein replied that Zoom has a view option and you can view as a gallery or just the person talking. If you change your setting to gallery you will see the same. o Simon Schwartz Councilman for Ward 4, wanted to advise that tomorrow is tax grievance day, he knows a lot of village residents have concerns about how their house was assessed or re-assessed, tomorrow is the day when you can contest that, there is a form on the Town Website, a standard 2  Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday MaY 23, 2022 8:00pm NYS form RP524, you have to fill it out along with a reason why you are contesting your taxes and bring it in to Town Hall tomorrow from 1pm-4pm or 6pm-8pm. Any more questions about this process you can call the assessor’s office at (845) 496-5223 ext 5. o Bonnie Rum she appreciates your information about the view except the only choice is for audio and there is no video choices on her computer. Mr. Fusco has never once responded to the fact that so many contacts are really in Chester and not in South Blooming Grove. She understands that he works at a lot of different places, but the papers for each individual municipality should be within each municipality and not in Chester. Also apparently people have been told that if there is a problem on the weekends and Alexa isn’t available and nobody is available, they need to call the police department. Is that really the way that you want it to work or do you have alternatives. Also, Isaac you clarify so many things, what about the phone number for UJC, that should be available again to everybody if it is a village support program and she saw that you are supposed to be upgrading Chapter 102, but you don’t say you are upgrading from what to what. It would be great if you could clarify that. o Isaac Ekstein advised that the UJC Emergency Response Division as discussed at the last meeting, is not yet up and running 100%, when they will be all the information will be publicized for the general public and everybody will be able to utilize the services just like everybody else. The property maintenance law, that was discussed many times before. Right now the process of enforcing violators is taking very long, so if someone doesn’t cut their grass and they were cited by the building inspector or code enforcement officer, then they are cited once and again, and again then nothing is taking care of and by the time you enforce it, it is already a mess. The idea of the changes in the property maintenance law is to give the village authority to actually take action after a certain amount of time. It is to expedite so you don’t need a public hearing, you can just give them time and then send in the village contractor to correct the issue and bill to the resident.  Business o Resolution No. (057) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove setting a time and place for a public hearing regarding proposed Local Law ___ of 2022 upgrading Chapter 102 – Property Maintenance. Motion by Trustee Rosner, seconded by Trustee Guttman. 4 Ayes - Mayor Kalaj, Trustee Rosner, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Feldman; 1 Absent - Deputy Mayor Weiss. o Resolution No. (058) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove authorizing the Mayor to sign the MS4 Acceptance Plan for the SWPPP for the waterline work at Clovewood. Motion to accept by Trustee Guttman, seconded by Trustee Feldman. 4 Ayes- Mayor Kalaj, Trustee Rosner, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Feldman; 1 Absent - Deputy Mayor Weiss. o Resolution No. (059) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove authorizing the purchase of traffic cones for the village. Motion to accept by Trustee Feldman, seconded by Trustee Rosner. 4 Ayes- Mayor Kalaj, Trustee Rosner, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Feldman; 1 Absent - Deputy Mayor Weiss. 3  Village of South Blooming Grove Regular Meeting Monday MaY 23, 2022 8:00pm  Comments o Trustee Feldman stated regarding the driving safety in the village, it has been discussed last year and looked into what we can do to eliminate speeding and try to keep the kids and drivers safe. They have looked into many options to look into cones in the road. The cheapest was less than $60.00 per piece and the original price was $450, $300 and he was able to secure the cheapest at $60.00 per piece. He would like to purchase 100 pieces for approximately $6,000. Joel Stern advised that the lowest quote from a fellow Village of South Blooming Grove resident and we are supporting local business and the local economy. Issac Ekstein there are a few of these cones on the village roads and they run between $400 and $460 per piece. With this final quote is $58 per piece. It is a different technology, but it is just as strong. It will increase the safety for the kids and it is a very good product. o Al Fusco advised that they are opening bids tomorrow on the Merriewold and Prospect drainage and he may request a special meeting sometime in the near future to accept the bids if they are within our limits and they are acceptable. Also, they are looking into some of the zoning changes and also some changes in the house of worship ordinances in order to make them more serviceable, so you can be expecting some information in the near future and we may be looking at another local law down the road to handle some of the zoning and house of worship issues and we will get their input as we move forward with it. o Isaac Ekstein would like to congratulate all the new elected school board members, especially one of hour own Kristie Johnson who recently got elected as a school board member. He wanted to Congratulate her all the board congratulated her.  Abstract o Motion to adopt the abstract by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Trustee Feldman. 4 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Trustee Rosner, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Feldman; 1 Absent - Deputy Mayor Weiss.  Adjournment o Motion to close the meeting at 8:28pm. by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Trustee Guttman. 4 Ayes - Mayor Kalaj, Trustee Rosner, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Feldman; 1 Absent - Deputy Mayor Weiss. Minutes respectfully submitted by Kerry Dougherty, Village Clerk 4