Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting January 19, 2021 Mayor Taylor called the regular meeting of the Village of Walden Board of Trustees to order at 6:30pm. On roll call the following were: Mayor: Susan Taylor Present: Deputy Mayor John Ramos Trustees Brian Sebring Willie Carley John Elliott Cheryl Baker Lynn E. Thompson Absent: Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Kelly A. Kelly, Village Treasurer Dave Donovan, Village Attorney Mayor Taylor: Before we start, I just want to address an inquiry that we had about why we are still doing zoom meetings. It's my feeling that as long as the numbers are as high as they are in Orange County, we really aren't getting a lot of vaccines in Orange County, rather than subject our Board Members to the possibility of contracting Covid, that we can still conduct the Village business as we are right now and not endanger anybody for having to come out and go into the Municipal Building for meetings. If the new Mayor, whoever that person may be, feels differently, I'm sure they can certainly change it. Other Boards may decide to conduct business differently, but I just don't see any reason to take a chance with the numbers as high, new strain that's out and the fact that we're really not getting a lot of vaccines. Orange County had only received a thousand doses of the vaccine. Manager Revella: We went through those within a week and then 800 a week after. We don't have any idea when the next round is coming, unfortunately. Village Manager’s Report Manager Revella: The Treasurer and I have still been going through audit processes and reconciliations. There was some work done where we received funding, federal and state, that has an additional process for auditing so the engineers have been helping them with that and make sure we have that ready. Went over some special council matters on personnel union negotiations, along with a couple of the Trustees that have been involved. Trustee Ramos, Trustee Thompson, our other Attorney Dave, has helped as well and Trustee Sebring. As I said last time CSEA is on the final leg of it. They're just going through the numbers to finalize and sign the MOA. Once that's approved for the Union, we’ll have that before the Board for vote. We did have a nice conference with our Workers Comp Rep. Went over status of claims. We went through all the claims to try and work those out so we keep our insurance rates down and to see what we had to do for follow up on some of those employees that have other things to do to be able to come back to work. Went through the capital projects with the Village Engineer and DPW Super. Also followed up with the Rec Coordinator on the 2 projects going on for them. The riverfront and the Community Center. We hope to have the final plans for the Community Center shortly. Did have a couple of big things come up, one is this ambulance district. As noted from the Village Attorney and myself, the 1 timeline is a little too constricted for us to be able to do anything really active on that before March 1st, unfortunately. So, the plan is to get through these hoops and public sessions to see if that's something we are going to go forward with or not. Went through the court processes with the Judge to make sure there's still some virtual court going on and see if we can push some things through for housing court. Had a good conference with the DPW Super in the Village Engineer about some EPA, DEC things going on. We're just making sure that our Capital Projects line up with what they're requiring. The DEC and the EPA have been changing requirements from time to time so our projects have to morph to what they're looking for so we don't get violations. Everything with them is fairly costly, so we're trying to work on financing for that as well. There were some property maintenance issues with the Building Department. Had some follow up with the Mayor and Trustee Thompson on those as well. Went over the spring schedule with the Rec Coordinator to help with the Village Calendar. The Clerk is finalizing that now. Been going through employment evaluations, inventory and budgets with all the department heads. We hope to have all that and at least preliminarily by the end of the month so that we can have our department meetings and get the budget ready for the Board. Went over some Climate Smart items with Village Engineer. Trustee Thompson actually reported on that to the Town CAC. We did also have a conference with the NYSEG and the DPW Super. They are changing the street lights now. They just needed a little bit of staging area and Fred was able to accommodate. We had a water main break on East Ave. From the Rec Department, they're still doing winter maintenance items at the parks. There are some great upgrades at the Scout Cabin. They did set up some events for the rest of the season. Building Department's been working on COs and municipal reports, building permits, fire and safety inspections, escrow accounts and budgets and some online training. They're working through some property maintenance violations with the new Code Enforcement Officer. We're looking to step that up over the next couple of weeks, kind of prioritize certain areas. Just get an initial sweep and see where we are and then come back to the hard areas again. Clerk's been working on the Workers Comp 207c issues, updating the calendar and social media and FOILs. Finance Departments been working on the budgets, escrows, grant audit and we've been working through some IWS billing things, making sure we have the right number of units being billed. DPW, they're always working hard, maintaining vehicles, working on water breaks, checking the sewer lines, flushing, jetting, patching, cutting outs, picking up the Christmas trees, working on inventory and evaluations, met with the EPA and DEC, meter updates. They're all over, all the time, thankfully for us. Police Department is still working with us on the Police Reform. Updates on that, been following up. Reviewing overtime and staffing and they're working on their budget as well. I met with the Judge on the court and what's going on in virtual appearances for now. The Library said they're moving forward with their capital project. Hopefully we have an update on that for next meeting, doing their budget. They're still under Covid restrictions. We have the Pandemic Plan Emergency Preparedness later on from the Village Attorney. Trustee Carley: Regarding Police Reform, any messages or anything came through? Manager Revella: No, not yet. Mayor Taylor: Do we have any remaining items on Ulster Avenue for a punch list after the project was completed? Manager Revella: Yes. It's the turn radius from Woodruff on to Ulster Avenue. There's an area where we had concrete put for the trucks, so they don't crush the water line. They're still going a little bit farther than that, so there's a meeting on Thursday at 10:00 to go over possible options to help prevent trucks from going up on the sidewalk. Mayor Taylor: Any feedback from residents about the job? 2 Manager Revella: They're all really happy. Approval of January 5, 2021 Minutes Trustee Baker made a motion to approve the January 5, 2021 Minutes. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Ramos. 6 ayes. 1 abstention. Motion carried. Action Items Liaisonships Deputy Mayor Ramos: I've discussed it with pretty much most of the Board Members after our last Board meeting, we were kind of taking it in a light side and waiting for council to give us some more probative type of information on the Liaison issue. Based upon that, I kind of concur that we should eliminate the Liaison Program until forever. The Liaison Program historically had run into a couple issues with personnel. With our form of Government with Village Manager being the CEO, there might be some issue with the employees where Liaisons will get in between and apparently we ran into that last year or the year before. So, it's my opinion that it doesn't preclude us from visiting any of the various departments, with John's approval and asking questions if we need questions or rectify things that we may come across while we're walking around in the Village. I believe that we should forego the Liaison Program from here on in. Trustee Carley: Personally, I think we should keep it. I'm comfortable either way, but I think it's a value to the community and to the Board if we work together with them. I guess when I think of Liaisonship it's not only to the departments themselves, but to community also. With that view, I totally understand we have no rule or authority over the employees and it should be more of just interacting in a sounding board. If we can maintain that type of structure, I think it'll still be good for reporting purposes and also just understanding the Village better as an individual and then collectively when we come together, if there is something to report that's from a structure perspective. What I mean by that is, you attend their meetings, they know you attend meetings and it's not 2 or 3 Liaison's or Trustees, there is only 1. Then information is conveyed from that department or that group. I understand why not, but I'm more leaning towards that we should keep them. I personally like the structure that was presented back in April via email from former Trustee Moore. They have to be cut that way, no. However, it does cover all the areas and I think it's just valuable and I think Trustee Sebring said it or somebody last time and talk about how we get to learn more. I think that suggests a very positive thing, especially for a new Trustee to learn the Village in a structured way versus on the fly. Trustee Thompson: I'm in total agreement that we get rid of the previous traditional Liaison roles because there's just no purpose to it. The purpose of the Village Manager is to work with his Department Heads and report to us. If we have questions, we should be going through the Village Manager, does that mean we can't ever go and see any of the people that work in our Village? No, we certainly can go and visit, but we just should not be interjecting ourselves into their jobs, into their work. As far as community outreach, all those things that were on that list were merely suggestions, they were really just I think most people don't even understand how many different things go on in our Village. There are a lot of wonderful things going on in our Village with a lot of different organizations. That was just a way to point out all the different areas where we can be involved with things going on in the community that have a great impact on the community, but we will not be interfering with the daily operations of our departments and our employees. That's John's job. Trustee Baker: Along the same viewpoint as Trustee Carley. I do understand the concern. I do think it was a good program and I can't say that I agree that it served no purpose. I think it most certainly did. It gave an opportunity for those different departments to have an advocate for them, as well as a sounding board and as well as a great learning experience for the Trustees in the Village. 3 It's not an uncommon position to have in a local government. Ours is slightly different because we have a Village Manager run government as opposed to other forms. But Liaisonships are actually very common at the local government level for those reasons. Trustee Elliott: I agree with Trustee Thompson and Deputy Mayor Ramos. I think we should kind of scratch the idea. I do think it's a good thing to reach out to people, but don't want to be stepping on anyone's toes. Walk into a building that we don't really have any business walking into. If we have any questions, we go to John. I'm sure if we do want to ask questions about them, we could do that through John and if anyone has questions for us to go in the opposite direction. Trustee Sebring: After discussing it over with the Deputy Mayor, when the Liaisons were in effect, there were a lot of good points that they brought back information that wasn't readily available to all of us on the board. But because of the circumstances that John had mentioned, I'm in agreement with getting rid of the Liaisonship now. Just go to the community organizations and just let them know that we're there. I'll be going out to a few. Once we can get by this Covid. Mayor Taylor: I was there at the inception of it. 1 of the reasons that it was even started was because we were finding that we had 7 Trustees and at any given time many supervisors were being visited by Trustees talking about their departments and various concerns that the Trustees had. To stop that, we decided to formulate the Liaison. But over the years, it did morph into something a bit different and I was the 1 that voted against getting rid of the Trustees and going with a new program, but in reading over the documentation from former Trustee and Deputy Mayor Moore, I think it's time to start and try something different. I would be in favor of dissolving the Trustee positions. Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to dissolve the Liaisonships. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. Roll Call: Deputy Mayor Ramos: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Carley: No Trustee Baker: No Mayor Taylor: Yes Motion carried. Emergency Preparedness Manager Revella: Trustee Carley put together a form for us to start with to work on for Emergency Preparedness. It's required by the governor that we pass something in light of the current pandemic, just in case we have another type of disaster come up. For example: What's our protocol for running the government? That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Where we're putting our PPE and how we're doing it, alternate offices, who can be remote, who can't. Succession plans, things like that. That's all that's required to be in there. We've got a couple model plans from the state; from NYCOM and pretty much modeled it from that. I'm not sure what else we need to do on that. Dave, what's our next step? Attorney Donovan: The next step, this has to be released to your Unions for their review prior to February 1st, even though this may not be in final form, I would suggest, if you think it's sufficient and my recommendation is that it is. If you authorized to release to the Unions so they can review and then we are to have it in place by April 1st. This allows sufficient time for the Union 4 Representatives to look at it, communicate concerns, if any, for us to make modifications if needed so we can formally adopted it. Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to direct the Village Manager to send the Emergency Preparedness to the Unions. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Ramos: I have a comment, Trustee Carley, nice job on the document. We know where you do your business in the federal government and tremendous work on that. You too, Dave. Police Reform Manager Revella: The Police Reform Committee met and went over the plan last time. Haven't had any updates since the last meeting. Our next meeting is February 1st at 6 PM. Here, 3rd floor, Village Hall. So the public is aware, the policies and procedures are online. There's links on there for them all and anything that they see there is up for debate. Everything from the December 7th meeting, everything from the January 4th meeting and everything for the February 1st meeting. February 1st includes performance evaluations, performance evaluation forms, naloxone use, social media, law enforcement survival kit, body camera policy and ejustice policy. Those are the new ones that will be on topics for discussion. Mayor Taylor: Have we been getting much feedback from the community? Manager Revella: No. Mayor Taylor: And we did our due diligence with outreach? I know people were invited to come to the meetings. Are more people attending in person or is it mostly online? Manager Revella: Mostly online. We had 2 people show up in the audience that were non employees or Trustees. Trustee Sebring: Is there any way that you can have the audio from the dais louder for the recipients that are on Zoom be able to understand and what's being said? Manager Revella: The last meeting, had to split the microphone usage for somebody that was on the laptop, so it was a little harder. I'll bring another microphone up to the dais so it's easier. Town of Montgomery Ambulance District Attorney Donovan: I think you all have a communication from me. It became a timing issue, because in order to make taxable status state, that's March 1st for this district to appear in the January tax bill. The Board would have needed to act by the end of this month because the law provides what's called a permissive referendum. That means if enough people in the Village were interested in placing this matter referendum for a vote, they have 30 days to circulate a petition, present that petition to the Village to schedule a vote on whether or not the Village of Walden should be included in this district. Given that timing, since this is the first time it's been on the agenda. I don't know what questions you have. I don't know how many of you have seen the report produced by Jim on behalf of the Town, which provided the initial preliminary budget, which is required by law as well as projected goals and objectives, would include additional work in the future, which of course would have additional costs and perhaps not knowing how those additional costs would translate into taxes for the ratepayers in the Village. Mayor Taylor: What happens because this is something that the Town wants to make a special district for this. What if our Village and another Village say, no? What happens? 5 Attorney Donovan: They're not including the district. Mayor Taylor: What happens to ambulance services in those Villages? Attorney Donovan: I don't know the answer to that question. I would assume that a sick person would not be out of luck. They may have to pay in a different fashion for that service. Town Supervisor Maher: Thank you for having me. Deputy Mayor Ramos: Where's the other report that you mentioned? All we received was a PowerPoint. Manager Revella: It should have been the same email there. Attorney Donovan: If not, I can forward that to the Board. Town Supervisor Maher: You should have the map plan and report and the presentation. If you don't, the presentation is most of the same information as the map plan and report. The 1 thing that's important with the map plan and report is it tells you how much each homeowner would be charged with the creation of the district Town wide, including all 3 Villages based on an assessment on One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand and so on and so forth. That's the key piece of information in the map plan and report that's different from the presentation. The email that I sent out to all the Mayors since we received some feedback on the time frame and the initial turnaround on making a decision, I really took that feedback not just from Village Officials in Walden, but also throughout the other Villages. Had I known that there needed to be Village actions to opt into the district, you guys would have been part of this process when we first established it in early part of 2020. What I want to do now is take a pause, make sure that you've had the amount of time that I've had to look into this issue. I would like to have whether it's tonight or in the near future, your Board designate a member or 2, to be a formal part of our Ambulance Services Task Force that we've created. What I would do is have each of the representatives of all of the Villages take part in some meetings and then just get a really head start on doing this and having it done by 2022. That way the district could be created, if that's what we decide to still do January 1, 2023 would be the first year. This is not going to get fixed in one year if we create a district. When we do more of a thorough presentation in a few months, you'll see why it is we came to this position. But to start, I just want to answer any questions any board members have tonight. Then I would love to have you guys designate somebody or maybe 2 individuals to serve on the task force while we move forward. Trustee Sebring: My personal opinion is that since you want to do this, that the elected officials, from the Ambulance Corps go to each Town Board meeting and answer to questions from the Board. The 2 people that you would send to your committee may not have the answers to the questions that the other people would ask. My suggestion is that the Ambulance Corp come to our Board meeting or be on Zoom so we can ask them questions directly. As far as the committee, I'd go along with the committee, but I would like them to come to our Board meeting. Trustee Elliott: I definitely agree with Brian. I think some members of the actual Ambulance Corps should be there, if possible. Also what is the reason for creating a district as opposed to what we have now? Town Supervisor Maher: There's a lot to go into answering that question and when we do that, when we have an appropriate presentation, I will absolutely bring with me members of the Ambulance Corps to be part of that presentation along with us. We did one at the Town Board 6 meeting. If we knew the Village needed to take action to opt in, you would have had the same presentation that the Town had, which incorporated members of the Ambulance Corps. Since we don't need you to take action, I figured I would take this meeting solo and just let you know we're going to take a pause. We are going to make sure we have another full year to go through this. Trustee Sebring, there's a lot of work and there's hours upon hours upon hours of research and conversations that took place at the committee level that I think would be of value if a couple of your Board Members had the knowledge that we now have to get to where we were. But yes, absolutely have a presentation as well. Trustee Elliott, your questions will be answered. There's a lot of information to back just the industry itself. And not just that this is a problem of the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps, but that this is the problem facing Ambulance Corps and Towns trying to provide ambulance services throughout the State of New York. Trustee Carley: 1 of my main things is I guess the problem is not our problem. It's the Ambulance Corp problem, based off my quick read. You already mentioned that you're going to take a pause. So all my concerns about that being rushed and how we get to have a better view, a better picture of everything and then so we can make a qualified decision, will be answered hopefully in the near future. What is the problem? From your perspective. Town Supervisor Maher: There are several, but I'll give you 2 fronts for now. The first front is our Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps only offers what's called the basic lifesaving services. The ALS Advanced Life Saving Services are provided by mobile life. What we are currently relying on, if somebody has a really life threatening emergency call, is the availability of a private entity that does not have a dedicated vehicle to the Town of Montgomery. We had an issue just a few weeks ago, where there was a heart attack and it took 20 minutes for an ambulance to come because there wasn't an advanced lifesaving service ambulance available. This happens far too often. The long term sustainable plan for the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Services portion is to provide the support they need, the capital investment and the funding to make sure that they can invest in becoming an ALS and BLS service agency. Whether that's the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps or however way we want to go ahead and do it, contracting out, there are plenty of options to go with. The Town Board's thinking was since the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps has been the entity providing the services for so long, we would enter into an agreement in year 1 to see if they could provide the services that our community deserves. And it's not, in my perspective, a Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps problem because it's an industry problem. It's a problem all Town Ambulance Corps are having and it's because the individuals that work for these Ambulance Corps don't get paid enough. The people that want to go into those medical fields are going to school and taking jobs to do other things, as opposed to trying to make this their career because they don't make a lot of money and because there's such a shortage in the field of professionals going into it, it's affecting the level of service. Then you have a massive concern in terms of reimbursements through Medicare and Medicaid, where you actually have a Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps that doesn't have the ability to make payroll because they're relying on paying their bills through reimbursements, that they may not even get for several months. So what the Town has done proactively in 2020 is we budgeted one hundred thousand dollars and it wasn't as though the Town Ambulance Corps needed all of that money. What we ended up doing was providing them cash flow to help them pay their bills and pay their payroll at the end of the year. The amount that they're off in their budget, it doesn't equal to the whole amount we put in. If we create a district and the budget is a million dollars, the Town taxpayers, including the Village residents, won't get taxed on a million because there is revenue to be created in the industry. The revenue is in private insurance carriers, not Medicaid or Medicare. But if you're not the service providing the ALS services, you can't see that revenue. When we invest money to have the Ambulance Corps in the Town of Montgomery be able to service at ALS, we're not just getting a quicker response time to our residents to save their life. We're also creating a revenue generator where neighboring municipalities like Crawford and Blooming Grove and other areas. Then can get 7 a call from our ALS ambulances and we can make sure we get more revenue, which creates less of a burden on the taxpayers in the future. In year 1 of the Ambulance District, we're going to make an initial investment. But if things are done correctly and managed correctly with the Town watching over and hopefully build representation as well, watching over this process, it should break more even. You should have a business plan that doesn't rely on too much from the taxpayer, even if you form a district. That's the goal. There are districts that are created where things get a little out of hand and expenses can get a little too much. That's not the operation we're looking to support. I can understand a lot of concerns. There's a whole lot of information to go through, but that's just a little taste. Trustee Carley: That's primarily what I believe, that this is a business problem, not a real BLS or ALS training problem. There are so many EMT and paramedics that are out there. It's just a matter if the Ambulance Corps would have had some foreknowledge and saying we need to get some paramedics in and whatever it is and have the revenue in order to sustain it. It's more of a business problem. I'm not saying either way about accepting it, just what I hear and what I've read. I came to the same conclusion that the business plan wasn't really thought through. Town Supervisor Maher: There are a couple of things that affect the business plan. None more so than capital. If you're going to develop a successful business plan, you need money to invest in that business plan. If you're going to pay for EMS and if you're going to update your facilities so that volunteers want to volunteer in your facility because they're state of the art, you have to make that initial investment to recruit more volunteers, to rely less on paid staff. There's a lot of give and take in terms of making initial investments to limit the capital that you would need to pay for employees. As well as creating revenue through the services you provide. The real problem with the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps is they have no capital. That's a big problem. Trustee Baker: I think there's a great deal of more information that we're going to need. Trustee Thompson: I feel like I have a little bit of a heads up on this because I was going to a lot of the Town of Montgomery meetings where this was discussed. I also attended a task force meeting with Senator Skoufis about this. And you're absolutely right. This is a multi-layered issue, very complex, but workable. It can be done. Everyone on our Board is really going to have to dive in because there is a lot of information between State mandates, insurance reimbursements, the training, the lack of finances, just the fact that our community is growing so rapidly and we're getting some jobs that are going to be coming here where there's a high extent of people getting injured. Our senior population is growing. I think it's really important that we do whatever we can to sustain a fully functioning ALS Ambulance Corps. I look forward to hearing all the other information that you're going to present to us. Town Supervisor Maher: Thank you, Lynn, and I appreciate you being at some of those meetings, I believe you were present for our big presentation that we did that was very informative with the Ambulance Corps. That's what I want all of you to see. Had I known that you guys needed to be more formally involved in this process, you would have definitely had this presentation sooner. But I completely understand being in your position over the past several years, when I first got my start, if I was somebody else and I was on your Board, I would have the same questions and need the same time to go through it. I get it. Deputy Mayor Ramos: I applaud you for spearheading this endeavor. We do need to fix this issue and I'm surprised that it hasn't been done 15-20 years ago. There is a need for emergency medical services to be defined and refined. They desperately need help. We're open to anything that you propose both to us. I'm glad you decided it was a moment of pause so that we're not rushed because, when we rush into things, things don't get to get done the right way. Thank you. 8 Town Supervisor Maher: Thank you for your comments. Manager Revella: I just want to know if your committee looked at what the Fire Districts are doing with medical services now, because I think they're all responding to medical service calls as well. Is there any overlap or are they going to be able to distinguish between those services so that they're not stepping on each other's toes? Town Supervisor Maher: Yes, we have to look into that to answer your question. I don't want to speak out of turn or in any way offend anyone, so I definitely think that would be part of our more general presentation that we do and kind of go over some of those findings. I don't want to say anything that's inaccurate and make people think a certain way. But yes, that absolutely has been evaluated and looked at as part of our process. Mayor Taylor: If this is going to be a district, part of the town of Montgomery budget, correct? Town Supervisor Maher: Yes, it would be. Mayor Taylor: Who's going to administer this? I know they have a board for the volunteer Ambulance Corps at the present time. The funding that they get, the money that's raised from taxes for this district, who is going to dispense that money? We have a Library that we collect taxes for here in the Village, is the Town merely going to collect the taxes for this and then pass it on to this Ambulance Corps and they're going to administer these funds themselves? Town Supervisor Maher: It is very likely that the Town will establish an administrator to work with whoever it is the Town decides to contract to provide ambulance services. In this scenario, in year 1, it would have been the Town working with an administrator that the Town board controls to work with the Ambulance Corps. Yes, it is in setup, very similar to your Library District. But you have to be the one. It's part of your budget. It's very similar in that sense to your Library District or perhaps one of our Water Districts. It's very different in the sense that the service it provides mirrors our fire services and our police services. And a big problem that I found as part of this process is that EMS services are not mandated to be provided to communities by the State of New York. Like fire services and police services are. I think that is a distinction. I have no idea why that was ever made, but they're just as important. What we know is that the services being put out in the Town of Montgomery and in communities all over the State, aren't up to par, not to the point where it's the Ambulance Corps fault, but because of factors that we will all go over together and research and ask your questions so you can understand it better. Factors outside of their control, mostly to do with billing and how reimbursements happen through Medicare and Medicaid and the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Corps have much more Medicare and Medicaid calls and they only get a certain smaller percentage from those calls. Sometimes they had to share that percentage with another entity and they have to pay the ALS service out of what they get. Then they also have a firm that they contract out with that collects and goes after individuals who maybe get their check in the mail and then they don't deposit it to the Town Ambulance Corps. There is a real cash flow problem that really inhibits them from maximizing their level of service and their ability to provide essential services to the Town. It's a multifaceted issue. To answer your question very simply, the Town has to entertain discussions on putting an administrator in place that the Town would work with to oversee ambulance services. Mayor Taylor: You want us to appoint 2 people to be on this task force? Town Supervisor Maher: I do and I want you all to know that in any scenario where this plays out, we would have formal representation of your Board in any contract we put together in terms of 9 having an advisory portion of our decision making, in terms of expending funds at the Town level. Since you guys are going to have to act to opt in, you should have also some sort of buy-in negotiating with whatever decision making process we put in place in the future. Mayor Taylor: The next thing would be to choose 2 people to be on this task force. Are any Board Members interested? Willie, are you interested? Trustee Carley: I am. Mayor Taylor: Lynn, are you interested? I know you kind of got put on the spot. Trustee Thompson: I am interested, but I'm a little concerned with the work I'm doing with Climate Smart. How much thinner I can be stretched. Mayor Taylor: You spend a lot of time at meetings. I don't think the Appointees would be reluctant to talk to you and get your input. I don't necessarily think that you have to make the commitment to be on the task force, because I think you are stretched thin right now. Trustee Thompson: I agree with your opinion and I'm more than happy to participate in the process. I think it would be better if somebody else steps up for this one and if nobody else volunteers, I guess I would consider it by default. I hope someone else maybe would volunteer. I think there's a lot of benefit to the community and it's going to be a lot of work. I think it will be very rewarding work for someone to get involved in this committee. Trustee Sebring: No. Let somebody else do it. If Cheryl wants to, I would recommend her. Then even have an alternate if somebody can't make it for a particular night. Have the Deputy Mayor or the Mayor sit in there are also. Trustee Elliott: I kind of agree with Brian. I'm a little thin on time myself. Trustee Baker: I already said I would do it. Mayor Taylor: Willie and Cheryl and then we could name Lynn as an alternate. Trustee Thompson: That's fine. I'm happy to help my colleagues. Mayor Taylor: John Revella, you'll make a note of that. Manager Revella: Yes. Payment of Audited Bills Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to approve Payment of Audited Bills. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Correspondence Trustee Baker: I had 1 individual contact me in regards to his water bill, a concern that he had, and that was all. Deputy Mayor Ramos: I received an email from a resident on a future water main sewer main project on Orange Avenue. I received an email from Walter Kluge from Magna Flood Lighting Company, and an email about Urban Forest Health webinar on January 28th. They're going to discuss beech leaf disease and white pine decline. 10 Trustee Carley: Just the email from Mr. Kluge. Trustee Sebring: The email from Mr. Kluge also. Trustee Elliott: I received the one about the LED lights. Trustee Thompson: I also received the LED lights and I was sent several webinar things that would pertain to Climate Smart from Patricia Henighan. Which if anyone is interested in any of them, I'm happy to forward them on. I just don't know how many other people on the Board are interested in some of those things, but I'm happy to share if anyone wants them. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Trustee Thompson: John, do we have any new information of anything happening down at the bus company? Is there anything pertinent, anything to share or is it status quo down there? Manager Revella: You mean the newly annexed property? I would just say we did finally get the SBL. We do have a couple of things in for permits. The Building Department is following up on those issues that need permits that are not permitted. I don't think they finalized their application of their case with the Zoning Board, but I think they're working on that. Trustee Thompson: Since the SBL and everything is finally taken care of, how does that translate to the Village as far as revenue, taxes? Did we miss an opportunity for 2020? When do things have to be filed and how does that work when you annex a piece of property? Manager Revella: They've been filed. When they can be taxed, I defer to Dave to make sure. Should be the day they're approved. I'm not sure that's prorated or how that works, Dave. Trustee Thompson: When you say the day they're approved, you mean the day we officially annex them in? Attorney Donovan: There's an order that we adopted a long time ago, once that's filed, the annexation is completed. There was an agreement with the Town of Montgomery, the Land Use Agreement and that agreement provided for apportionment of taxes. I don't know, generally March 1st is taxable status date. I don't know where this fell in terms of last year's bill of taxes. I'm not really sure to be honest with you, but it should be a question that it gets picked up this year on the Village tax roll. Trustee Thompson: Who follows through with that? How does this all get finalized so we make sure that we are getting the revenue that is dutifully ours? Manager Revella: When we review the tax bills. We do it for every property every year. Trustee Thompson: Will this become an issue again with the other property that's annexed? Manager Revella: As long as the maps filed before March 1st, it should be on the June tax roll. Trustee Thompson: Who files the map? Manager Revella: The applicant. Trustee Thompson: Is there anything new to report on the Hill Street Bridge? 11 Manager Revella: Nothing since last time. Trustee Thompson: I mentioned to you, I took a little walk on the Rail Trail. Nothing has happened there. In my opinion, it's in worse shape than it was the last time we took our walking tour. If anyone else on our Board would like to take a gander down there, park in the Lake Osiris lot, walk in toward Walden until you hit around the half mile mark and take a look at things. Feel free to take some photographs. I did email the Supervisor and he assured me it was getting sent to the Highway Supervisor. I've heard nothing from him. I will send my photographs with a follow up email as well. We had been told in 2019 that there would be some maintenance taking place on the Rail Trail and even though it runs through Walden, it's not our responsibility to do that. It belongs to the Town. I have one other question, our Rehab Loan Program. I don't recall since I've been on the Board that we get any kind of annual information about how many people have attempted to participate or how many people have been granted a loan, is there any is there any kind of information that comes to the Board about that program? Manager Revella: We have a spreadsheet that has the applicants and what the loan amounts are, when they were out, when they're due. It's actually in our Edmunds program now as well. Trustee Thompson: I don't know how everyone else on the board feels about it, but I've had several residents ask me about that program, and I always direct them to your office or to the Building Department. I'm kind of interested to see periodically what goes on in that program. I got the packets from the Building Department and I've been reading through them what sort of criteria you base your decisions on. I realize you're the administrator of the program and you work with Kelly on the applications, but I would kind of just like to know. Do we have a lot of people in the Village that are taking advantage of this? It really is a great program and when I see some of the homes that could use a little help in the Village and I know Dean does tell people we have this program. I would just like to have a little feedback from time to time about how the program is going and how many residents are participating in it. Manager Revella: It's definitely underutilized. Definitely spread the word more. We try to post it and we do try to let people know whenever they have issues. Sometimes people don't qualify because of loan to value issues. It's a risky loan. Otherwise we're open to pretty much anything going forward trying to get people help to rehabilitate the properties. As long as it makes sense financially that we're not putting the Village's money at risk, then we're pretty good at getting approvals through if we if we need to help people. Over the last 3 years, there's probably a lot more than prior 7 years that I've been here. We had 1 maybe every other year during that time and for the last 2-3 years, probably had 10-12 come in. Trustee Thompson: On these application forms, the one for the residential housing. Do these get updated? This one talks about the 2015 income limits. Manager Revella: Whenever the County releases those, we try to update. I'm not sure the last time we got an update from them. Trustee Thompson: I would like us to try and figure out how we can really publicize them a little bit more for our residents, because I'm getting the sense that a lot of people have no idea about this wonderful program that we have. Trustee Carley: The Greater Montgomery Business Council, where are we on that? Manager Revella: I thought the Board said to have that discussion during budget to see if we're 12 going to get involved financially. Mayor Taylor: It was a budget item. Manager Revella: Just so the Board is aware, Trustee Thompson had asked about the Bridge. The Town is coming to the February 2nd Board meeting to present on the Hill Street Bridge and its options. Executive Session – Personal History of a Particular Person and CSEA Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to enter into Executive Session to discuss personal history of a particular person and CSEA. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. 13  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting January 19, 2021 Motions & Resolutions Approval of December 15, 2020 Minutes Trustee Sebring made a motion to approve the December 15, 2020 Minutes. Seconded by Trustee Baker. All ayes. Motion carried. Liaisonships Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to dissolve the Liaisonships. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. Roll Call: Deputy Mayor Ramos: Yes Trustee Elliott: Yes Trustee Thompson: Yes Trustee Sebring: Yes Trustee Carley: No Trustee Baker: No Mayor Taylor: Yes Motion carried. Emergency Preparedness Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to direct the Village Manager to send the Emergency Preparedness to the Unions. Seconded by Trustee Thompson. All ayes. Motion carried. Payment of Audited Bills Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to approve Payment of Audited Bills. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive Session – Personal History of a Particular Person and CSEA Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to enter into Executive Session to discuss personal history of a particular person and CSEA. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Deputy Mayor Ramos made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Sebring. All ayes. Motion carried. 14