Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting June 20, 2023 Mayor Ramos called the regular meeting of the Village of Walden Board of Trustees to order at 6:30pm. On roll call the following were: Mayor: John Ramos Present: Deputy Mayor Willie Carley Trustees Becky Pearson Chris Batson Patricia Maher Kristie Hall Absent: Ralph Garrison Jr Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk David Donovan, Village Attorney Village Manager’s Report Manager Revella: Finished interviews for police officers with Chief Herlihy. Hoping to make another hire this week. Did go over temporary help at the finance department and as well as permanent help. We are accepting full time applications for Deputy Treasurer in the office. Went over some Code Enforcement and Building Department issues with the Building Department Officials. Went over some requests from the comptroller for their audit. Went over updates for capital projects with the Village Engineer. Discussed a potential litigation matter with Village Attorney, as well as special counsel. Had a meeting down at the Waterfront Park with one of the Millspaughs, one of the Trustees, Rec Coordinator, DPW Super to talk about plans down there. Went over the same thing with the Village Engineer and had some discussions with Trustee Pearson about that update. Did attend a Youth Bureau Awards event at SUNY Orange where the Rec Coordinator received an award. Mayor was there and a few other staff there as well. Went over some projects with DPW Super for the New Year. I know they're working on the hydrants now. Walnut Street is going on. Hopefully they get the valve in tomorrow so they can get that reestablished. Rec Department, teen center and after school still going well. This is the last week of after school and then it'll be teen center for the full week. Flag football has about a hundred participants. It's going on right now at Bradley Park. It's been well attended. Department of Health will be doing their annual inspection of our summer camp this week. Programs at the community center are going well so far. And so far there's 227 kids registered for camp. Building Department, the new Building Inspectors getting acclimated pretty well, I think. Finally got his computer in. He's already issuing permits, certificates of compliance, CO reports, property violations and resolved 21 other violations. Code Enforcement Officer issued permits, certificates of compliance, another property violation and then a couple of new complaints and violations and did inspections. The part time Building Inspector issued permits, a certificate of compliance and is working on grass violations and helping with the Zoning and Planning Board. Clerk's been updating social media, working on worker's comp matters, helping with personnel and special counsel, FOILs, payroll, working on the minutes and responding to resident requests. Finance Departments working with the comptroller on their audit. We're also having a NYSIF insurance audit as well as working on our internal RBT audit. Staying pretty busy with that and working on issues with Edmunds, bank reqs, responded resident complaints. Met with me on the position in the office, bond updates, escrow 1 accounts and reviewing vouchers. DPW Super has been making sure vehicles are maintained and equipped. Sewer plant and stations, working on pump repairs. Water Department installed meters, new end points, mark outs, inspection, and closings. They did have emergency tree issue going on in Wooster over the weekend, which they handled. Patching streets. They did install the historic marker on Elm Street and we should have a dedication planned soon. They did remove a dam issue on the Tin Brook near Union Street. They're putting all the areas that need painting into the G.P.S. mapping system. Reviewing digs, responding to complaints, flushing and jetting. Police Department been trying to cover staffing shortages. Hopefully, we get another new officer in soon. They did issue traffic tickets, parking summonses, responded to MVAs, vehicle traffic stops and responded to 319 blotters. Trustee Pearson: You met with Randi, what was that about? Manager Revella: It's really the Greater Montgomery Business Council President about gaps in the village needs. Obviously, we don't have a diner in the village. We don't have a florist in the village. Just wondering what's out there and what can we entice to get in here for some variety. She's hoping to help do that. Trustee Pearson: 227 kids. Is that lower than normal? Manager Revella: Not this time of year. This time of year, it's pretty high. Trustee Pearson: I know that indoor pickle ball has started, which is nice and great, but I know there were some concerns about no nighttime hours, so I don't know if we're going to address that at all or not. Manager Revella: It'd be difficult with teen center. Trustee Pearson: You can't move them into the into the train station? Manager Revella: It's too many kids to go to just in the train station. I'm sure they'll consider other hours and try to work on that with the people that are interested. They did have a lot of people download the app. Trustee Pearson: Marisa, congratulations on your Honor Roll. The office is looking into a computer by the counter. Is it a laptop or a big computer? Manager Revella: It's a regular computer at the front desk. Trustee Pearson: There was a water leak on Walnut Street? Was it a water main or was it a lateral? Manager Revella: It was on the main. There's pieces called corps. That's where there's the main makes their connections. Trustee Pearson: What's downstairs as you go down the big stairs at the bottom of the stairs? But then there's also a space that you can put collectibles and things in that, would be really pretty. Somebody was always going to paint a mural on that wall and never happened. Maybe having something interesting in that when you come down the stairs would actually look pretty. Manager Revella: I was talking to Ginny about locations to try and figure something out. Trustee Maher: It's summertime getting warmer and I just feel like the speeding is out of control, 2 even more so now than I've seen ever before. Lots of young kids, but also just in general. I know we're working on our hiring, but is there any way we could talk about doing like bringing back the monitor? Borrowing it back again. Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Maher: Also, I know just from where I'm at, I can see people blowing by as kids are trying to go use the park. I know that detail is there usually routinely as school gets out. I'm not sure if that's going to be happening again, but that would be something I would suggest. Trustee Hall: I see that you met with Mr. Millspaugh and a few others. I had a few residents come up to me or message me in the last couple of weeks expressing their want to help. If there comes a time for residents to help. There's quite a few that are willing to do that. Marisa, congratulations and Maria, too. Trustee Batson: You said the 227 campers are ahead of the curve. I do know that the camp is a significant expense. Do you know, if there's a particular break even number there that you need to hit it from a financial accountability standpoint? Manager Revella: If we have more than 350 campers, we're more than covered. Depends on how many are full time and part time. That's really where I'm not sure, how many are full day and how many are half day. That's a big difference. Trustee Batson: If we don't hit that number. I know that there are some budget implications there from a revenue standpoint. Is it significant? Manager Revella: No. Trustee Batson: It looks like we more than double our typical number of arrests. Any trends or anything there the public should be aware of? Manager Revella: Just there were a couple warrants that were outstanding that were recovered. Which helped. They weren't even arrested in the village, but they had warrants from the village, so it counted as an arrest. Mayor Ramos: Fire hydrants, are we going to work on them soon? Manager Revella: We are, today. Walnut Street is being done right now. They did the dig to the main today so they can get the insta-valve installed. Then the company has to come put the actual valve in so they can put the new hydrant. Then they'll go to the next one, then the next one. I think there's two more. Well, one got hit by a car recently off of Coldenham Rd, so there might be three now. That one I think is easy to replace because there's a valve. If there's not a valve, it takes a lot of time and money. Approval of June 6, 2023 Minutes Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the June 6, 2023 minutes. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment Susan Taylor: When I was first elected to the Village Board, I was told the village codes can be considered the foundation of commonality of any municipality. They ensure that each property, despite its differences, will be judged by the same considerations. If used properly, the ambiance of 3 the village is not only cohesive, but the methodology used to attain that ambiance is fair and balanced. Or at least it should be. At issue with codes and laws is enforcement. No enforcement is dereliction of duty. Selective enforcement is worse. It is also dereliction of duty as well as discriminatory and at times could even be considered nepotism when family and friends receive special consideration instead of the violation notices they deserve. As a board member, I spent about two years of my time reviewing our village codes. I can remember having detailed discussions surrounding the words may, shall and will. The entire time we were always reminded that our code should reflect decisions on behalf of the entire village and should not reflect our own personal feelings, but the spirit of commonality. Mr. Sperry was correct when he pointed to cars being parked on village sidewalks. Doesn't just happen at the location he referenced. It is a common occurrence in this village. We worry about whether sidewalks will be constructed at new projects so residents can walk safely into the village. Why bother if cars will be allowed to block those sidewalks? Should we care that some residents sit on their backyard decks and are treated to piles of discarded tires, appliances, old worn out grills and discarded toilets in their neighbors backyards? Should we care that unlicensed vehicles are parked inside yards and not in driveways? Should we care that some front porches are adorned with sofas, recliners and refrigerators? Our code says we should. I don't envy you the time it will take to examine our numerous codes. But if they aren't going to be enforced or we are going to allow citizens to tell us just which codes they will follow and which ones they won't, why bother with any of it? Maybe we just don't care. Village Code Review Manager Revella: Just so the public is aware, the board will be discussing chapters 9 to 38 at the next meeting, and those start at 5:30 pm before the regular board meeting, correct Mayor? Mayor Ramos: That is correct. Manager Revella: Just so the public is aware, the board is going to review sections at a time of the village code as a whole. They started with chapter one and they're going to go through sequentially. They're meeting an hour before the regular meeting to go over certain sections. The first time they weren't sure how long it would take. They did chapter one and part of chapter five. Next time they're hoping to do chapter nine through thirty eight, as far as they can go. Those meetings are open to the public. As they go through and find anything that may need revision or change. The Village Attorney will review to see if it makes sense to make that change. And if it does come back to the board with an introductory local law to make that change. If the board accepts introducing a local law to set a public hearing where the public can make comment at a public hearing. If the board still is okay with it and no other revisions, then they'll move to adopt after that. SRO Agreement 2023-2024 Manager Revella: Last time the board had questions about how the process went so far. I did get the report from the Chief yesterday and we actually got a report from the school district today. It was in your box about how they thought that was going so far and the cost of that service. Mayor Ramos: The only change there was with the SRO agreement was the amount. Manager Revella: The amount and the year. Trustee Pearson: How is the additional monies that we got this year determined? Who determines that? Is it the Manager or the Village Board, the School Board, or the Chief? Manager Revella: What additional money do you mean? Trustee Pearson: Well, it was raised last year from one amount to another to this year. The amount 4 of money that was changed to. Who makes that determination of how much they're going to pay? Manager Revella: Those are contractual increase of the officers that are assigned to that duty. Trustee Pearson: So, we don't have any say. We can't go to the school and say we'd like this much money for blah, blah, blah, blah. We can't counter and say, we'd like this much instead of that much? Manager Revella: You could, I'm just not sure how you would justify it. It's pretty much the cost of what we're spending for the officers that are being utilized there. Trustee Pearson: Sort of. Not really. Manager Revella: Depends on how you look at it. Trustee Pearson: Well, I was looking at it with what was given to us. So, we're not making that amount of money. That's how I see it. Why can't we go back to the school board and ask for that difference? That's just my comment. That's why we're here to talk about it. Deputy Mayor Carley: Since we're talking about it, what was the original amount for the public? Because I don't remember and I don't have it before me and they could see the difference in the amount. Manager Revella: It's a 2% difference. And that's the increase in two point something for this increase in the wages, plus the increase in benefits of the people that are assigned to that duty. Mayor Ramos: Wasn't it 54,203? Manager Revella: This year is 55,536.46. Mayor Ramos: 2% Trustee Pearson: I was just saying, the justification is that the village spent more money than what was given to us. So I don't know why we wouldn't be asking the school to say there's a justification. Why wouldn't we be asking for what we paid out? That's all I'm saying. Mayor Ramos: How did we spend more money? Trustee Pearson: Did you read the report, the email we got? Did you get that email? Manager Revella: From the Chief. Mayor Ramos: Yes. And he's asking the school for more? Trustee Pearson: No. But there was a deficit, so I didn't know why we wouldn't be asking for that amount of money to cover. Manager Revella: That's why I said it depends on how you look at it. Either we made more or there was a deficit. If you look at it the way Trustee Pearson speaking now. Depends on how you see it based on the personnel that were there. Mayor Ramos: Sir Donovan, have you reviewed the agreement? 5 Attorney Donovan: So, I've reviewed the agreement. I have nothing to do with the numbers. The terms of the agreement are acceptable to me, the content of the contract. If the board is interested in moving forward, it will be a motion to authorize the manager to sign the contract. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to have the Village Manager sign the SRO Agreement 2023- 2024. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. Trustee Batson: Can we get a clear answer to Trustee Pearson's question? Manager Revella: What's the question? Trustee Batson: Well, are we at a deficit or are we not? I read the email the opposite of her, which is fine because there are two viewpoints there, but probably only one of them are right. Are we in a deficit for this or are we in a surplus? Manager Revella: I don't feel we're in a deficit and neither does the Chief based on the personnel that was there. But also if you read the letter, he also says it's hard to tell without having three years of information to know what the trend will be. So this year it was this because of the personnel that was available. Next year it may be different based on the personnel available, we may be in a bigger deficit or a bigger surplus, depending. You need a trend to see what that really looks like. It's hard to tell. If it was the worst case scenario, looking at the report, is less than a 2% deviation. The best case scenario, it was about almost a 13% surplus. Just got to be careful how you say that. Trustee Batson: Do you know, I don't recall from that email, but the cost of the deficit, if you look at it that way, I know it was 3%. Manager Revella: It was less than that. It was about $1700, I think was the maximum. Trustee Batson: So it's a $1700 dollar worst case scenario. Manager Revella: For last year. Trustee Batson: Which is would carry over to this year, assuming all things are the same. Manager Revella: It's covered in last year's already. It's done. There's no carryover. So, if same personnel this year, I understand you're saying. Trustee Batson: The same personnel this year, theoretically incur a $1700 deficit. Manager Revella: Correct. Trustee Batson: Or a 13% surplus. Manager Revella: Correct. All ayes. Motion carried. Discussion – Short Term Rental Manager Revella: The board asked to put some agenda because they didn't take action. The draft that was presented is still the same draft that's here today. I wasn't asked to make any revisions and neither was the attorney, so I'm not sure what action the board wants to take, if any, next. They're 6 okay with the draft. They can set it for public hearing. Mayor Ramos: Has the committee has gone through this. Trustee Pearson: We've gone through it. It came before the board last time and there were no comments. Hopefully we get some comments tonight. Attorney Donovan: Just a procedural comment. If after the discussion tonight, you're ready to move forward, my suggestion, because it has to go to the Planning board and the Department of Planning is that you may want to do that to get any comments back from those agencies before you schedule a public hearing. Trustee Batson: I think it's a well done document. I know a lot of time and effort went into it and it was benchmarked against other village’s codes. In theory, this allows any of us to turn our homes in or short term rental and perhaps I missed it in here, but how do we collect revenue from that as a village? Manager Revella: Permit. Trustee Batson: The cost of the permit is how we collect revenue on it. Not based on the total sales of the unit or anything like that. Just simply the cost of the permit. Manager Revella: And inspection. Trustee Pearson: Or fines and inspections. Manager Revella: It's not open for everyone. It's only in certain zones and there's only a limit of ten village wide. Trustee Batson: Gotcha. If we do choose to adopt it this quickly, I notice that the application period here is only from June 1st to June 30th, which would mean that it would not be available for action from the public for an entire year. Would we want to look at that potential date for the short term or just say as of next year? Trustee Pearson: As of next year. The one reason why we did this was because it was supposed to be coming down from the state that all villages had to have this, all communities had to have something in place. And that never went to fruition. We don't even need to do this if we don't want to do it because it wasn't necessary. We did it because in case we needed to do it, we had it ready to go. So, if you don't feel like you're ready to go with it, it's fine that we don't do it. There's still enforcement. I'll go into what I have to talk about. Trustee Batson: The last one I have was enforcement. How do we enforce it? Trustee Pearson: It spells out how they're enforced. They have to have the permit. And if somebody rents out the home, it's inspected after every rental. Do we have the manpower to do it at the moment? I would actually like to have the new Building Inspector read through it as well. He has not been a part of this. I know we had our other Building Inspector, which is great. It was great and they were on the committee. But having another set of eyes is great. Just like Dave said, going to the Planning Board is actually another good idea too, before you pass anything, because there's other comments that people are going to make. Enforcement is an issue. It's something that they felt that they were capable of doing. But then again, we're only limiting it to ten in the community to begin with. So, we're not doing hundreds of people having this ability. If you read through it, it's per 7 unit, per property, only two per property. It's first come, first serve. There's only going to be ten in the beginning. If the Building Department think they can manage that, then that's another issue. It is about enforcement as well. Manager Revella: You're talking about how do we enforce it? Same as like how do you catch somebody stealing something, either see it or report it. They do a pretty good job of monitoring the online sites where this takes place. That's a really good avenue. Then your neighbors are the best policemen out there as well. Trustee Hall: So after each rental, does the Building Inspector have to go in and reinspect after each one? Trustee Pearson: After each one. Correct. Trustee Maher: From our earlier discussions on this topic, I think that we were looking to have some sort of legislation in place from a village perspective so that we could prevent people from doing this illegally, which is happening already. This is a great start. I think it's an awesome document, but I think we're still missing something that regulates. This is all about people that register to be a short term rental. I don't see any accountability for people who do not register. Manager Revella: The violation for not registering. It's a violation of the provision. It'd be the same penalties. Trustee Pearson: That's not in here. That's what I was going to talk about, because part of that's missing. I went through my old paperwork today. The whole back page, the penalties for offenses is not in there. Trustee Maher: This was the revised. Trustee Pearson: This was the revised one. Trustee Maher: I think that should be back in it, because I think that was ultimately the purpose was to be able to hold people accountable for not following the policy. Trustee Pearson: Again, this is basically on the people who are permitting. It's not necessarily the people who are not permitting. So, maybe we need to put something in there for people who are caught without have a permit. We did talk about that one time. We talked about they wouldn't be able to rent for over a year or two years if they were caught and then they wanted to fill out a form and we said we shouldn't be able to allow them to rent for at least a year because they didn't even want to fill out the proper paperwork in the beginning. So, that wasn't part of the discussion at one time. Trustee Maher: I think that's kind of why we started this in the first place was to have some sort of ground rules for what is what we're allowing and what we're permitting, but then also preventing the illegal dwellings from doing that. Trustee Pearson: The fees are also missing from this. We had talked about your fee up front is a $250 fee to register your permit and then your first inspection is free. Every inspection after that would be $50 for the inspection after that. Manager Revella: You're missing that page there. See it on the website, the penalties for offenses, violations, article subject. 8 Trustee Pearson: I do have that. That's what I have on here. But it also doesn't talk about what Trish was talking about. Manager Revella: It's a violation of the article. If you're not registered it's a violation of the article. Trustee Pearson: Okay. Manager Revella: $500 for the first offense, $750 for each day after. That's pretty severe. Trustee Pearson: Correct. But then we didn't also have the fees set. So, there's a whole other page we need for the Building Department to have fees set. This is not in your packet either, but this is kind of what Dean put together. Building Department, the application, the name and everything. And when you get to the back of here, it talks about your property, description, tax ID number. It asks for all that information so the Building Department will have all of that. The only thing that's left off of this was the proof of insurance. Which we wanted $1,000,000. But that was not on this form. I just added that. I don't know if the board can get part of this too. You might like to read through this as well. John, do you have a copy of this that you can hand out? Manager Revella: It was in the packet the last time we talked about it. Trustee Pearson: Yes, that's where this came back from. The enforcement can be an issue, I believe. Dean was convinced that if we only had ten units, it would be okay to start with ten. We can always adjust it later if we want to go for less. If we want to go for more, it can be adjusted. I would also rethink that with the Building Department too. Deputy Mayor Carley: Under 305-85 number 7. It says applicable over night and daytime occupancy limit of short term rental. Number two, it says the maximum occupancy is according to the state occupancy. Do we have a reference for that to see a number or anything? Trustee Pearson: That's the Building Department. They have the building code. They can only have so many people in a place with two apartments or bedrooms. It goes by bedrooms, I believe. Manager Revella: And that's actually on the permit application. Deputy Mayor Carley: But I'm just saying, I think it should be placed in here somewhere because for number two, say see application or whatever the case is. Then number seven, overnight and daytime occupancy, is that the same thing or two different? Manager Revella: A daytime limit would be like the limit for this room. But there's not a nighttime limit for this room. For another place like an overnight where you would sleep, depends on the bedrooms. It's different for a house than it would be for a building like this. Deputy Mayor Carley: I could put five people in a room. Manager Revella: You could, but there's a maximum allowed under the law, and that's on the permit that you fill out, and it'll be approved up to this many people on the permit. Deputy Mayor Carley: Okay, so it should have a reference there. Manager Revella: No, it's in the permit. Because every house is different. 9 Mayor Ramos: Does the Building Inspector have in 308-85 section F, is there a criteria on your deniability of the permit? Are there sections where when you go there, if they don't have this, it's denied, because if it's appealed it comes to us? Is there like a checklist that you go through? Manager Revella: He hasn't done it yet. I wouldn't know. For example, I'd imagine if they didn't pay their fee, they would get denied. Trustee Pearson: We had talked about parking at one time. We had talked about possibly because of the area that it's going to be in. It's not in single family home neighborhoods. It's in a downtown area or a more populated area. That parking is going to be limited. We had talked about a parking permit from the Police Department that if they wanted to park in the lots for a longer period of time, that they would be allowed to do that because they'd be paying for that parking permit. I don't know if that's something the board wants to think about or talk about. We had talked about it originally, but not to the length, because I think it's a board decision and whether the Police Department could come up with those permits and do it. You're talking ten units to begin with. Depends on where they are, but it would be sufficing possibly for having them in our parking lots and knowing why they might be spending a couple of extra days or so towing the car and saying, well, this car has been sitting here for three days. How come? But at least they'll have that permit for a certain period of time that they could park in the parking lot. Trustee Maher: Maybe in the application, the permit, it could state how many parking spots they get and if they need more than that, they would have to apply for an extra parking permit. Trustee Pearson: It does say in here, the place has to have to have parking. But maybe it's a downtown apartment or something or a loft or maybe at the MX zone gets built up and there's apartments on top of there and they don't have enough parking. Would they be allowed a parking permit? So that's just something we may want to talk about. Manager Revella: I don't know if there was any suggestions for revisions to the actual law. I don't know if you want to refer it to the Planning Board of the county and the village for comment. Maybe they have something else that we missed. It's up to the board. Trustee Pearson: How do you feel about parking? Let's talk about the parking. Manager Revella: I think that it needs to be something that's on the permit. I'm not sure you need it for the law part, but for the permit, I think it's necessary. Trustee Pearson: When you fill out the permit? Manager Revella: Absolutely. Trustee Pearson: What are you talking about? A permit through the Police Department? Or are you just saying that the homeowner has to supply two spaces or one space? Or how many spaces per bedroom? Does it go by bedroom? Two bedroom you need four spaces, two bedrooms, you need two spaces? Manager Revella: I don't know. You have to talk about that. I'm not sure if there's insufficient parking that would you get a waiver of some kind and then you talk about that parking permit process. Trustee Hall: I think it would really depend on where the rental is. If it's on Main Street, obviously parking is hard anyway. They're going to go to a municipal lot. If it's on one of the side streets and 10 you have a driveway, it's really not an issue. Trustee Pearson: Most of it is in tight spaces. Maybe we should really talk about a permitting process and what we want in it. I don't think this is over with yet. I think to send it somewhere is kind of silly. Manager Revella: But the permit for parking and things, that's not something you'd have in the code, that'd be in the permit, which you can change from time to time. The law would be the law though. Trustee Pearson: Who's going to decide the parking? Will it be the Building Department? Manager Revella: The permit needs to be approved by the board before it can be issued. Like the whole process, I would think. Attorney Donovan: I want to make sure I understand exactly what we talking about. So, if I have an apartment, I'm going to put it as a VRBO. Am I going to be treated differently in terms of parking for my VRBO than I would be for a tenant who was there for a year? Trustee Pearson: I don't know. Good question. Trustee Maher: I think what you're saying is that if when you do a short term rental, you're expecting that there's going to be more people than like, say, just one person renting it out. If both people come up here and rent a property more than what typically would be like, let's say a single family apartment or households would have one car or two cars max. Let's say you have four people staying there. Now they have four cars. That's where it would be problematic. I think that is a Building Department issue. Attorney Donovan: It's also an enforcement issue. If you say you have to have at least two off street parking spots. If you're a house somewhere that's easy. If you're an apartment and there is no off street parking, I don't know how you accommodate that or how you treat that VRBO different. Trustee Pearson: Because use as an example, I have an apartment like you have one. We have an apartment. You and I both have a car, right? And we have three bedrooms. We only sleep in one bedroom, but we're renting out two other rooms. You're going to have two other couples. That's two more cars coming. We have already taken up our allotted space in the parking lot with two cars because we each own one. We're still in the in the apartment, but we're renting it out and we have two more bedrooms and that's two more cars. Where are they going to go? Yes, you've already have your space taken up in your parking lot. But then what happens to these other people? Yes, you are going to be treated differently because you're making money off of these people and the village lot becomes crowded. Attorney Donovan: I always question how we treat similarly situated people differently. That's generally a problem in the world. Trustee Pearson: Why? Attorney Donovan: It's unconstitutional. First, to treat similarly situated people differently. You need a valid basis to do that. And so if I'm renting my apartment, I'm making money too. Trustee Pearson: That's what I mean. 11 Attorney Donovan: If I'm doing a VRBO, I'm making money too. If on street parking, let's say in July is available to everybody, how can we say a VRBO and I don't know the answer it. Trustee Pearson: We weren't saying to make you pay for it. We're saying you just needed a permit so that if you're parked in that parking lot. Attorney Donovan: But other people don't need a permit. Manager Revella: They don't need to have permission to have Airbnb at all though. There's no short term rentals allowed. You're getting a permit to allow this use. It is already an allowed use to be a year lease. So, you can put restrictions on it on that basis, can't you? Attorney Donovan: I'm just troubled by the fact that you have on street public parking available to the public that Becky, Trish, Kristie can use, but Willie can't. Manager Revella: This is three hour parking that she's talking about. Same thing? Attorney Donovan: Yes. I'm troubled by it. I don't know the answer to it. Manager Revella: I would think it would be better to leave to the discretion of the permit office. Trustee Maher: It's almost like if we're coming at it from a protective perspective, like we wouldn't want that car to get towed if they had an extra car. Attorney Donovan: I'm not saying you definitely can't do it. Just saying I'm troubled by it. Let me look into it. Manager Revella: I think it's better to leave that parking issue to the permittee part in that process and not the local law itself. Trustee Pearson: I agree with you. But what would that permitting be? Manager Revella: That's a whole process in those three pages that you have to look at. Trustee Pearson: We're still going to go over those. Manager Revella: I think it's important for the board refer the law to those Planning Boards to get comment, to see what else there is. If that's okay and we can reserve for that permit process. Attorney Donovan: No one likes a meeting when the attorney talks all the time, especially me. But if you're going to make changes to the law, it's going to have to be recirculated. Just so you know. Trustee Pearson: We're not in a hurry. We can't put it in until next June anyway. Trustee Hall made a motion to refer to the Village Planning Board and Orange County Planning Board for review. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Stewart’s Sewer Line Request Chuck Marshall: I do land development permitting for Stewart's and I've been to, roughly speaking, about 500 of these types of meetings. In 2021, we requested that our house trap be removed. The board discussed it. I know that there are certain members that were attendees or participants in that meeting. We were not here. At that time. We didn't offer anything, meaning 12 there was no other than just the removal of the house trap, which was what our request was. And today we'd like to offer what we think is a middle ground, and that's the installation of a grinder pump. If you've been to the Stewart's over here, we have an out-of-order sign on the bathroom and are forcing our customers to use porta potties. The reason is, is that the house trap, which is in the sewer line coming from the bathroom, is at an elevation higher than the remainder of the plumbing. So the sewer line where the bathroom is doesn't see the flows from the mop sink and the food preparation areas. The waste isn't actually able to get through the trap. Our staff is forced to manually remove the items that collect. Which you can imagine is unpleasant in nature. During the 2021 deliberation, the two concerns that the board raised were one, the flow at 400 gallons a day they felt was adequate to purge the system. But again, as I just indicated the line it's on sits at a higher elevation than the remainder of the internal plumbing. And the second thing was there was concern when house traps were authorized. Their concern was that they or the benefit was they prevented sewer gas from entering into the home or commercial space. So, what we would like to do is we'd like to install a grinder pump. What the grinder pump will do, it's a pressurized vessel so the waste would collect and then discharge to the sewer main. It's also actuated by an internal flow. The 400 gallons a day doesn't matter. That's our side of the proposal. The village side of the proposal is that anyone else that comes requesting the removal of the house trap would subsequently have to put a grinder pump or something like that because it wasn't, they couldn't just say, well Stewarts had their grinder pump removed or Stewarts had their house trap removed and we would simply like to be treated the same. That's our request. Unfortunately, we don't know other than that what we can do to mitigate the situation and again, feel that this is the ultimate middle ground. Trustee Batson: I would just love to at some point engage our Department of Public Works to hear their opinion on it. Manager Revella: You want me to share? The Building Department and the Public Works both commented on the issue, our engineer as well. The issue prior was there was no real response to an alternative. They're offering an alternative now, the grinder pump. There's no opposition to that from those departments. Hopefully it works. They're not saying it's going to work. We hope it does, but it's better than nothing and better than what they're doing now. It's up to the board whether they want to authorize that or not. Trustee Hall: I think if those departments think that it may work and they're okay with it, that's their area of it and you guys are willing to do it. I say why not? Because the employees that want to have to do what they're doing now, I wouldn't want to do that. If you guys think that will work and those departments are okay with it, I'm good with it. Trustee Maher: Same. I have no further questions. Trustee Pearson: So, it's coming out of the toilet into a pipe? The pipe goes to a trap. The pipe part of the trap in the pipes. That's where it stops and collects. Manager Revella: There's not enough flow to push it through quickly enough. Trustee Pearson: And that then carries on to the sewer. So, it's still getting into the sewer, whether it's ground up or not. They're going to add the grinder pump before the trap? Manager Revella: Instead of the trap. Trustee Pearson: So, that'll go there before and then it'll run down into the sewer from there. Same components are getting from no matter what you're getting rid of. 13 Chuck Marshall: The flow is no different in the materials that constitute it. Trustee Pearson: It's the same material coming out. Manager Revella: It'll actually be better for us because it'll be ground up. Trustee Pearson: I just didn't understand the process, so I just want to hear that. I'm fine with it as well. Deputy Mayor Carley: I'm fine with that also. I was trying to visualize because I know about the trap. Where would the grinder go? Chuck Marshall: In this instance, the trap gets removed because the pump acts as the trap. I do have a degree in civil engineering and I did work at an engineering consulting firm, so I have relevant knowledge in this field. The material sits in the pressurized vessel. It's ground up by the pump and then it's a float actuated. So when the material in the pressurized vessel hits a certain level, the pump kicks on and then injects effectively into the sewer main. Trustee Pearson: Like a sump pump. Chuck Marshall: Yeah, basically. Trustee Pearson: What happens when that breaks or how do you know it's broken? Chuck Marshall: It's an alarm. We would receive an alarm, like a float failure or something like that. Trustee Pearson: Do they break often? Chuck Marshall: It's pressurized. It would stay self-contained until they're locked. It's like a manhole almost cap. Manager Revella: It depends on what people put in there. They can't really control that. Same thing happens at our stations. Someone throws something in that's not supposed to, it'll hit our pump and can break it. The alarm goes off as well. Deputy Mayor Carley: The benefit arise for us is that things are grind up prior to making it to the sewer. Manager Revella: Instead of the things being flushed down and going straight into our main without being ground up, now they're being ground up, which is great. Even flushable wipes aren't really meant for our plant. Chuck Marshall: If you think about the plant like on the front end of your treatment plant, you have a manual screen and then this gets the material through the small enough diameter to get through the screen. Deputy Mayor Carley: Thank you for explaining. I'm not familiar with it, so it's just fyi. Chuck Marshall: Unfortunately, it's something I wish I wasn't as educated in. 14 Mayor Ramos: Thank you for coming giving us some clarification on that. I think we got most of the all the board members are on board. Trustee Batson: Voting this doesn't set this for any sort of legal precedent that we have to allow this for everyone right? Attorney Donovan: The resolution would be because of the unique situation at the Stewart's Shop that the board is authorizing the replacement the house trap with a grinder subject to the review and approval of DPW Superintendent. Trustee Batson made a motion authorizing the replacement of the house trap with a grinder at Stewart's Shop subject to the review and approval of the DPW Superintendent. Seconded by Trustee Maher. All ayes. Motion carried. Resolution 1-23-24 – 5 Clinton St Manager Revella: Work was done, everything was finished. Now we just need to make sure you are recuperated for the funds that need to be expended. Attorney Donovan: As a prerequisite to presenting this to the property owner for payment, it just needs to be a resolution from the Village Board indicated that that amount is the appropriate amount. It's just the bill that was provided by the contractor with the cost incurred by the village to pay on top of that. So, you'd be adopted a resolution finding that the sum of $16,300.98 is a fair, reasonable sum for the work performed to repair remediate the adverse public health condition. Whereas remediation of the property is the responsibility of property owner of 5 Clinton Street for the resolve that the sum presented to the owner and for the resolve that he does not pay it. That amount would be levied on his tax bill as provided by the village code. Trustee Hall made a motion to adopt Resolution 1-23-24 - 5 Clinton Street. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Resolution 2023-2024 Bond Trustee Maher made a motion to adopt Resolution 2-23-24 Bond Authorizing Various Capital Projects. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Town Contracts Trustee Pearson made a motion execute the agreement with the Town Montgomery for funds for the summer camp program and for the library. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment Diane Sandboothe: Parking on Liberty Street. It's really, really dangerous. It's hazardous. People are parking and you have to go through a maze. There's one family on Liberty Street that has five cars. One of the cars is always parked on the road. Another family has two cars, plus the man is a plumber. So, his car is half on the grass, half on the road. If there's any time there's an emergency and we've had a few of them on that street, a fire truck couldn't get through. I'd like to have parking on one side of the street. I don't know what can be done, but the sooner the better. That's number one. What's happening to our black cemetery? We had in the wintertime, we had Olga Vargas from the Department of Agriculture come. She was supposed to come back in the spring. In the summer. I haven't heard from anybody. *Mayor Ramos read email from Ms. Vargas into minutes* I sent her an email, what's plan B? That's as simple as we can ask for. She has not returned. 15 Diane Sandboothe: I don't want to remove those stones. The markers from where I think where the graves are. I think there are six or seven of them up there. So, she's not coming unless we move the stones? Mayor Ramos: Correct. Diane Sandboothe: That's not good. Mayor Ramos: I believe she can be, either someone in her office or she travels great distances, so we'll be definitely in touch with her again, hopefully before the frost comes. Diane Sandboothe: On Scofield Street, used to be a white line going down the hill. Manager Revella: Double yellow line. Diane Sandboothe: It's now disappeared. People drive in the middle of the street. And if you're on the street, it's really, really dangerous. About driving through the town. If you go by the monument right by Village Hall, from the monument to the light, people are all over the place. They're parking all over the place. It's like the Annapolis 500 there. It's really, really dangerous. I don't know what could be done about it, but I think it's really dangerous. The house across the street from the little fire house, the one that's all boarded up, I thought in the winter time it was supposed to be demolished. Manager Revella: 35-37 North Montgomery St. Diane Sandboothe: It's really an eyesore and it's dangerous. I'm sure that there must be rodents in there and everything. What's the plan? Manager Revella: We'll talk to the Building Department. Diane Sandboothe: Who owns that? Manager Revella: It's listed. But it's also on the abandoned property list. Mary Ellen Matise: We had a great event yesterday at Wooster's Grove. Thank you to the SPOMA Committee. Thank you to Diane Scott Boissard and Mercedes Ortiz. The Unity 845 and NAACP. What a great day. And to the mayor for bringing out all his friends. I have a couple of issues. Number one, the ZBA. First off, we came to a joint board meeting and it seems like everything that we discussed at that meeting and I did send all the board members a packet of pictures, many of which dealt with the topics we talked about. And so far this is maybe the third agenda or fourth agenda since then and not one of those issues has been on the agenda yet. I'd like to see firepits discussed. I did talk with the Building Inspector today. We talked about raised fire pits, pits that don't have a cover. I would like to see setbacks. So, they're not this far from somebody vinyl fence. It's a dangerous situation in some respects and we're not even looking at it. The ZBA packet, I know our Chairperson gave a deadline to a current applicant and that deadline was last Wednesday. Today is Tuesday. We still have not received the packet, so we could read it for next week's meeting. What if there are any questions we have or research you want to do? How much time does that give us if we don't get it until this weekend? That's unsatisfactory. Somebody yesterday at the Juneteenth event came up to me and said and I think you probably finally got the question, John. What's going on with the Village's EO203 Committee and what the Police Civilian thing? This was somebody who's on the town committee. First I directed it to Mercedes because Mercedes had been involved with the EO203 at the beginning. She said, well, I'm not involved anymore as the Chief. The Chief 16 was there. The Chief says, I don't know. The Village Board has to deal with it and set up the committee and set up the meetings. And he said, ask the mayor. So, I think that this person finally did come to you and ask you. Mayor Ramos: Yesterday? Diane Sandboothe: Yesterday. Rita Santos, she didn't come to you? Mayor Ramos: No. Mary Ellen Matise: That's who wants to know and she's on the town committee. Maybe you'll find out what we're doing and then get back in touch with her. I don't know if her intention is that all the communities get together or we talk together about what each community is doing in that regard. But she really wanted to know. They just listed capital projects and the things in Olley Park. I thought during the budget did you talk about fixing the gazebo? Manager Revella: I don't think so. Talked about maybe removing the gazebo, but that was the discussion. There was no action. Mary Ellen Matise: But that's a Joel Cook gazebo and we're still back to that Mayor Ramos and you're disappointing me because we haven't done it yet. Mayor Ramos: Kind of hoping an Eagle Scout is going to adopt it. Mary Ellen Matise: We talked about doing a rededication to Joel Cook and still waiting. Raymond Ortiz: I just want to make a comment because Ms. Matise stated had a wonderful event. It was good seeing all the community together. Most importantly, it was good to have the Police Officers there. They were on duty. They got to be acknowledged for the job they did. We've been having these events and thank God we didn't have any problems at our event. I believe Illinois, they had the aftermath. In Texas had the aftermath. I'm grateful that we had a good event and let's do a better job next year. The event was wonderful. It was better than last year's event and more people came out. I'm thankful to be part of it. But I'm also thankful for the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the Town of Montgomery. They supported us. My daughter's big project as well. David Sperry: When is the next meeting? Manager Revella: July 18th. David Sperry: Does the Village of Walden have a Code Enforcement Officer? Manager Revella: Yes. David Sperry: I'm assuming he enforces grounds and everything. The property going across the street from Most Precious Blood School. Who owns that? I don't know if it's the village owns it. Manager Revella: We own some. And Stan Plato owns some. David Sperry: Does that lawn along the highway should be mowed down? Manager Revella: I'm not sure how far, but there's like a certain amount. 17 David Sperry: The only reason why is deer cut up through deer. You can't see them until the run out on your car. Everybody that owns property along the roadway should remove them. And the Code Enforcement Officer should, whether it's the village residence or anything like that, should be taken care of because a lot of cars are getting hit by deer. The short term rental. You call short term rental. I don't know if it's one day, they rent it. Two days. I don't know what short term is. Where can I find that online? Manager Revella: It's on our website. I just had it up. It's under government, legislation. You will have the local laws here and it's this one down the bottom here. Draft. David Sperry: The parking in the village is terrible as Diane said, all these side streets. It's tough for children to move out of the house now with their parents because rents are out of control so you end up staying longer and more cars. I don't know if the solution is to allow bigger driveways, longer driveways, more driveways. But people are parking on all over streets, every side street in Walden. I've been complaining about Albany Avenue. I can't tell you how long because you've got to zig zag down that one. And that one's traveled quite frequently as the markers for cars would indicate that when we did the surveys on how many cars go up and down the road. Wait Street is the same way. Except is has one side and it's a wider street. But all these side streets there needs to be something done with parking. Like she said on Liberty Street, there is allowable two sides of the street parking, so if somebody really wanted to park and block the whole road, they could and there's nothing the village can do about it. They need to take a look at all these roads and decide, listen what side of the street we're going to allow parking on. Lot of the streets are too narrow for both sides of the street have parking on. Or allow bigger driveways and everything else you have to do. Cheryl Baker: Several of you are probably aware, Mr. Batson you may not, because I wasn't able to tag you on my Facebook page, but many of you probably saw the abhorrent work that was done to our Veterans Bridge. Is that going to be painted over or a solvent use to remove the graffiti that was done to the bridge? Manager Revella: We don't control the bridge. NYS DOT does. We can ask. We did have a volunteer last time paint over it. We can find out. It's not easy to get underneath there. Cheryl Baker: I don't know how they're accessing under there either. But what's even more disturbing is they were able to do it for several days in a row and it wasn't noticed. That's disturbing. Same thing with cars on sidewalks. Right on an orchard, there's a black Toyota that is always on the sidewalk. There is a woman that lives right across the street. She has to go off the sidewalk onto the road to get back on to the sidewalk. That car is right down from the police station, how is that not noticed? It used to be, when I walk at night, I used to come across police officers and it was nice to see them walking or on the bikes. I understand the last officer that we had that was certified for bike riding, was out on 207c, or if he still is. Are there plans to train other officers now to at least start doing nighttime rides? I think that's part of the problem is there's no presence. So people don't care because they know no one's going to notice them. The speeding on West Main Street, they're easily clocking at 65, 70 minimum. They're flooring it because nobody cares. The amount of motorized bikes now on the sidewalk. There is ones, they're very short stout bikes, really fat tires. I had to backup off the bridge backwards because the person was riding on the sidewalk and I said, you can't do that, he no one cares. And he's right. And this wasn't in the child. This man was well into his forties, late fifties. The other day there were four or five kids weaving in and out of traffic on sidewalk, off the sidewalk, on sidewalk with their motorized bikes. Myself and another woman with a baby carriage had to move out of the way because they went right on going. Again that goes to the lack of police presence. I understand they're short staffed. I do get that and I sympathize with that. Well, why can't once, at least twice on shift somebody be seen out walking? Because that will be a 18 deterrence. We're having a lot more problems, especially with the influx of new families that we have coming in. If they think they can get away with it. They're going to. Are there plans to train officers on the bikes? Are they going to be reintroducing walking at nighttime and having a visual presence? Manager Revella: I wouldn't want to speak out of turn without talking to the Chief first about the plans and who is and who isn't trained. Cheryl Baker: Fair enough. And you said it was the DOT that would have to clean up the Veterans Bridge. Manager Revella: It's their bridge, even if it was someone else. I would think you need their permission. Cheryl Baker: Even though it's the walls? Manager Revella: It's their abutment. I'm not sure who or if I would want to send someone down there. It's pretty dangerous, but we'll work on that. Trustee Pearson: It's happened before. We've cleaned it up before. Manager Revella: Volunteers did. It wasn't us. Trustee Pearson: It wasn't the village. It was someone that lived in the village that volunteered. What they do, did they scrape it? Like a gray paint over the top? Manager Revella: Yes. It worked for a while. Susan Taylor: Was that house with the little roof issue over the door sold on Grant Street? Manager Revella: Yes, it was. Susan Taylor: I'm amazed because all the months we complained about that, the village had no idea who owned it. I'd like to meet the real estate agent who found out. They're a lot smarter than, I guess, the people in the Village of Walden. Somebody knew who owned it because somebody else bought it. I just wanted to mention that years ago, Trustee Faith Moore organized a group of volunteers in the village. We painted, mowed grass, used weed whackers, cut shrubs for people that either couldn't afford it or couldn't do it on their own. I think she organized it. Manager Revella: She did. It was a spruce up. Susan Taylor: I don't know whether we're interested in doing something like that, because there are probably people out there that are either handicapped. We had paint that was donated. There were minor repairs done on porches. Manager Revella: Pulled weeds, all kinds of stuff. It was great. Susan Taylor: 30 Sherman Avenue. There's a wooden file cabinet with a mattress leaning on it that's been there since bulk pickup. I don't know if they've been cited. There are four apartments there. This is why we have codes, because evidently, they haven't realized by now that nobody's going to pick that stuff up and it's sitting in the front yard. 19 Manager Revella: Is it sitting back off the road? Susan Taylor: It's off the street, yeah, but there it is. There's a sign on "free" for the mattress. They haven't figured out that nobody wants it, yet. There are a lot of weekend warriors in the village. Everybody knows what time the Building Department closes on Friday. There are porches being built, roofs being done. You don't see any permits. Maybe every once in a while the Building Department might want to just kind of ride around on a weekend and find out what's really going on. Manager Revella: I get five or six a weekend myself. Susan Taylor: Trustee Maher is absolutely correct. I can be out on my deck at night, 9:00, 930. There are a lot of kids in Wooster Grove, in the playground area. They are there. Somebody might want a ride through and sometimes they're screaming and yelling. I don't know whether to call the police or whether they're just kind of fooling around. Very disheartening to see what happened in front of the Mason's building on Main Street. The damage that was done there. Had to take them a while. I'm looking at the screw holes in the brick. It just didn't take 2 seconds to rip that thing off the front of the building. We need cameras in this village. I know how much it costs, but we have to provide some kind of safety. Security for the businesses. You want businesses on Main Street. If their signs are going to be destroyed and things like this are going to happen, they're not going to want to come to the Village of Walden. The last meeting, we had no idea how long rentals were occurring in the old firehouse. That's why we couldn't determine the cars that were parking there. Now we know if we're going to have short term rentals, how long they're going to be there. You're right. It's enforcement. We still have landlords here that haven't completed their fire and safety inspections or allowed them to be completed. We still have people in this village that haven't had the new water meters installed in their homes. And we have landlords that still aren't on the registry. So, we keep creating laws and they don't get enforced. So, why bother? If you can't enforce them, you're not going to enforce them. It might look good on paper. Well, the board was very busy. They did this, they did that. And then if they're not enforced, it looks like a joke. You're either going to figure out how you're going to enforce these things and enforce them or don't bother, because it's all lip service. If you don't. Orchard Street parking lot, you may not know the history of it. The business owners purchased that property. They had the parking lot put in for the businesses on Main Street. I know that some apartment renters use that parking lot. They do try to enforce moving the cars when we had a Parking Enforcement Officer. But I think Mr. Donovan is right. It's not the first time he's been right, but he's right. I don't know how you can tell people that rent apartments on Main Street, that they can't park on the street. And then you're going to allow people to have permits in their cars because they're short term rentals to use the municipal parking lots and parking on the streets. Doesn't seem fair to me. I know parking is an issue in this village. I can't believe that people never noticed when they bought their house or rented their apartments that there was no off street parking. And then when there's a snowstorm, they're shocked. They have to go move their cars or when they rent an apartment, now you've got to find someplace to park. Are landlords required to tell prospective tenants that they have no off street parking for their buildings? Manager Revella: No, not required. Susan Taylor: I don't know what these people are going to do, but I can see a real issue. I think it's discriminatory. You have people that are year round tenants that aren't allowed to park and now you're going to let short term rental people. Diane Sandboothe: It was just a comment and just throwing it out. Susan Taylor: No, I understand it. We talked about laws, laws, laws. There is no enforcement. And 20 if there is enforcement, it's selective enforcement. Somebody gets told about their lawn. Guy three houses down. Nothing happens. And you don't see this in other villages. I just don't understand what the issue is in the Village of Walden. There always seems to be a reason why we can't do something. Why aren't we figuring out ways to do it? We're spending money on positions. Building Inspector. Assistant Building Inspector. Code Enforcement. We still have East Avenue. People created their own parking spot right on the side of the street. That's on village property. Still there. Brenda Adams: I just would like to straighten something out for Zoning Board. The applicant is half submitted by his deadline, which was last Wednesday. And we will have to deal with the fact that he didn't submit at the Zoning Board meeting next week. The papers are there and they're going to be distributed on Thursday. The Building Department, as you all well know, is just reorganizing right now. So, we will have them on Thursday. We will have them in time to read them and decide what we want to do with the information. Thank you. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Maher made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Trustee Pearson: CDBG. I watched the Village of Montgomery meeting and we were told in our meeting that we couldn't use it for a community center or a senior center. And the same engineer is for the Village in Montgomery, and they are working on their senior center. So I don't understand why we couldn't. Manager Revella: They are likely using the CFA application for that purpose. We did not. Our CFA, the Consolidated Funding Application. It's a different process. Ours is just through the county CDBG and they only allow it for certain things. The CFA is a little more open. I'm just not sure what they're applying for exactly over there. They may get denied for that reason. Trustee Pearson: Orange County Transit. Was there an inspection done and about their sewer waiver? Where are we with that? Manager Revella: I don't think that they did the inspection yet. They did give correspondence saying when are we scheduling? They did get a report to us. It's actually pretty thick. It's on my on my table if you want to read it. Trustee Pearson: Two weeks ago, they were supposed to have the inspection. Manager Revella: That report came in two weeks ago. We didn't do our inspection of that I'm aware of. We've been trying to schedule with them. Trustee Pearson: Why haven't we done it? Manager Revella: They have not scheduled with us. Trustee Pearson: Of course they're not going to cancel all of us. Now they're coming up with the next meeting in July. Correct? They're three months is up. Manager Revella: July 18th. Trustee Pearson: The floor rebid. Are we somewhere with that? 21 Manager Revella: The bids aren't back yet that I'm aware of, but yes. Trustee Pearson: Charging station. I know that that grant runs out in six months as of March. Which is coming soon. So where are we with that? Manager Revella: NYSEG is going to install the line. I know they asked us for billing information. We gave it to them. We're just waiting for them to install the line. Trustee Pearson: We're going to end up losing that money. Manager Revella: We can ask for an extension based on the correspondence we have from NYSEG. Trustee Pearson: Salt barn, we had $500,000. When is that going to start taking place? Manager Revella: As soon as the DEC sends us a contract. Trustee Pearson: Why do we have garbage dumpsters at some of our parks? I sent you a picture of a person emptying garbage, from somebody who sent it to me, into our dumpsters. I don't understand why we just don't have garbage cans. Manager Revella: We do have garbage cans and we empty them in the dumpster so that the garbage company takes them away because we can't haul garbage from there to another place. We're not a trash hauler. Trustee Pearson: We have to have dumpsters at all our parks plus garbage cans. Manager Revella: Yes, we do. Trustee Pearson: Can't they be locked? Manager Revella: I would have to ask Interstate Waste, if there's a way to do it because they would have to unlock them to go out. Trustee Pearson: Well, if we're dumping our garbage into that, then we can unlock it the day that they're going to pick up the garbage. This person was approached by the person who took the picture and she said, you're not supposed to be doing that. She goes, well, everybody does it. Manager Revella: That's not true. But they might have said that to feel better about themselves. Trustee Pearson: I don't know. I know Lynn had talked about it before. Manager Revella: Somebody putting garbage at one of the parks that she knows? Trustee Pearson: No, that she was down there and it was overflowing and people are just throwing their stuff in there from the neighborhood and stuff. There's a picture of the car. She couldn't get the license plate number. I don't know why we have dumpsters there when we could just have cans. Where are we with the cameras? Did you happen to get a quote? Manager Revella: The quote didn't come in from the other company that you gave us reference. They did come to do the site inspection. We're just waiting for them to give us the quote. 22 Trustee Pearson: And we do have cameras at our DPW Department, correct? Manager Revella: Yes, we do. Trustee Pearson: We have like 15 or 13 of them. Manager Revella: I don't know how many, but we have a few. Trustee Pearson: I spoke to somebody who actually installed those cameras and said that our Police Department with an app on their phone could look at seeing what's going on down there. It can't be that difficult to put in these cameras and that expensive. And I talked to this person, maybe we should have this person come and give you a quote on things and talk about it, because he was telling me it might be $10,000 for each park. It's not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why are we not looking into that as well? Manager Revella: I know. I didn't say we should go with the first quote. That's just what came from state bid. My argument with the companies was the same thing. Makes no sense. I can use my phone to get the same quality picture and that costs, how many money? I don't need $20,000. Trustee Pearson: And I asked about the night cameras and he said the night cameras are pretty sophisticated now. They're not something that is a big deal. It's not as big a deal as most people are making it. I would like to have you reach out to this person. Manager Revella: I talked to them today. Trustee Pearson: I think if that can happen, at least we can get something in the parks. At least that's going to be reasonably priced. They can move. They can track people, they can track animals. You tell them what you want it to track, they're going to track it. I think we really should be looking at more than just what we put out there. Manager Revella: Absolutely. Trustee Pearson: Good, I'm glad you spoke to him today. Buntings, did we do anything with buntings? Manager Revella: We ordered them. We have some and we're just missing one. Trustee Pearson: Waterfront Park, I'm still not seeing a signed contract. Where are we with this Waterfront Park? The man was supposed to meet with you. He didn't meet with you. Where is it? What is it? Is he really a person? Is he really going to come? Manager Revella: Yes, he's really a person. He came to the contract signing last year. Trustee Pearson: Where's the signed contract I've been looking for? Manager Revella: You have what we have. I won't discuss anything else in public. Trustee Pearson: Then what can we do to move this along? Attorney Donovan: I'm prepared to discuss that later this evening in attorney client privilege session. 23 Trustee Pearson: I'm happy about that. Thank you. We all got a letter from Mr. Scott. I did respond back to him. I can't give him a lot of information, so I don't know whether anyone else has any information to give the man, but I kind of told him to reach out to the county. But that's all I could tell him. Also, Mayor, are you going to talk about the post office meeting? Thank you. Trustee Maher: I was just going to bring up what Becky mentioned about the cameras and just see where we were at with it. Manager Revella: We got another guy to come out to do a quote. We're waiting for that quote. I spoke to a third party that may also give us a quote. We will at least have three and if they're cheaper than the state bid, the board is allowed to approve them. As long as they're the best value, then you're allowed to approve it. Trustee Maher: I just wanted to thank everyone for the Flag Day ceremony. It was beautiful, perfect weather and just really meaningful. I'm so happy that we do that here. I was away this weekend, so I missed the Juneteenth, but I heard incredible things about the celebration. Congratulations, Marisa. Trustee Hall: My main thing was the cameras, but that was pretty much covered. I heard great things about the Juneteenth and again, the Flag Day, I was down there with the Fire Department. It was very nice ceremony. I believe DMV was in the village. Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Hall: Does anybody know how that went? Mayor Ramos: I'm waiting for the numbers. Trustee Hall: I was at work. I know a few people have planned on going, so hopefully that went well. Manager Revella: The village went, we needed some paperwork. It was helpful for us. Trustee Batson: Whose responsibility is it for us to contact The Department of Transportation for the bridge graffiti? How do we let them know? Manager Revella: Usually I email them. Just so the public's aware as well, there's a local office. If there's service for work to be done, you can call the Maybrook office. I'm not sure how far you'll get there, but you can call there. Usually leave a message. They're supposed to respond. I usually email the Poughkeepsie area to get the response. Trustee Batson: Have we let them know that that bridge has been vandalized? Manager Revella: They're aware, but I didn't push them past that yet. Trustee Batson: I just get concerned because of that. If that's not addressed quickly, then all of a sudden our entire village is graffitied. I would love for us to somehow start to come up with a plan for some of these enforcement issues that the public constantly bring to our attention. In my tenure here, I would say that there's been three things that have constantly been brought up, which is our lack of enforcement, the speeding, parking. Hopefully two of those or at least tackleable, if that's even a word. The parking piece. Probably well beyond my ability to influence because it seems complex, but I don't want to take it off the agenda. But I would love for us to start to develop some 24 sort of plan to tackle these other issues. Manager Revella: I think one of the things that was brought up tonight by Ms. Sandboothe is looking at streets for one side of the street parking. When you look at that, like Mr. Sperry said, you need to look at the ability of those people to park off the street. If you take away on the street, where are they going to go? You have to give them the ability to get off the street. So, driveway expansion or something maybe makes sense. So we have to look into that. Trustee Batson: Would we catch that as part of our revisions of the code? Manager Revella: There is a driveway section in there. I'm not sure if it touches on length/width, but it does touch on driveway entrances. Trustee Pearson: Well, you're only allowed one driveway in the village per homeowner. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Manager Revella: Driveway entrance, but making it longer maybe helps. Deputy Mayor Carley: I just want to say great Juneteenth. I appreciate SPOMA and others who was out there, the town was out there. Concerning E203 Committee, the way I viewed it was a one- time to get the process through. Are we trying to make it a standing committee? Manager Revella: I don't believe so. That was something that was addressed because the board wanted it addressed through the governor's incentive and it was addressed. I'm not sure if anything else needed to be addressed unless there's a complaint or something to be addressed and then we would reconvene. Deputy Mayor Carley: That was my understanding too. I just want to kind of put that out there. It was just a one-time and then as needed. Mayor Ramos: Yesterday, the DMV van was in the Village of Walden. Thank you to County Clerk Eskew. They will be returning on July 27th. Same place, same time. We did attend the Youth Bureau Awards, Beacon of Light award, which was issued to Michael Bliss. Very well attended. This morning we were at the Valley Central School front portion. We were rededicating the six Vietnam Veterans from Valley Central School to that passed in the Vietnam War. They're going to move it. So if anybody sees that it's not there, it's going to be placed in a secure place until that whole parking lot is taken care of. *read events into minutes* Mayor Ramos: Friday there was a meeting on the post office. The Teamsters Union supported the open discussion. We had a few elected officials. Everything that has been put out on social media that the post office is going to limit services throughout different post offices, hours in the Village of Walden is slated for April 2024. I know the fear of all the post offices closing in this area is relevant. They are reopening the Newburgh substation there for mail distribution. When it was closed, I think it was eight years ago. Now the mail carriers will have to go to Newburgh to pick up their mail and then return to their individual sites, which I thought was totally ludicrous. The unions, the Teamsters and the mail carriers associations are all dead set against it. It appears that the postal inspector is looking to privatize the postal area business. Hopefully they have they have a good fight on their hands right now. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. If you know postal worker, you know of the any of the unions, please support them. This is a big fight for them. 25 Trustee Pearson: Mayor, would it behooves us to have, I know that the person that spoke said that they would come to any community that wanted a community meeting. Maybe we can combine maybe Maybrook, Montgomery and Walden and maybe have a big Town Hall with that because those three post offices are slated as well. Maybe the mayors in each village could get a big Town Hall together and have these people come and speak and let the community help support. The community can support or not support, depending on how you feel about it. But maybe that would behoove our communities. You don't have to be a part of it if you don't want to, but if you want to come listen and see what's happening, that would be great too. If you want to help them. There's a petition that's out there that you can sign or pass around to friends and family and get it back to them to help them. Their main issue was there's been no research done on the need for this because they don't feel your post will be slow. Their drivers will be driving different places, they don't know where they're going. So you may not get your mail for hours. There will be one person in the post office and that person will be doing your post office box and your counter work. So, who knows when your post office boxes will be filled. I think it could behoove us all if we have a Town Hall with the person who and the people that were talking. I don't know how you feel about that, but I thought maybe if you want to set that up, it would be great. Maybe talk to the other mayors. But we need to do it soon because things are happening pretty quickly. That's just my feeling on it. *Read letter into minutes from Brenda Adams* Executive Session – Personal History of Particular Employee, Attorney Client Trustee Pearson made a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person and attorney client session to discuss legal issues regarding Riverfront Park. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Pearson made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. 26  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting June 20, 2023 Motions & Resolutions Approval of June 6, 2023 Minutes Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the June 6, 2023 minutes. Second by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. SRO Agreement 2023-2024 Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to have the Village Manager sign the SRO Agreement 2023- 2024. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Discussion – Short Term Rental Trustee Hall made a motion to refer to the Village Planning Board and Orange County Planning Board for review. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Stewart’s Sewer Line Request Trustee Batson made a motion authorizing the replacement of the house trap with a grinder at Stewart's Shop subject to the review and approval of the DPW Superintendent. Seconded by Trustee Maher. All ayes. Motion carried. Resolution 1-23-24 – 5 Clinton St Trustee Hall made a motion to adopt Resolution 1-23-24 - 5 Clinton Street. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Resolution 2023-2024 Bond Trustee Maher made a motion to adopt Resolution 2-23-24 Bond Authorizing Various Capital Projects. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Town Contracts Trustee Pearson made a motion execute the agreement with the Town Montgomery for funds for the summer camp program and for the library. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Maher made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive Session – Personal History of Particular Employee, Attorney Client Trustee Pearson made a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person and attorney client session to discuss legal issues regarding Riverfront Park. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Pearson made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. 27