Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting January 16, 2024 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 Kristie Hall Patricia Maher Ralph Garrison Jr Absent: Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk David Donovan, Village Attorney Chief Herlihy introduced Full Time Officers Ariana Kirschner and Peter Tetukevich. Public Hearing – Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals Trustee Hall made a motion to open the public hearing for Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to close the public hearing for Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Pearson: Under section 3 letter b, the landlord. I just want to get clarification. What if they're charging their family members to stay there? Then I went to read immediate family. The family is the owner of the housing unit consisting of owner, spouse, children, grandparents. But maybe it's a cousin or somebody else that's living there. I don't know if we need to and I don't want to delay this anymore. I just want to make sure we're covered with people renting. Manager Revella: It only excludes immediate family and it defines immediate family. So anybody outside of that would count. Trustee Pearson: I know we had talked about fees, we don't have it in here. Do we want to finalize that tonight or do we want to do that another time? Manager Revella: It would be a separate motion. Attorney Donovan: The fees will be set forth in the fee schedule. You would need to adopt the local law. Then after you adopt the local law, there would be a motion to amend the fee schedule to include whatever. You can change that by resolution. You don't need to have a local law, public hearing, publication, code amendment every time you change the fee. It would be once you adopt a local law, then you'd be in a position to adopt a resolution amending the fee schedule. 1 Village Manager’s Report Manager Revella: We've had some updates from the Chief regarding the ongoing cases and coverage. It's been going well. We've been filling in holes in the staffing, which has been great. Everyone's getting trained up and hopefully will help alleviate some of those concerns we had earlier last year. Went over some damages from the power surge with DPW Superintendent that we talked about last meeting as well at the sewer plant station. Went over updates from the Comptroller who are still here. Went over some of the minor flooding we had at the park with the Rec Coordinator. Went over programs with him and the DPW Super, along with the snow removal and holiday decorations takedown and the tree removals that they're doing. Had a conference with the engineer also about the sewer plant updates and issues at Tin Brook station. Moving forward with that from the funding that we received from the state. Went over Orange County Transit and the issues at 35-37 North Montgomery Street with the Building Department. Along with the snow removals that they had to do for citations for people not clearing their sidewalks. Had a conference with our attorney and special counsel regarding the Hill Street Bridge litigation. We did get to interview candidates for Code Enforcement position. We have some more coming up. We have canvass letters due back now, so we'll set those up. Gone over payroll, budgets with the Treasurer. Covered for DPW when the Superintendent took some time off. Going over bank reqs and adjustments. Recreation Department, their basketball program going. There are 135 participants. They did end up clearing 31 sidewalks for violations. Indoor pickle ball is going well. Even started another session and adult rec is going on. Building Inspector issued 12 new permits, 62 violations sent out for snow. Half of those were done by the residents. Half were done by the village. The part time inspector did issue 1 new permit, 1 CO, had a fire inspection, helped with the snow violations, and did some updates on the Zoning Board. The Clerk's been updating Facebook, website, FOILs, handicap requests, preparing for the upcoming election, code review and responding to requests. Finance Department going through support calls with Edmunds as needed, bank reqs, payroll, audit, helping with resident concerns, 1099, W-2s and IRS docs and accruals. Public Works, they're chugging along. Sewer plant, they've been trying their best to maintain down there with the increased flow from the rainstorms and things, it's been difficult for them, but they're doing the best they can with the pumps and pressing sludge, cleaning stations and the issues they had from the power surge. The Water Department did 2 mark outs, replaced 4 meters, 5 endpoints, 3 inspections and 5 closings. They're getting the wells back on line. Just waiting for 1 test to come back. 1 of the wells is back on now. There's only 1 left. Highway has been helping to clear the streets and sidewalks from the storms that we had. Catch basins so that the rain event didn't cause more issues. They had to remove a few downed trees during the storm. They're picking up the discarded Christmas trees and maintaining facilities. Police Department, they're filling the staffing. Issued 9 traffic tickets, 30 parking tickets, responded to 4 MVAs, 3 arrests, 21 cars ended up getting towed from the storm and parking lots and 208 blotters. Our attorney does have a couple litigation updates later in attorney client. Trustee Pearson: The power surge in the Police Department. I saw the doors were open again. Does that mean that that whole system, the air conditioning unit was blown out or something? Manager Revella: One was, yeah. Trustee Pearson: I saw Perfect Temperature has been down there working. Is he working on that? Manager Revella: Put the new ones in. All the new ones are installed. Trustee Pearson: It says parks cleared 31 residential violations for sidewalk. Is that from the snow? Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Pearson: You have 24 hours to shovel your sidewalk, am I correct? Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Pearson: This was from the last snow? Manager Revella: Yes. Like the 10.5-11in we had. Trustee Pearson: The triangle, we own that triangle. Is that our property? Its still snow covered. 2 Manager Revella: Right now. Yes from the most recent storm. They're not done shoveling. They just finished salting. They're going to shovel. They shovel when the storms done. Trustee Pearson: Because this is all clear. Manager Revella: That's a different department. Trustee Pearson: What department is that? Manager Revella: Parks. Trustee Pearson: Parks does this and DPW does that? Why? Manager Revella: That's just the way snow removal is done. Trustee Batson: Last time we talked about and you just briefly mentioned that there are two high profile cases that the police are still investigating that potentially have media coverage or something like that. There's still that same level of severity, still on track, still potentially coverage, still also potentially being successful? Manager Revella: Correct. Trustee Batson: Awesome. Meeting with Part Time Building Inspector to discuss, more interested in the 35- 37 North Montgomery St issues. That was a significant agenda piece for us last time. Any update if the person started to comply, made any sort of progress? Manager Revella: I'm not sure. No, I don't think he has to date. Trustee Batson: None. Trustee Pearson: He has 2 more weeks. Trustee Batson: That's fair. I know there's been bad weather and things like that, but I didn't want us to sleep on that. The number of sidewalk violations, is that typical? Manager Revella: Last year, we didn't have a lot of snowstorms. It's been really 2 years since we had significant snow. So, people weren't really adjusted. It was heavy, wet snow. People may have taken more time. That's typical for a first big snow. Trustee Batson: The Building Department's report, there's a line here that says approval is granted by the Zoning Board for the property located at 45 Second Street. There were a couple of kind of interesting Zoning Board meetings, which one of those properties was this? Manager Revella: That's with the carport. Trustee Batson: That's exactly what I was hoping to hear. That person will be able to move forward with that? Manager Revella: That's correct. They can get a permit. They have to work out the permit issues with the Building Department, though. Trustee Batson: It's just nice to see some progress with that, because that was a contentious moment at that meeting. Deputy Mayor Carley: I do want to just circle back for the 35-37. I know we said February 6th to give a final. Is the Building Dept. doing a weekly review just to make sure, just to kind of see? 3 Manager Revella: There's been nothing done to date, is the problem. Deputy Mayor Carley: I just didn't want to wait till February 6th, and then we look. Manager Revella: They've been looking. There's nothing yet. Deputy Mayor Carley: Projects. Can you just tell us what current projects we have open? I know we did some. Manager Revella: The Riverfront Park. That'll be vetted by the end of the month for bidding. Walker Street, which is sidewalks, curbs and road. We have just finished one down at Olley Park. The parking lot to the left is finished. There's a little bit to do once the weather changes. Some more striping things down there on the end of it. The kitchen in that building. That's another project we talked about. The floors here. We got the HVAC done here in the PD. Tin Brook Pump Station, doing the wells and pumps there and the wet well. The plant, there's issues with the electric panel. Then there's some pump issues that are going on. Clarifier. There's a lot of head works and things are going on down there. Those are the big ones. Mayor Ramos: Directed to the Building Department and to John. Do we have a contingency plan after 2/6 with 35-37 Montgomery Street? Building Inspector Wallner: It will depend on the board's decision what happens after the deadline. Mayor Ramos: On 2/6 close of business, 5:00, 4:30. We have a board meeting that evening. We're going to be tasked with making a decision how to proceed from there. No alibis, no hidden. "I didn't receive anything." We expect something 2/6 to make a decision. Building Inspector Wallner: We haven't received anything. Approval of December 19, 2023 Minutes & January 2, 2024 Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to approve the December 19, 2023 Minutes with changes. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. 6 ayes. 1 abstention (Trustee Garrison). Motion carried. January 2, 2024 Minutes Trustee Garrison made a motion to approve the January 2, 2024 minutes. Seconded Trustee Hall. 6 ayes. 1 abstention for meeting portion(Mayor Ramos). Motion carried. Public Comment None Local Law 1 of 2024 – Short Term Rentals Trustee Hall made a motion to adopt Neg Dec in regards to SEQR. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to adopt Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to amend the fee schedule. An application fee of $250, first inspection free, each subsequent inspection $50 each. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Orange County Transit Manager Revella: I got an email from Orange County Transit at 5:15 pm today. *read email into minutes*. Trustee Batson: Do we believe that our efforts to provide a letter to the Department of Transportation in the 4 past help to expedite the previous process at all? Manager Revella: We helped push the process prior, yes. Trustee Batson: Is that something that we should continue to do to get this project done? Manager Revella: We would, but there have been no requests of anything. Trustee Garrison: Can we send a request to have them come into our next meeting in person? Manager Revella: If that's the pleasure of the board. Trustee Pearson: I'll second it. Mayor Ramos: How about requesting DOT to come here? Trustee Pearson: Let's do it. Trustee Batson: Can I just ask what are you looking for to have them here? Trustee Garrison: I want them to come in and actually stand here and present to us what they're doing instead of sending us a 3 sentence email. Manager Revella: That's Orange County Transit. Trustee Garrison: Correct. And I think the DOT also. Trustee Pearson: Put them on the spot. Manager Revella: They can come explain to us why they can't fix the light on Main Street in the morning. Deputy Mayor Carley: Just to separate all the issues. Orange County Transit, respectfully, if they're doing everything they have and that's their only update. It is what it is. My thing is, if they need us or would request for us to send another letter or send something, we should do that, but respectfully, he should be in person when that next step comes versus a letter. Trustee Hall: We shouldn't really request that when we ask them to update us, we gave them a year to do whatever they had to do. Deputy Mayor Carley: But he's updated us. Trustee Hall: He updated us. You can ask for more. He did what was asked. We gave him a year instead of 6 months. He's sending in his updates. We can request him to come in, but you're going to get the same thing you got just in an email. You're just going to get him to stand here and tell you that. I'm good for him coming in. Deputy Mayor Carley: What I'm saying is that you put in a letter, I think, for highway, if that's an issue with them, we need to help them to push it along. We can. But they need to be in person to do that. Can't just always be by email. That's the only thing I'm adding. He gave us update. But when there are issues that we need help to kind of push something that should be done in person. I'm just putting this on the record so that Orange County Transit would know and it's been discussed. If the board so inclined. Mayor Ramos: We can ask them to come next month or next meeting. 2/6. Obviously we should have some dialog with DOT because we do have other interests that we need to have taken care of here in the village. They've been remiss on certain things. Review of Potential Village Policies 5 Mayor Ramos: Everyone got a copy of their updates Trustee Batson: I don't think I did. Deputy Mayor Carley: I didn't see it. Manager Revella: It was emailed and then one hard copy out there. Deputy Mayor Carley: No, I didn't receive. Manager Revella: Before the last meeting. This meeting is just the resolution. Deputy Mayor Carley: Sorry I missed it. Mayor Ramos: We can table this for next meeting because it's quite lengthy. Manager Revella: It's huge. It's a red line version. Just make sure you look at the red line version to see what the actual changes are. One in there is mandatory from the state, regarding time for breastfeeding. There are a couple other minor changes in there, including the insurance buyout and insurance coverage. Those are two other things. And then the new one is the retirement coverage for insurance that we talked about. Trustee Pearson: I had some questions on the dates. There are some dates that are not coinciding with the dates from the previous policy. Manager Revella: Those are the ones I highlighted. Trustee Pearson: Plus the stuff you sent last year was part of this. Mayor Ramos: We can table that for next meeting. Deputy Mayor Carley: Why do we just have a work session to go over it? That's what I asked. If we're going to have a 5:30 session. Then I see a policy and we should have went over in the work session because we don't have the time with the public to go over each and every policy and discuss. Trustee Pearson: There are 2 changes he's making. The breastfeeding is mandatory, which is in there, and the other one is for your retirement and healthcare. Deputy Mayor Carley: We have to read it and discuss. Trustee Pearson: We've had it for 2 meetings. Deputy Mayor Carley: You might have. I didn't. Trustee Pearson: Everybody got an email. Mayor Ramos: Can anyone make a work session? 5:30, February 6th. Trustee Hall: It'll be tight. I'll be late. Trustee Pearson: I'll be here, but a little late. Manager Revella: The board is making this publicly known. It’s an open public meeting, 5:30 pm February 6th. The discussion will be policies. And make sure you also review the resolution that was in the packet today. Resolution 14-23-24 Designating Time and Place of Election 6 Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to adopt resolution 14-23-24 Designating Time and Place of Election. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. 6 ayes. 1 abstention(Trustee Pearson). Motion carried. Set Committee for Comp Plan Review Manager Revella: Normally there'd be 2 to 3 members of the Board of Trustees, 2 members of the Zoning Board, 2 from the Planning Board, some Department Heads usually the Building Inspector or someone from the department. But each department would have somebody represent at the meeting and then someone from the community at large. Usually the Community Council would send somebody. Really up to the board how they want to set it up. That's kind of the parameters. Mayor Ramos: We're only going to have 1 community member. Manager Revella: Everybody that's on it from all the boards are members of the community as well. Let's try not to be too cumbersome on the members of community. It's open to the public, so they're always welcome to come. Everyone else has been either elected or appointed to do the duties. Hopefully they do them well. Mayor Ramos: Looking for volunteers from the board. Manager Revella: 2 or 3. It's up to the board. You can't have more than 3. Trustee Pearson: I will. Deputy Mayor Carley: I will Trustee Batson: If you want a third, I'm more than happy. Mayor Ramos: Are we going to ask for community members at large? Manager Revella: Yes, I'm going to ask the Zoning Board Chair, which, she's already volunteer herself and another member. The Planning Board Chair, I'll ask who from their group they want on. Departments, I'll send a rep. If you want to outreach to the public to see who wants to be on. It's open to the public, we should have at least 1 member of the public on the actual committee. Mayor Ramos: Did Mr. Sorensen sit in? Manager Revella: No, not at the time. He wasn't involved in the Planning Department back then, but we will have Orange County Planning involved as well. Deputy Mayor Carley: Will they run as lead or guide? Manager Revella: We had our own planner lead last time. We'll talk to Alan and see what his availability is or someone from his office to help and see if you want to have your own consultant as well as. It's up to the board. Don't have to. Mayor Ramos: Is there an anticipated date that you want to start this? Manager Revella: We'd like to start in March at the latest. Deputy Mayor Carley: Supposed to be completed by? Manager Revella: Whenever it's done. We try and do as quickly as we can. But it's got to be thorough. It takes time. The last time took 2 years. Some issues in between, but this time you should be able to do it all pretty quickly. I would hope within a year. Trustee Batson: It's reviewed every 5 years? 7 Manager Revella: Reviewed every 5, should be. Mayor Ramos: We got our 3 members of the Village Board. Zoning Board and Planning Board Chairs. Manager Revella: They are picking 2 people from each board. Attorney Donovan: Mr. Mayor may I make a suggestion. If you're going to have you know who for the Village Board, and then if you get the names of the individuals in the Planning Board of the Zoning Board and you solicited a member at large, then you would have for a board to adopt a slate of people that you have it in front of you, everyone you know who wants to serve, who is going to serve and you adopt that as the committee. Manager Revella: Just want to make sure the board is comfortable with that setup. Alcohol Waiver Request – Blue Star Mothers Trustee Maher made a motion to approve the Alcohol Waiver Request for Blue Star Mothers for February 10, 2024. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment Robert Wilson: I used to be a village employee. I was let go in my eyes for abuse of power because other people, I'm not going to get into that. I was directed to file a FOIL request. You all are aware of what a FOIL request is. That was on November 6th. You have 5 days to respond to that and 20 days to get back to me with the information. I received nothing. It just kept going on and on, kept getting pushed under the desk. I came back again December 8th. Filed another one simply requesting some information of mine. Needless to say, nothing was sent to me. No calls were to me. Nothing. I heard crickets. Again today I came up and filled out a third and I simply stated that this is against the law and I am entitled to this information. Being that I was a civil servant. I spoke to Miss Kraus today when I came up to file another one. I said, I don't want to do it, but I can sue the Village of Walden for this information. Her response was, then do it. Sue us. I said, what are we waiting for? Why am I not giving this information? We're waiting on the lawyers. I said, enough of this. Who's the lawyer? So I can call him and I can figure out what's going on. She tells me John Revella's the lawyer of Village of Walden. I said, how is that when it's conflict of interest and he's the Village Manager? Needless to say, I got nowhere. She and the Deputy Clerk there called up 2 Police Officers to escort me out of the building. My question is why, since November 6th, haven't I received any information about my termination, about my evaluation and any and all disciplinary actions that were taken against me? Do you know anything about this, sir? Manager Revella: I would just like to clarify, I'm not the village attorney. The village attorney is evaluating this. Her name is Ashley Torre. She is special counsel. It's not this attorney. We did get a response this afternoon from her. I'm hopeful that tomorrow you'll be emailed some things, if that's what you asked for or paper copy. Robert Wilson: Both. But again, I'm hearing the same thing now. Manager Revella: We got a response today. Robert Wilson: If you got a response today knowing that I was up there, why wasn't I given a call. Like she said that she was going to give me on December 18th. She said you'll hear from me from the end of the day. Needless to say, I didn't get no call. In my eyes, something is being hidden here. I was let go for reasons which I'm not going to get into right now because, it's pretty messed up how it goes, how everything is run down there at the DPW station. My simple question is where's the confirmation saying y'all heard something back from the lawyer? So, in my mind I'm a little more at ease saying, okay, they did really hear something or is it just more smoke being blown? Mayor Ramos: Mr. Wilson, they indicated that they received it today. We have nothing to discredit that. You are going to receive some form of response, you'll get it by the end of this week or close of business tomorrow. Then you can all know then you can pursue whatever actions or avenues you need. But if the lawyer that responded sent it today, then obviously we got it. The Village Manager will review it and prepare 8 your responses and forward it to you email or by letter and photocopy. You'll get it by the end of the week or close of business tomorrow. And if not, just email. Email the board. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Hall made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Trustee Pearson: Riverfront Park is all put to bed for the winter or are we still working on that? Manager Revella: The silt fence will go up when the level goes down. That's the only thing they can do during the winter. They're going to do some elevations on the markers which they couldn't do until the water went down. Then the bid will go out. Hopefully as soon as the weather breaks, they can start working again. Trustee Pearson: You didn't mention anything come back for the treasurer position. Manager Revella: I had a couple people call. I told them to make sure they send in the resume with the application and I got one send in their resume and application. Trustee Pearson: Do we have a format of what's going to happen after the 31st? That's we have some type of plan in action for what's happening? Will you fill the board in and let us know what's going to be happening? Mayor Ramos: We'll talk about an executive session. Trustee Pearson: RBT, the audit from 2 years ago? We haven't seen the results of that yet. Manager Revella: The 2022 draft is, we have it. I'm not sure if they finalized that yet to send to you guys. I didn't get a final copy. I just got the draft. But they did finish 2022 for sure. Trustee Pearson: Leadership night. I want to thank Marisa for pulling that all together for us and the committee that was formed. It was very nice. It was a lot of people, which was great. And thank you for doing that, Marisa, I appreciate it. Thank you. Trustee Hall: I missed Leadership night. I completely and totally forgot about it. I know, horrible. I did see some pictures, and it looks like it was good night. Trustee Garrison: DPW out there doing their plow thing and keeping the streets cleared. PD out there patrolling. Just so everybody's aware, local traffic laws and things. I don't really know all of them, but emergency vehicles have the right of way when they're responding to a call. Please yield to the side of the road so they can get through. So we don't have any more accidents involving emergency vehicles. Trustee Batson: Is there anything that will prohibit us from getting this gentleman as information by the end of the week? Manager Revella: I can't speak to the responsiveness of the full request. I only know that we got a response from our attorney today to send forward. Trustee Batson: Let me ask the question differently. Manager Revella: I cannot give you a different answer. Trustee Batson: Whether the information is satisfactory or non-satisfactory to this gentleman. Manager Revella: I can't speak to that. Trustee Batson: Is there anything that will prohibit us from giving him an answer one way or another? 9 Manager Revella: No. Trustee Batson: Even if we do not get him the full scope of the information he is asking, we will respond in that sense. I understand there's legal issues that we can't skirt there, but his request is at least let me know that it's going to be there so we can commit to getting at least a response there. I should ask this during my report, any updates on the cameras? Attorney Donovan: I have a call with the cameras attorney person tomorrow. It was a very lengthy contract that took me a while to get. It had a font about the size of a pinhead. Once I blew it up, it was about 30 pages long. He has a red line version for me, call tomorrow and hopefully I have more information to the board after that. Trustee Batson: When we put Police Officers through the Police Academy, is that budgeted? Do we have a particular line item in our budget? Manager Revella: I don’t think we don't pay for the academy. We pay their salary while they're in the academy. We get the academy for our officers for free because our officers teach at academy as well. That's one of the benefits. Trustee Batson: Fantastic that we got some folks through there. A couple of meetings ago, we discussed and are opting out of cannabis and we had a lengthy discussion there around what happens with enforcement. I committed to sending some emails to the resource that Becky provided, they did get back to me with some links that we can fill out if we believe local businesses are in violation. Now, I absolutely did not fill those out without discussing it with the board or the Police Department or anyone who needs us to, but I am in possession of those, so I don't know if that's future discussion for us. I would be hesitant to fill out those links on a suspicion. I think that there probably needs to be some proof. That's just me. But if that's something that we want to discuss about further, I have the emails, I have the contacts, ready to go. The last piece was, I did meet with the treasurer around the budget. If I say anything wrong, correct me here. But I hypothetically, at the halfway mark, the budget should roughly be at 50%. Ours is at 56. Going through this line by line. I don't think that's much of an issue, because I would roughly say that there are 2 types of costs that are fixed and variable. Variable things like payroll, there fixed costs, things we pay like insurance premiums and things like that. Except for we don't pay fixed costs at a uniform rate. Example, most of these big things like insurance premiums, we've paid 75% of them upfront. When we do so, we get a discount usually like in the line of 3%. That's why if you were to look at the budget, it is slightly over. But we will substantially make it up, at least in the fixed cost piece in the back half. Where I went with all of this, though, there are a couple of minor things here that I questioned. Most of them have to do with overtime, which we've discussed at length, but I would really like to discuss the concept of transfers. My understanding of this is that, I only understand from a financial perspective, I don't necessarily understand it from an audit perspective. But as long as the budget balances against are so the budget versus the spend, we are in good financial shape. That's a given. But what if the individual lines do not necessarily. So, we want the a fund to balance the a fund. It doesn't have any sort of fluidity between the other funds right. In general. But what about the individual broad account numbers of the a funds. If I look here, as long as A1325 is the treasurer and A1410 was the clerk. If one of these is over by 5% and the other one is short 5%. I understand that we want to accurately account for money, but do I really have any concern about that? As long as these balance out. This is a massive, complex budgets $10 million budget. It is impossible to nail line by line. I completely get that. But are there any audit responsibilities for it being off just a little bit here and there, as long as it comes in under its value? Manager Revella: No. Trustee Batson: So why do budget transfers then? Manager Revella: Because you need to balance your lines regardless to show it. Trustee Batson: Why do I need to balance them if there's no financial impact and there's no audit impact? 10 Manager Revella: The audit impact is different than financial impact. Audit impact is you didn't have line balance. We're not required to have all the lines. You're required a fund, f fund for water, g fund for sewer. Whatever the funding might have has to be separate. You don't have to have individual lines. We've gotten and broken down more and more lines just for transparency really with the public. Trustee Batson: I appreciate that. Manager Revella: Say, we're worried about how much uniforms are costing this year. We wouldn't know and have that kind of broken out, I think for the public to see and the board to see. That's kind of where that came from. Trustee Batson: There are 3 broad categories, right? There's the a fund, all of a. Within each fund. I think the correct term is the control number. So the control number is the first 4 digits of the account. For example the treasurer appears to be control 1325. Then you have individual account numbers. Where do I want to place my emphasis on budget. Surely not at the account level. At the control level. Manager Revella: I would, yeah. That's kind of how we stay within. We try to stay within like, we try to keep treasurer expenses within treasurer. We try to keep department within department. Then within that you really try to stay 100, 200, 400 within each other. As much as possible. Those are different aspects. Some is for equipment, some is for like administration pay and things like that. Trustee Batson: I don't have every budget transfer on me. Most of the time I see the budget transfers, they impact the account number. The control number balances out. Do we ever have to shift between control numbers? Manager Revella: Yes. Not all the time. Trustee Batson: I think I'm going to be a stickler on not liking budget transfers at the account level, but liking them at the control level. That's going to be a fight that you're going to have to have with me. I understand the importance of them at the control. I don't agree with them at the account level. Trustee Maher: And a lot of times it can be software misentries. Manager Revella: It happens. Deputy Mayor Carley: I don't really have anything to say, but I would like to echo Wilson's concerns. He voiced those 3 different times. I think that we should kind of openly just review the process not only for him, but for the public itself to understand that if it goes to the Clerk and then it goes up the ladder, then to the lawyer. Manager Revella: It depends on what the request is. It can go to a department. Deputy Mayor Carley: I'm saying just review that just briefly. Then the other side of it, just for clarity, is that the Clerk, the Village Board is responsible for the Clerk. That was the reason why we said email the board. Because then based on the structure of the government here, we can address some things up front. Whatever your concerns are then we could say, all right, November, December, whatever. Then we have a responsibility to give you an answer back from the board. I'm not sure about the process and I'll let the Village Manager speak that. That way you can make sure that whatever issues are with this whole process, I'm not familiar with it, that we can address your concerns from a board perspective. Mayor, he couldn't speak to all the little things involved because we don't know all the intricacies. However, once we understand that and we'll address it, hopefully you get your answer. The goal is to get your answer this week after it's been reviewed and then disseminated to you. Can you go over the process to make sure for the public? Attorney Donovan: It's not the same every time and you know what? It's probably a better idea not to have this conversation right now. Mayor Ramos: Leadership ceremony was awesome. A lot of good candidates. Wonderful event to 11 recognize our citizens in our community. The Walden Woman's Club held their appreciation ceremony this past couple of days celebrating the Humane Society, the Readers Club Group and we had an Eagle Scout that did a wonderful project here for the Temple on Edmunds Lane. Ms Caitlin Grogan, phenomenal job. We had our DMV van on January 9th. Was very successful. Had 21 customers. Hopefully we'll see them again next month. Executive session - Discuss the Employment History of Particular Person, Attorney Client Session to Discuss Litigation relative to 5 Clinton Street and Hill Street Bridge Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to enter in to executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person, attorney client session to discuss litigation relative to 5 Clinton St and Hill St Bridge. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Maher made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. 12  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting January 16, 2024 Motions & Resolutions Public Hearing – Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals Trustee Hall made a motion to open the public hearing for Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to close the public hearing for Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Hall made a motion to adopt Neg Dec in regards to SEQR. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to adopt Local Law 1 of 2024 Short Term Rentals. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to amend the fee schedule. An application fee of $250, first inspection free, each subsequent inspection $50 each. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Approval of December 19, 2023 Minutes & January 2, 2024 Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to approve the December 19, 2023 Minutes with changes. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. 6 ayes. 1 abstention (Trustee Garrison). Motion carried. January 2, 2024 Minutes Trustee Garrison made a motion to approve the January 2, 2024 minutes. Seconded Trustee Hall. 6 ayes. 1 abstention for meeting portion(Mayor Ramos). Motion carried. Resolution 14-23-24 Designating Time and Place of Election Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to adopt resolution 14-23-24 Designating Time and Place of Election. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. 6 ayes. 1 abstention(Trustee Pearson). Motion carried. Alcohol Waiver Request – Blue Star Mothers Trustee Maher made a motion to approve the Alcohol Waiver Request for Blue Star Mothers for February 10, 2024. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Hall made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Carley. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive session - Discuss the Employment History of Particular Person, Attorney Client Session to Discuss Litigation relative to 5 Clinton Street and Hill Street Bridge Deputy Mayor Carley made a motion to enter in to executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular person, attorney client session to discuss litigation relative to 5 Clinton St and Hill St Bridge. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Maher made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. 13