Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting June 18, 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 Chris Batson Trustees Becky Pearson Liz Kyle Bill Taylor Kristie Hall Absent: Ralph Garrison Jr Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk Dave Donovan, Village Attorney Chief Herlihy Introduced Michael Gheller as FT Police Officer Welcomed 2 members of Troop 33 Scouts, Michael and William Quick for their Merit Badges for citizenship in the community. Public Hearing – Local Law 9 of 2024 – Residency Requirement Attorney Donovan: One of the things I can report to the board when last we were here speaking about this, it was a question whether or not the board could establish a radius within the county. Let me give you just a little insight into my world, how you come to that to the conclusion of that question. The first thing when I'm asked that question is I look at the relevant statutes. Which is in the NYS Village Law and NYS Public Officers Law. They do not. Neither law uses the word radius. They do say in the municipality or county wide. The next thing that you look for is the case. Has there ever been a challenge? Ever been a court decision on this issue? I could not find one. The next place you look is for administrative guidance. You look at the opinions of the Attorney General because sometimes they offer opinions on questions like this. There is none. So not having any success in those areas, I ask the manager to contact NYCOM so we can get an opinion from their counsel and somewhat heartening to me, their counsel responded, statute doesn't address it. There's no case on point, no administrative guidance on point, but it is the position of NYCOM that you can establish a radius within the county for these positions. So my answer to you is, I believe that you can do that. Manager Revella: Yes, until they tell us no. Attorney Donovan: Well, until there's a court decision which interprets the statute to say that you can't. So, I feel comfortable based upon NYCOM's position that you can establish the radius so long as that radius is within Orange County. And I'm sorry for the long winded response, but there was a way to get there. The second issue was raised. Trustee Pearson did raise the resident, which is a person versus residence. I read the information she provided so graciously. I did communicate with her and I guess what I said is I don't really understand how you want to change the local law. I don't know if the board wants to address that but that's where I am on that issue. 1 Manager Revella: I've only received one comment. It was from John Thompson, he said: Can you guys just pass the law already and stop talking about it? Trustee Kyle: Now we just need to come up with a radius? Manager Revella: If that's what you want to do or you want to keep within the county, it's up to you. Trustee Taylor: I'm a proponent for the county myself. Trustee Pearson: Are we starting with one or both? We starting both. There are two different issues here. Deputy Mayor Batson: Kristie, you were the proponent of the radius. Do you have a radius in mind? Trustee Hall: No, I was just stirring the pot a little bit, honestly. I just don't want to limit it to Town of Montgomery to be honest with you. I don't know how big Orange County is. I don't know how big the radius of it is. I know it’s about 40-ish miles to Port Jervis, I think. Manager Revella: Let me just say that if you make it a radius. Is that going to be as the crow flies; as you drive? It's going to be a conundrum. There's a boundary on the county. You're making an artificial boundary if you do a radius. Trustee Hall: I know. I wouldn't mind going to Orange County to be honest. Trustee Kyle: You would do it like air miles, right? Manager Revella: Whatever you want to do. Just be mindful we have to enforce that and people may dispute that. So, we have to be sure of what our radius is and what those boundaries are. Trustee Taylor: We know we're safe if we indicate county. There's not gonna be a challenge on that. Trustee Hall: No and you have a broader pool. Trustee Taylor: Absolutely. We shouldn't be fishing in a pond when there's a lake available. Trustee Hall: I just don't want somebody that's 35-40 miles away that wants to be here in 15 minutes. I don’t think that’s very responsible. Manager Revella: We don't have to hire them. Trustee Taylor: We also should have supervisors on shift to cover that. I think the previous Chief lived in the village and didn't respond to everything. Trustee Hall: Yeah, he had to move. Trustee Taylor: Yeah, but he didn't have to respond to a lot of things because there were supervisors available to do that. 2 Manager Revella: We have a comment from Michael Felong who also said include the whole county. Trustee Pearson made a motion to close public hearing Local Law 9 of 2024 – Residency Requirements. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. Trustee Pearson: The residency thing I talked about last time. I'm not going to beat a dead horse, let's just talk about, not necessarily the Clerk and the Treasurer. I'm talking specifically for the Chief in their section. 18 years old and I still say it should be a resident of the town, should reside in in Orange County because it doesn't mean they have to. They can own a home here I get it but I need definitions for it and this is how, shall be an 18 year old and resident and reside in Orange County and reside in a formal whatever the setting is principal home and blah blah blah in Orange County. So it's residing in Orange County and owning a residence or living in Orange County. I still think there needs two. There needs to be a resident and a residency. Because to me, they're very different. A resident is a person who lives here maybe. But a residency is in the Orange County, so there's two separate things. One is a place and one is a person. Attorney Donovan: My question to you was how do you want the local law to be changed? Trustee Kyle: You want it to specify both? Trustee Pearson: Yeah, I would like it to reside in Orange County and have a residency in Orange County. Trustee Kyle: What about a renter? Trustee Pearson: You're still residing here. Trustee Kyle: You don't have a residency because you're not a homeowner. Trustee Pearson: You don't have to be a homeowner. You have an apartment, you have a condo, you have something. Attorney Donovan: If I can, let me just revisit what the proposed local law says. It says that you have to be a resident of whatever you guys decide. As defined. And here's the definition. For the purposes of this section. The term resident shall be deemed to mean that place where a person maintains a fixed, permanent and principal home and to which he, recognizing as Trustee Batson as accurately pointed out that this needs to be neutral, but that's I took this out of the state election law, which obviously was not neutral, but he wherever temporarily located always intends to return. As I said, when I responded to you that seems to me to cover both the person and the place. If there's a way to make it better, I'm all ears. I want to make it as airtight as possible. I just don't understand how you want to do that. Trustee Pearson: Because I believe that people can live in another county and have an apartment here and not really live here. And that's where I have a problem. I don't know how you word it. They have a home in another county they live in, say Sullivan County and they own a home here and they get their mail here. Trustee Kyle: It has to be their primary residence. Manager Revella: How do you prove that? And if they attest to it, how do you dispute that? 3 Attorney Donovan: That becomes that becomes a fact finding expedition. Trustee Pearson: What's considered a primary residence? What’s the definition of primary residence? Attorney Donovan: There are a number of factors that would come into place. I think no matter what you say. You're gonna want to look at where they're registered to vote. You're going to want to look at where their driver's license is issued, what state it was issued. You may want to look at where they file tax returns. Trustee Pearson: Do we need to put that definition in our code like primary residence? What that means or not? Attorney Donovan: I think you've defined resident. I think you've covered the base. I think, respectfully, you're over analyzing. Trustee Pearson: It's what I do best. Attorney Donovan: However, if the board feels we need more of whatever, I'm having a hard time understanding what you're whatever is. I understand what you're saying. I think it's covered. If someone has a better way to do it, I'm all in favor of it. Trustee Pearson: A resident and a residency are two different things to me. There’s a resident in Orange County and residency in Orange County. Attorney Donovan: I understand what they are. Trustee Taylor: What is that going to provide us with having a specific definition? Trustee Pearson: I don't know, that's my question. Trustee Taylor: I'm happy with the definition that you just provided. I think that covers us. Trustee Pearson: John, are you understanding me? Manager Revella: I know what you're saying and I agree with you. But that's from the state. That's where he took it from. I don't know how else to define it. If they have another definition, this seems to be the definition of residence. The place. There's a resident, which is a person. Which is defined by their residence. I'm just not sure if there's a definition of that from the state. Trustee Pearson: So, you can have a definition for resident and you can have a definition for residency. Manager Revella: Residence isn't in this code section at all. It says resident a few times. Attorney Donovan: It does not. I don't know how long your code has been around, but obviously it has been a substantial issue for the last whatever number of years. Trustee Pearson: I’m just bringing it up. You guys do what you need to do. All ayes. 4 Public Hearing – Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking Trustee Taylor made a motion to open the public hearing for Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking. Seconded by Trustee Kyle. All ayes. Motion carried. Mary Ellen Matise: I'm just wondering how this is up for a public hearing already, when you just had a meeting last night on the street to discuss with area residents about what should happen? And I'm kind of hoping you're going to tell us what people's reaction was. The local residents. Is that a 50 foot wide street? Does anybody know? Manager Revella: I'm not sure if it's 50 or not. Mary Ellen Matise: It's more than 40 because Clinton Street’s 40, and that's really small, so it's much wider than 40, and to me it's it seems like it's even wider than Gladstone. So I don't know why this is really such an issue. And if you take away parking that whole length, all the way to Sherman Ave just because some people have said there's a problem near Route 52. Then you're setting a precedent to go around to the rest of the village and eliminate a lot of really precious on street parking because especially when you get into the R5 zones where the lots are smaller. This on street parking is torturous in this village, it's unbelievably bad. I don't think a good way to go. I say leave it the way it is. Patricia Henighan: I live on East Avenue. I was at that meeting last night. I had to leave for another meeting at 6 so I don't know what how it concluded, but I really don't think that it's necessary to do something on East Avenue. I notice people stop and let people go by if it seems crowded, a lot of the time that doesn't even have to happen. I don't know what they talked about after. I was kind of surprised to read it was a public hearing. I didn't know I was going to public hearing, but in terms of just feeling safe on the street, it's the same thing in a lot of streets. Some people drive too fast and but for the most part, people are pretty courteous and a few times where there's been a situation where something very large is on both sides of the road, somebody stops and let the other person go by so you know I don't know if it really needs any to be addressed in any particular way. Manager Revella: I just wanted to address one of the comments. There is a public hearing so that people that may not have been at the meeting can come and voice their concerns. It's open for that purpose. It doesn't matter when it happens. As long as it happens before any actions taking place, it makes sense and it's helpful. Mayor Ramos: Yesterday we held a meeting at 5:30, the corner of Hill Street and East Avenue. We had nine residents of East Avenue, ten with Trustee Taylor and only one resident lived on the east side of East Avenue. The rest all lived on west side of East Ave. The huge concerns were obviously speeding. Vehicles parked on both sides of the road, where it is hard to fit cars in there and you're right, cars do slow down and wait for the other car to come by, but the multiple cars that would be really difficult to do sometimes. There'll be multiple cars parked on the street, so the length of the parked cars would be greater and having to wait for the one car to clear. Deputy Mayor Batson: The general consensus from the people who attended was that there was that they didn't necessarily see a need to park on one side or the other as with the other meeting that we held at streets. The concerns where parking perhaps did come up were often times when there are large trucks which I want to touch on or their trucks with trailers, generally landscaping service. Those seem to be problematic. Speed was definitely a concern and they did call out one particular business, a trucking company that often uses that, that can cause problems with parking, obviously because of the size of the truck and it most likely exceeds the weight limits. There were some discussions about placing a weight limit sign at the end of the street near Olley Park and perhaps 5 moving the weight limit sign as it's near 52 to closer. That way, the trucks see it prior to them making the turn and of course speed was brought up. I can't remember if I mentioned that, but the general consensus among the group again was they didn't see need. However, Trustee Taylor has some very valid concerns about a particular section of that, which is problematic for snow removal and some other parts that I'll let him discuss if he wants. Trustee Taylor: I've lived on that street for 38 years and obviously population has grown. I have seen concerns expressed by individuals that if you have two cars on each side some people are courteous and some people don't express the courtesy and it's a race to see who gets to that spot first. So for me, I look at it not just as parking. I look at as a safety issue. Secondly, I also look at it when we're in the throngs of winter, it's extremely difficult at times to keep that street clean. You can't go curb to curb and the area that Trustee Batson is talking about, there are three cars there all the time. They're on village property. I believe you agreed with that, John. They should not be there. What happens in the winter as we continue to clean the street? After a storm, the pile builds up on those vehicles, the pile continually moves out because nobody comes out to take care of that and now the street becomes a little bit narrower. I have seen ambulances, I've experienced it myself, that had extreme difficulty getting in from the lower end of East Avenue on 52 side because of vehicles on both sides. I've personally waited 10 minutes for an ambulance to try and negotiate up through there. Trustee Hall: None of the emergency services were invited. It's kind of hard to speak on that too much. It didn't seem like most of the residents wanted to change to one side. It didn't seem like it was much of an issue. It seemed like the issue was speeding. And like Mary Ellen said, if you're doing it there, that's all of the village roads. Manager Revella: On this road, you have sufficient driveways. On other roads, you don't. It's not a hardship on this road for people that live there, on the other roads it would be because either they don't have a big driveway or they have no driveway. That's the difference. Trustee Hall: With some reasons that residents expressed while we were sitting there. If you're going to tell them you can't park on that side of the street, now you can only park on this side of the street. Those that do park in front of their house aren't going to be able to park in front of their house, because now all those people are coming here. So, they didn't want it. Manager Revella: I understand they might not want it but if the village is on notice, that's an issue expressed by people in public that it's an issue for emergency services. And the problem comes up, we may have a problem. Trustee Hall: But how do we know it's an issue for emergency service? They weren't invited yesterday. Manager Revella: Somebody said that they witnessed them and we’re on notice that that happened. That's all. That's enough. Trustee Hall: I can see the beginning of that coming off of 52 being a little bit issue. Manager Revella: I just don't want to keep pushing the problem down the road, though, either. Trustee Hall: Has anybody contacted the residents where those three cars are on village property? Does anybody say you really not supposed to park there? Manager Revella: They've been cited before for different things. 6 Trustee Pearson: How long ago? Manager Revella: I don't know. Not sure. Trustee Pearson: How far in is village property off the road? Manager Revella: That's what we're trying to figure out, the center line for that one, I'm not sure if it's 25 from centerline or 20 from centerline. Trustee Hall: Since a couple weeks ago, I drove up that road probably 6 times, just at random times. Middle of the night, random times and I didn't have an issue. Trustee Taylor: Trust me, there are days that you’re clean as can be. For me, safety is big. There's a lot of pedestrian walking on that road. Trustee Hall: Are you willing to do this on every village street? That’s my question. Trustee Taylor: We're not talking about every village street, we're talking about this one. Trustee Hall: Not today, but you will be tomorrow. Trustee Taylor: They did it on a Capron St. One side parking on that street. I just don't want to see somebody have to jump behind a car or jump up on a lawn. Trustee Hall: Me neither, but again. Mayor Ramos: John, we were discussing widening it. Is there a possibility as you look at where we're at Hill Street and you turn and you look in a northerly direction, you can see that the road narrows and in a section which is the problem especially after Trustee Taylor’s house. Why is that narrowing there? Manager Revella: I don't know. Same thing we talked about on Liberty Street, where the road was narrow. It's really not that narrow. We can make it twice as wide there, but we talk to people and they say, no, we don't want you to take our yards. I responded, well, then, I'm not going to be able to help you, there’s got to be some compromise there, if you really want help and they said no. Trustee Pearson: That's not their yard. Manager Revella: It's not. It's right of way. The village right of way. Mayor Ramos: Can we explore that too? To widen that particular area? Manager Revella: Yeah, it's a cost. Can check it out. Trustee Taylor: I agree with Kristie, that we don't want to push it. I can understand some folks, if you put it parking on one side and not the other, there's going to be some of that. It happens every time there's an event at Olley Park, actually. And just do it in one particular area, I do think that's short sighted and it's just going to push the issue down further. If you stopped at the parking right there with those cars that I'm talking about are, now they just move up the street further and they park. So, you're just pushing it down the road. 7 Trustee Hall: Where do you think they're going to park though? On the streets somewhere. They live there. Trustee Pearson: Then they're going to pop across the street in your front of your house. Trustee Taylor: And most of them have a driveway. They're just opting not to use it. Trustee Hall: Or it's not sufficient like one resident had mentioned last night and again today on the speed. But I mean I understand. Trustee Taylor: There's no pure fix. For me it's a safety issue. It's providing a clear passageway which has become now the cut off from Coldenham Road to 52. The volume there obviously has increased tremendously. Couple of residents have had wires pulled down, had garbage cans hit, had vehicles hit, mirrors taken off. Trustee Pearson: I'm sorry I didn't get there last night. I had a friend who had somewhat of an emergency I had to get to, so I apologize for that. You're on my radar and I did text the manager and Bill, sorry I didn't make it. What I'm hearing, just a couple things here like trucks on the street, speeding on the street. Can we make that street a no truck street? Manager Revella: It is. Trustee Pearson: Why do trucks go on that street if it's a no truck street? Manager Revella: You don't have a toll plaza at the beginning to stop them. You can't be there every second. Trustee Pearson: We've also had officers that were trained in the weight limit for trucks for DOT, do we still have? Manager Revella: Yes. I don't know right now who's certified based on our staff. But if we ever need them, we can call in from the state. Trustee Pearson: Because that might be something we need to look at again as well, but what I'm hearing, I don't know if it's necessarily, I know those three cars, I get it. But then why are we not enforcing them not parking in that property? I don't understand if it's their front yard and we have a limit, why are we not enforcing that? Number one. Manager Revella: Because there’s parking allowed on that side of the street. Trustee Pearson: Right, I get it, but that's not on the street. That's on the yard. Manager Revella: It’s the right of way. Trustee Pearson: That's on village easement. Why aren't they parking on the street then? I don't get that well. And then I'm hearing speeding I get that's probably not a parking issue, but I think there's more going on the street than just a parking issue that needs to be addressed. If it says no trucks, why are we not setting somebody up there every once in a while? Trustee Taylor: It's a 5 ton limit, so we're not talking about box trucks here. We're talking about tractor trailers. 8 Trustee Pearson: That's what you said. You had a lot of issues with those going up that street or has that stopped now? Trustee Taylor: It has pretty much resided since the clear up on 17K, so I guess the GPS was driving these people, no pun intended, to take that turn. So that has kind of subsided. Mayor Ramos: But we had an Estes truck drive right by us. And that's a 26,000 pound truck. That's forbidden on that on that highway. Deputy Mayor Batson: One of the suggestions that was brought up by the residents is if we could perhaps write a letter to that company on behalf of the town board reminding them that that is not an acceptable right away for their trucks to go down. Trustee Taylor: Everyone I catch on the ring camera, I send that information to the Village Manager as well as the Police Department. Nice clear picture of the DOT number on the side of the cab. Easy to track them down. Trustee Pearson: I have a problem taking parking away from people. I get the issues and just like on Liberty Street. Everybody has narrow streets. We all have them. It's not something we don't have. And you learn to wait for the other person going by you. I go up Walnut Street every day and I have to pull over and wait for somebody to go by. I go by and I know the fire trucks can get by. I know that the ambulances go by, so that would be an issue for me to see if inviting them to come to that space and see if we have two cars side by side, whether they can get through. I would just like to know that for my issue and what the width of the street is. I don't think I'm ready to make a decision right now. I don't know if anybody else is. But I'm not ready to make this and I go up there too, I understand the issues. I know people wanting to have emergency vehicles go through. I get it. We can't even get Hill Street to be done. So you're talking about another that doesn't seem to be an issue either anymore. Trustee Taylor: And DPW needs to get through there. Trustee Pearson: Right. I get it, but I need to, I want to see the width of the road. I want to see if we have two cars so you can put your cars on either side. Trustee Taylor: Oh no, I'm not doing that. Had a mirror clipped. They found the piece on the road. It happens. Deputy Mayor Batson: Can we just boil this down to five very concise deliverables? Weight limit sign near Olley. Validate that it's there. It may not be. Number two, position of the weight limit sign near 52. Trustee Taylor: It has been moved. Deputy Mayor Batson: So, we're good there. Strike that one. Before we make a decision, can we have an assessment from local emergency services that we're able to get their input to validate if they can get their vehicles down there? Can we review potentially a no parking sign or something for our area? I know that we've cited people in the past, however that's inconsistent, but is it possible to review that to see if it's possible to make that particular spot which is ours on the easement, no parking? And can we review, if needed, a letter to the trucking company that is the primary offender? Then I think once we have all of those, we can perhaps keep the public here going until all of those have been evaluated or any other steps if you think that I've missed anything. 9 Trustee Hall: I do know that several residents were concerned about the speeding on the road and mentioned maybe a speed bump in there as well. I know that has nothing to do with the parking on it, but if we're talking about safety, that we're worried about kids and stuff. Deputy Mayor Batson: I'd like to address speeding in totality, because everywhere we go, that is one of the primary call outs. Certainly no exception here. We concluded in this. But I think if we had this meeting on any street, it would deteriorate into a discussion of speeding, which is fine. It's a conversation we need to have. Trustee Pearson: I do remember on Albany Ave when we did a street review of that and we had the fire, we had the ambulance, we had everybody there, which actually worked out great cause we didn't have to take the whole, Valley as well, we didn't have to take the whole parking away but they took part of it away for fire trucks to make turns and try to get around the corners. Maybe that's something we need to look at as well and not maybe do the whole street and look at parts of it. But having that from departments would be beneficial for us to make decisions as well. Deputy Mayor Batson: That’s bullet #3, emergency services assessment. Mayor Ramos: Albany Ave, the right side of the street is all no parking. Manager Revella: One side is no parking. The other side took parking away for the turn radius. Same as Valley Ave. Trustee Pearson: That was that was necessary because you really couldn't get on that street with two cars parked. Yeah, it's possible, but it is really something you don't want to do, but if it's necessary we can do it. Valley Ave is the same way, especially coming down for the corners of fire trucks, making the corners, they wouldn't have parking X amount of feet from that on front of your house on that one side. Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to keep public hearing for Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking Open until July 2, 2024. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Village Manager’s Report Manager Revella: Not sure if I mentioned last meeting, but we got our liability insurance renewal. For some reason, renewals of insurance for everyone, including people's homeowners, they are up significantly from year to year. We were worried it was going to be between 10 and 20% from last year to this year for liability. That's what we were hearing. Negotiated with the carriers, with our agent as well and we were able to keep it under 5% on our renewal. We did very well. They're surprised, but we've been doing very well with our liability. It's been our proactive, preventative policies and oversight that they noted and our lack of large claims has been helpful. They were proud of that. Then we got our workers comp renewal as well. Which we increased our dividend because of our good standing. We went from a 5% discount to a 10% discount and also increased our advanced discount. They were happy with us on both ends for that. Since last meeting, been meeting with the Treasurer, Finance Department on accruals, pay increases along with the Treasurer getting help on that and the Clerk as well to make sure we got all those right for the pay increases. Went over codes with the Treasurer and the new Deputy. We're going over Edmunds and going over duties. I've been meeting with the contractor and DPW and Rec Coordinator at the Waterfront Park on the progress down there at that project and also at Olley Park on the BBQ from the Masons talked and Bradley Park on the fields that are being improved. Went over a few personnel matters with the Building Department. We had a personnel meeting with all of us trying to work on some things there for improvement. Went over the bid awards and contracts for the projects to get them 10 moving with the Village Engineer. Went over the contract with the Village Attorney for the LPR's that will be on the agenda later. Covered for time off from department heads. Went over journal entries of adjustments. Had a first meeting with Patterns for Progress. I have another one coming up looking at ways they can help us to improve our downtown. Still going over the payroll audit with the Comptroller, the next meeting is on July 11th. Had a conference with the PBA to make sure they were on board with the 12 hour shift. We're still working on the MOA. They haven't finalized it. Once they do, I'll bring it to the board. Did some Police Officer candidate interviews and you can see we did hire more. There's actually another one that's hired pending the psych eval. They'll be at the next meeting to be introduced. The Treasurer's been working on the standard work day and retirement accruals and we're trying to help with that as much as they can. Went over the comp plan updates with the planner. Those are sent out to the committee. We may have missed one member, which I'll hopefully get to after this meeting. Went over candidates for a Rec Aide full time position as the full time Rec Aide, Lauren Hayes put in her letter of resignation. She's moving out of state. I went over building projects with the librarian. They graciously covered the cost of a window washer. Washed the outside all our windows and a lot of the inside of the windows. Thankfully, when they finished, the truck broke down. Not before then. That was a little bit of a mess, but at least they finished. Rec and Parks. They've been doing maintenance updates. They're painting. They painted the scout cabin. They're painting the pavilions, they're going to paint the train station. Flag Football started today. Summer camps filling up. They had the orientation for the counselors already. The programming of the community center keeps filling up, as you can see from the applications. Waterfront Project. There are only a couple little things to finish. They have to finish the boat launch part of the project and cleanup, finish grade, seed and hay. Seeding and haying wasn't a good idea this week because of the heat. Hopefully either towards the end of this week or the beginning next week, they'll finish that. Building Department. Building Inspector issued 21 new permits, 4 stop work orders and did follow up on 36 Orange Ave and 35-37 North Montgomery St. Code Enforcement Officer sent out 47 violation notices, 8 grass violations were mowed by the village, 4 CO reports completed, 1 residential fire inspection for 34 apartments and numerous violation letters sent. Lots were corrected, thankfully. Part Time Inspector did 1 residential inspection for 3 apartments, 2 certificates of compliance, followed up on the pre- construction for Overlook at Kidd Farm. The townhouse project that is moving forward finally. Clerk's been working on updates, website, Facebook, notices, FOILs, handicaps, the rate slips and new hire paperwork for all the new hires, payroll, minutes, and responding residents concerns. Finance Department has been over a lot of things with me as well, with invoices, got some support calls with Edmunds, job duties, Edmunds training, relevy corrections are done. Going over billing issues and concerns, journal entries, bank reqs, all the rates are in for the new budget and for the new fiscal year and vouchers. DPW, maintaining vehicles. Sewer plant is moving ahead, they have a lot of corrections to do, and we’re waiting for some bids on a couple of parts to help the flow down there. Water Department did 12 mark outs, replaced 27 meters, 45 endpoints, did 1 closing and 2 inspections. They did help with the waterfront project, the wildflowers at Wooster Grove, the BBQ area at Olley, the scout cabin and the fields at Bradley Park. A few of the members attended the Rural Water Conference. They're working on catch basins, patching roads. They have a lot to do, and there was a comment about patching roads on Gladstone. They are getting around to patching roads. I promise. Flushing and jetting as well. Police Department has been working on staffing, training. The new officers are in their training now. Hopefully they get through to help cover shifts and the other officers are still on the Academy. We have one more full time person to hire to fill the staff. Parking Enforcement Officer is on patrol. Patrols did issue 13 traffic tickets, 9 parking tickets, 4 mva's, 4 arrests and 222 blotters. The Chief has been trying to make sure he puts in his report what those tickets are for, if you look at his report. Trustee Pearson: The police report. Can you give us an idea where we are with how many more we still have to fill? 11 Manager Revella: 1 Trustee Pearson: 1 more position to fill for full time. Are we hiring part time officers? Manager Revella: Yes. We are open to hiring part time officers if we get applications. Absolutely. Trustee Pearson: But we're not advertising for that. Manager Revella: We are. We've been putting out notices. We did hire one not too long ago. We just need ones that are certified. Doesn't help us to have one not certified we have to put in the academy for part time doesn't make sense. Trustee Pearson: Parking Enforcement Officer, he's on every day of the week, just weekly. Manager Revella: He's on when we put him on and I don't want to disclose when he's on because then people will know when they can get away with it. He works 20 hours a week. When those hours are, I won't say. Trustee Pearson: Back to Parks Department, we're still waiting on a CO for the scout cabin. Why does that take so long if it’s done? Manager Revella: I don't know. Trustee Pearson: It's been on here for like 3 weeks, waiting for a CO for scout cabin. Is there a reason why it's taking so long? Manager Revella: No. Dean was out for a week. Trustee Pearson: We have 3 Building Inspectors. Sorry to say. Anyway. Olley Park. I was over at Olley Park. The trail is a mess. Manager Revella: They'll be working on it this week. When did you go? Trustee Pearson: Just the other day. Big dips in the mud. Manager Revella: They're cutting branches now. They didn't fill yet. Trustee Pearson: No, I'm talking about the road you keep. There's spots you can't even walk through because it's mud. You can fill in those big dips that are there when you take dirt out of there. Manager Revella: I agree. They will work on that. They're doing the cutback first, then they'll fill. Trustee Pearson: I looked at what was fixed on Olley Park parking lot. Are you kidding me? That's the fix that they’re putting in there? Manager Revella: They're not done with that. They have to expand it almost double. They'll have to redo the whole thing. Trustee Pearson: The whole thing is going to be tore up and redone? Why would you patch it if you're going to be redoing it? 12 Manager Revella: That's what I'm told. Because it's cheap to just put a patch in. They're not ready to do the whole thing, because they have to almost double the size. Trustee Pearson: I just wondered about a stop work order in 29 Grant Street. Do we know what that's for? Manager Revella: I don’t know. Building Inspector Wallner: *Inaudible* Trustee Pearson: VFW sidewalk can you explain that to me? A contractor did the work at VFW, replaced the section of the sidewalk and repair was unacceptable. Who paid to do the sidewalk? Manager Revella: Not us. Trustee Pearson: The VFW paid for it? Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Pearson: So they had to repay for it? Manager Revella: I don't know. That's between them and their contractor. If someone did work for me and it was unacceptable to the village, I would make them redo it. I'm not going to pay them. Trustee Pearson: Police report is not acceptable. There's not enough information on there for me. Manager Revella: What do you want? We don't have a lot of crime here. That's good. They're doing a great job preventing crime. Trustee Pearson: That's not what I'm saying. Don't put words in my mouth. I'd like a little bit more on this report. That's all I'm saying. Manager Revella: What information do you want included? I'll tell him. Trustee Pearson: I'd like to know what the cases are. You don't have to say who they are. You can tell me what cases they are, what happened in the cases, were they murders? Were they robberies? What were they? Manager Revella: Nope. Trustee Pearson: Why not? It's not like you're going to say who they were for. Arrests. What were they for? Were they breaking and entry? Were they speeding? Were they drunk? Were they, I don't know. Just some more issues on that. North Montgomery Street. What's going on with that? That was supposed to come down. Where is it? Manager Revella: The bid, I'm not sure. Do you know what the bid is? Asbestos. Trustee Pearson: But we knew that weeks ago. Manager Revella: You can't just have a bid out for a day. I'm just letting you know when the bids come back, it's probably gonna be 6 figures. Be prepared for that. 13 Trustee Pearson: Sidewalk at Olley Park. We did get the grant for that, and that's going to start in June. Manager Revella: Yes, soon. We also got a grant for tourism for almost $4999 from Orange County Tourism to help promote the events in the village, Harvest Fest, MIG, things like that. Trustee Pearson: Since we've put stuff on Facebook and sent out those, how many meters have we done, when people are going to get fined? Have we picked up the pace on those meters? Manager Revella: It looked like from the report that it picked up. I’m not sure. That helped a lot. It pushed people over the edge. Some people were, if you read the comments, unfortunately, they were pretty incensed. Trustee Hall: At Olley Park, are you talking about that hole that was in the parking lot? Is that what you're talking about? I haven't been back down, so I didn't really see. Manager Revella: It’s filled. Trustee Pearson: Redoing means ripping it all out and putting new in or redoing just going over what’s there? Manager Revella: I haven't gone over the plan yet, but I know that whole thing needs to be expanded, so I'm gonna ask him to redo it. The holes are at least filled for now. Trustee Taylor: 1 question on the meters that they're putting in, the head units. Some people are still asking why is their bill estimated. When they already have the new head unit. Manager Revella: They don't have the new endpoint, so the endpoints that were installed when we got the new meters were 3G. The network doesn't support 3G anymore, so they don't read. We have to switch them all to 5G. So, we've been going around, that's when you see endpoints change, not just meter endpoint. Those endpoints actually read. That's the problem. Trustee Taylor: Mine was changed and my bill says estimate. Who do we contact? Manager Revella: The Water Department. Ext 1522 or 1521. Trustee Pearson: What's the time frame on that? When did we know that they were not working? Manager Revella: We ordered them. It's been over a year. We ordered them all when they told us. Trustee Pearson: If I put mine in before a year ago, my new one went in a few years ago, it's no good? Manager Revella: We don't know that. You could have a 5G, we don't know. Trustee Pearson: If it's reading gallons on mine, does that mean its working? Manager Revella: That's correct. Trustee Hall: I had a notice on my door. I called and scheduled and they made it very easy. They were there just a few minutes. In and out. 14 Trustee Taylor: Same here. Trustee Pearson: I just didn't know how it read. If its reading estimated, it's probably old, but you don't know. Trustee Taylor: Mine says gallons, but it omits one of the months. You got a three month period. It only covered two months, so I don't know and I'm waiting for the next cycle, but I wanted to know where to reach out. Manager Revella: Do you have the Eye On Water app? You can check to see what the readings are. Is it reading? Trustee Taylor: Yeah, use it all the time and even send something out 2 weeks ago when you click on help. Manager Revella: Is it reading though on your app? Does it show usage? Trustee Taylor: Absolutely. Manager Revella: You shouldn't be estimated. Trustee Taylor: That's what I don't know. I'm going to wait for the next cycle because maybe it omitted that because it just got put in. But I'm still waiting for a response from Eye On Water when you click on the help link. Deputy Mayor Batson: Indoor pickle ball going down to one day a week. That was wildly popular. Manager Revella: That's what those participants asked for because during the summer, they're mostly outside. When it's hot, like now, they want to be inside. Deputy Mayor Batson: Pre-construction meeting for the Kidd Farm project. What's that? Manager Revella: That's the townhouse project on Coldenham Road. 204 townhouse units and up to four commercial lots on 208. Deputy Mayor Batson: I asked for numbers for the FOIL requests and this is excellent. That’s perfect. I think it's got a lot of insight, especially when it comes to liability when it was submitted, when it was received. That’s perfect. Job well done. Trustee Pearson: I was gonna say the same thing. I read that. Thank you. It’s great. Mayor Ramos: I'm going back to Overlook Farm. There was a meeting. Is the startup project for phase one. What is phase one? Manager Revella: Yes, pre-construction. The first set of houses in the road from Coldenham to 208. Trustee Pearson: When's that starting? Manager Revella: I don't know. Do you have a date? I didn't hear a date. 15 Mayor Ramos: More meetings June 26th at the ZBA. Trustee Pearson: He sold the property. Manager Revella: I have no idea. Approval of June 4, 2024 Minutes Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the June 4, 2024 minutes. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment Mary Ellen Matise: Continuing on with East Avenue, just as a for instance, because I don't know what you're going to do there. It's a pretty wide street. I'd say not as wide as Highland, but it's wide. You look at Gladstone and you look at Walnut, where you have parking on two sides on Walnut. You have parking only on one side on Gladstone. You have to tuck in and wait for a car to come down. And you know what? It's no big deal and it slows the traffic down. And the other thing that slows the traffic down are the potholes all over Gladstone, which haven't been fixed. Manager Revella: Your neighbor wants them filled in right now. Your neighbor wants them filled in. He just mentioned it. Mary Ellen Matise: The south side, the side that you drive on is just full of potholes. It's really bad. But go back to the discussion, the East Ave discussion, but go back to the discussion you had about CDBG money for Gladstone and about the curbing. Go back to the idea of maybe taking out the sidewalk on one side, so you can make that street even if it's just this much wider, it'll make a difference. I just want to add that into the East Avenue discussion. On East Avenue I don’t know what kind of curbs you have in some places, you might have asphalt, you might have none. Manager Revella: It’s asphalt and none. Mary Ellen Matise: So, that's going to be an issue too once you go get to that street for block curbing. Then maybe you're gonna have to give up some of your front lawn. That's what goes on in the village, because it's old. The humps are one way to slow traffic down. They do work really well where we have them. Where you've used them in other locations and maybe that's what we need to do in a couple of streets and just let that do the work for us. I don't know. But taking parking away from people is a big issue. Patricia Henighan: I do want to say something about Olley Park because I go there, I bike and walk there a lot and it's a disgrace. I have called Park and Rec so many times about all the mud in the road that you can barely negotiate your way around. All it would take is a little gravel filling those holes. Never happens. Then you have to look at all the obscenities along the trail that are never erased, even on the mileage marker, there's obscenities. It's just ridiculous. When you go to other parks, you don't see anything. It's a beautiful place. It's a nice place to walk. But it's a shame. It's brings shame on the village because it's not taken care of. It's not. The trails aren't actually made trails so people can walk on them and enjoy them. And if you look at just past the playground. There is a boardwalk crossing a little wet area there that slants sideways, so every time I come around that way I'm like this trying to hold on to my bike and get down from that boardwalk. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's just not well taken care of. But the other thing I wanted to ask is in a previous session, the board apparently decided that there should be no more people in the rooms in this building after 8:00. The Conservation Advisory Council meets here monthly. We have met here for a long time. We often meet in the community room and sometimes we meet on this floor. Last month, Ginny told us we had to leave at 8:00 when we were in the community room. It's just not 16 enough time for our meetings. We can't start earlier than 6:30 and to finish at 8:00 is not enough time. I called Marisa after that and asked if maybe we could then shift up to this room. But she felt that because of the problem with the vandalism they didn't want anyone in either room. We either have to find another location, unless there's a way that we can be allowed to stay in one of those areas. I hope we'll be able to work it out. We've always gone to the community room, shut everything down and locked it behind us, it's not like we're leaving things open or making it a target for whoever is doing damage in the room. I hope you'll consider allowing us to continue our meetings. Trustee Pearson: I don't think there was a consensus of this board to do that. We were waiting for the manager to get back to us to get us information from the Chief and the Librarian and him together and let the board know what the process would be. We do understand that people still want to have meetings here and we did talk about that. We haven't come up with a solution yet and what it would be is possibly really, when you're here, you let the police know when you're done on your way out so that they can scan the building again. I was expecting this to be on the agenda for tonight, but I don't see it, so maybe we'll discuss it at the end of the meeting, hopefully about whether there's been anything happening since the last meeting. But our intent is not to keep people out of here. Manager Revella: That's correct. Trustee Pearson: Just really to keep, not people who are scheduled to be here and I don't have a problem using this room. Maybe the library would rather have theirs closed, I don't know. I don't know, John had that meeting or not. I was hoping was going to be on the agenda tonight, so hopefully we'll talk about it at the end. Trustee Kyle: Couldn't they lock the doors? Manager Revella: We never limited people if they're here scheduled for events, we never made them leave early. Ginny had an issue because she has a dead bolt on her door, so they can't really just shut the door behind themselves and lock it. There's no issue with you going down the Police Department when you're done with meetings and saying, hey, we're done you can lock up now if it's going past 8. Trustee Pearson: Yes, but I think the part of the issue is the board maybe needs to discuss whether when somebody wants to use this room that is still has to go through, Marisa. Marisa or somebody's going to let the Police Department know somebody's going to be here. We need to set a policy or do something which we haven’t done yet. Manager Revella: We have a Google Calendar for that. Trustee Pearson: Waiting to hear from your meeting. Do you have anything on that or no? Manager Revella: Yes, you told me to do it last meeting. Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 8:00pm, we're open. Saturday from 10 to 2, we're open. That's it for the public. Trustee Pearson: Yes, but you were meeting with the Chief and them to come back with us. Like we had talked about. This is the cooling station. What are we doing for the cooling station? Manager Revella: It's open. 17 Trustee Pearson: I get it, but I was under the understanding you were coming back to us because I know that some people had wanted to use the room and were told no, they couldn't use this room. Manager Revella: I never told them they couldn’t use the room. If they're scheduled to be, they’re scheduled to be, you're allowed to use it. But they have to be scheduled to be here, which they can do very easily. It goes on a Google Calendar which is shared amongst a lot of us. So we'll know who's here and it won't be a problem. Trustee Pearson: Right. So, do we have somewhat of a policy that we're going to write down of what's going to happen besides the hours that were closed or not? Like, who's going to do what, how it's going to get done? Everybody has to go through, Marisa, the Clerk to schedule the room. The room is they can stay as late as they like as long as they close up and tell the Police Department. Manager Revella: They go through Marisa now to schedule the rooms. That's always been the policy. Trustee Pearson: Patricia, did you have a problem the other day trying to get into this room or no? Patricia Henighan: *inaudible* Trustee Pearson: That's what I mean. There needs to be something by this board to say what we want to happen. Manager Revella: I hadn’t talked to Ginny about it, yet. Trustee Kyle: Could we not lock the outside doors at 8pm so that if there are people that are already here in a meeting, they're still able to finish their meeting and leave. Then just lock the outside door so that no additional people can enter at 8pm. I feel like there is not an issue if the people are already in a meeting. If it goes past 8pm because they can leave, but no additional people can enter the building. Trustee Pearson: Yes. Manager Revella: That's correct. Trustee Pearson: And they should let the Police Department know. I think that letting the public know that that's somewhat of a policy should be happening or we talk about it here to let the public know, because I know people were upset after the last meeting that they couldn't get in. I said, that's not really how I understood it. I thought you were having a meeting with the other two and getting back to us and letting us know what you wanted for the other part of not just closing it down, but the rest of it like this part of it. I thought that was going to be something that you put together for us. Trustee Kyle: I just thought that if they were already in a meeting prior to 8, it was just nobody was entering the building 8pm and after so no new people are entering the building. But if you're already here for a function, then the outside door is locked. Nobody's entering past 8pm and then they can leave when they're meeting gets over. Trustee Pearson: Yeah and I came on Sunday and the door was locked, which was great. Buzz, the police, and they let me in and it was fine. It wasn't a big issue. The doors need some fixing. Working on those front doors need to be worked on so we could. But I just think, do we want to 18 discuss it more or do we just not going to worry about it? We're going to just say go through Marisa and be done with it. Manager Revella: That's what we're doing now. Trustee Pearson: So anybody who wants to meet here can do like they normally do with Marisa and its okay to be here after 8 as long as they make sure the Police Department knows they're leaving and the doors lock behind them. Manager Revella: If their meeting goes long, we're not kicking them out. It’s not open to the public after 8pm. Local Law 9 of 2024 – Residency Requirement Attorney Donovan: I don't know whether you're going to go for the radius or expanding to the county, all of Orange County for the Chief, but if you'd like to do that, whatever you want to do on that, it's a new local law. It's a new public hearing. Typically, what you do is you have me draft it, provide it to you. When you're satisfied that it's ready for public hearing, you would schedule a public hearing. However you want me to modify this, I can have that to you by next meeting so you can review that and then schedule public hearing after that. Trustee Pearson: Whatever people want, I’m done talking about it, basically. Trustee Taylor: As I indicated before, I'm m proponent of Orange County and I think that the definition that was provided earlier covers that for me. Trustee Kyle: As far as the residency, we did just figure out that we can have a radius. I think that's something that we could discuss further and figure out what that radius should be. Trustee Hall: I'm good to go with the county. I guess the way it reads as far as resident is, I don't know how else to make it work. Attorney Donovan: As I said, I'm okay with that, but if there's a better idea to do that, I am all ears for a better idea. Trustee Hall: I looked at it. I stared at it and I can't figure out how to word it. Deputy Mayor Batson: I'm also a proponent of the county and I'm okay with the definition that we have been consistent throughout New York Law. Mayor Ramos: I'm good with the definition of resident. I am not good with the outside the county. Firm believer of geographical area of employment, especially when it comes to those key positions. What do you need from us? Attorney Donovan: I need 4 people to say they want it to go a certain way. Everyone feel free to change their mind, but I think I need a consensus which would be at least 4 people to prepare it in a certain fashion and just running through the process again. You would get it from me. You would have time to consider it before you schedule a public hearing. However you want me to word it on that issue, I’m good with whatever you want. Trustee Pearson: I'm sorry. I was reading my definition that I wrote. I don't know. I worry about people being far away and I get why we want to do it. We want a bigger pool. I get it. I understand it because we are limited. As long as we have 3 Sergeants on, which we do right now, does that 19 mean they're going to stay? You never know. Let me ask you a question about that. Do we have a Sergeant on every shift? Manager Revella: We have a Sergeant designated for each shift. Responsible per shift. Trustee Pearson: Which means they're not necessarily here. Manager Revella: That’s correct. They all have days off and don't work 7 days a week. Trustee Kyle: Do they have a residency requirement? Manager Revella: No. Trustee Pearson: But we have one on every line A, B and C. Manager Revella: There's one in charge of each line. Trustee Pearson: In charge of, but that doesn't mean they have to be here. Or are they here? So we don't really always necessarily have somebody on. Manager Revella: They're on call. You don't have to be present. You'd have to have several more to have one here present 24/7. It's not really feasible right now. Trustee Pearson: So, there's an emergency on the, which is the midnight shift, midnight to 8. And that person's not on, and the Chief lives in Port Jervis. Who’s coming? Just the officers? Manager Revella: They call the duty Sergeant, which whoever is designated for A to get feedback and if they need somebody, they call whoever they call. All of them. They'll call A. If they can't come, they'll call B. If they can't come, they call C. They call Chief, they call me. They'll call the State Police. They'll call the Sheriff. They call the Town. Depends on the emergency. Mayor Ramos: We're going to have the attorney draft up a new local law with those changes. Are you guys good with that? Trustee Pearson: You're alright with the county, everybody? Trustee Kyle: Yeah. Mayor Ramos: I’m not. Deputy Mayor Batson: I'm good with the county. Attorney Donovan: Let's just go with the county for discussion purposes. How's that sound? Because then I know what I need to do, and then it's up to you guys, whatever you want to do after that. I prefer that you not set the public hearing. Actually, I prefer that you get the draft from me because there's not unanimity here. Park Use Request – Alcohol Waiver – Bergman & Ohse Trustee Hall made a motion to approve alcohol waiver for park use request for October 18th and 19th. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. 20 LPR Contract Manager Revella: I did announce last time we got a grant from the Division of Criminal Justice Services under state law enforcement technology program for 360k. It will pay for surveillance cameras, license plate readers, acoustic gunshot detection, unmanned aerial vehicles, 3D crime scenes, scanners, readers, radios, software patrol vehicle equipment, body worn equipment, lighting systems. Can't be used for numerous other things. We got awarded the 360k which will help pay for the cameras already approved and for the additional work that's requested. It's a matter of if the board is okay with the request. Deputy Mayor Batson: Can you just clarify the request to accept the grant the request to pay for the additional? Manager Revella: Request to pay for the additional work, which is $140,100 for the access license plate readers, plate recognition, licensing, server network, and labor from Seemless Tech. Trustee Hall: You want license plate readers, where besides the vehicles? Manager Revella: These are going to be at the village entrances. Fixed mounted at the village entrances to show what cars are in and out of the village. Trustee Hall: Why would we want that? Manager Revella: That's what they're doing in a lot of municipalities. New Windsor has it. Lots of places. So, they can detect if a car came through when it came through, if it came through, if they're looking for somebody in particular, they can tell, hey, that car went through at this time. Also, detect if there's unregistered vehicles. Lots of things. Trustee Hall: So, the government just tracks you everywhere you go. Manager Revella: Yes, it does. Trustee Hall: Yeah, that's not cool. And that couldn't be used better elsewhere within the PD, radios or tasers? Manager Revella: You can only use it for those things that are listed. Trustee Pearson: We're only using 140 of it? Manager Revella: You're using all of it because you already spent a good amount of money on the camera system. Trustee Pearson: So, that's going through part of the cameras that we just put in. Manager Revella: It'll pay for all of the camera system you already approved, plus this. That's what it was intended for. Trustee Pearson: I have a question about this one on the page where it talks about exhibit A for surveillance system upgrade, why will we be taking something off of Valley Ave and putting them in Hannaford parking lot when Hannaford parking lots a private entity? The bottom says elimination of the camera installation on Valley Ave which was previously contracted, moving them to hang up for parking lot, so I'm not so sure we should be doing something on somebody's private property. Why are we doing that? 21 Manager Revella: From my understanding, it's not in the parking lot, it's at the entrance to the parking lot. Trustee Pearson: Why would we be moving it? Why wouldn't Valley Ave need a camera? Manager Revella: I'm not saying it doesn't. Trustee Pearson: I'm sure that's probably 1 area would need a camera. Seriously, with the stuff that goes on in Valley Ave you probably want 4 or 5 cameras down there. Police are always down there. It's a mess. I'm not for that. Why would you take that off of Valley Ave and move it down to Hannaford? I don't understand that. Put a new camera up by Hannaford, if that's what you feel you need to do. Manager Revella: Okay. Trustee Pearson: I don't know why we're putting it at Hannaford. As long as it's on a street. Manager Revella: Because that's where we have a large amount of activity. Trustee Pearson: We are surveilling a private entity. Manager Revella: Our street is the entrance to Hannaford. That's Oak Street. Trustee Pearson: At the bridge right there, just facing Hannaford. Manager Revella: That's a 360 camera. It'll look up both Oak Streets from there. Trustee Pearson: I'm not for taking it away from Valley because I believe there's a lot of issues on Valley Ave that's going on right now. Trustee Hall: Will that leave Valley Ave without any camera? Manager Revella: That I'm not sure. I can ask to make sure to clarify that. It may be an additional camera that was going to go there instead of the one. I agree with you. The one at Valley and William is necessary and you can pretty much see the whole street from there. Trustee Pearson: They're important. Valley Ave. It says 6 license plate readers software additional yearly, do we have a price on that, additional yearly? I tried to read through here but I did see some additional price. Manager Revella: $4,000 a year for 6. I don’t know what the annual is. But the initial licensing is $24,000. Trustee Pearson: Then we also have to pay, if you go to exhibit D, village has to pay $71,400 for the electric company. That's coming out of that same money. Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Pearson: So, it's not really 140. Then it's 140 plus the 71. Then you also have another fee. The maintenance fee of $300 monthly. That's another part that's coming out of that same grant money or is that coming from other money? 22 Manager Revella: That'll be a budgeted item for next year. Trustee Pearson: The 71 comes out of their late fees. What about late fees? What's the time frame for doing this? When would it be done by? Manager Revella: I'm not sure the lead time for the product. The last time we had to order the cameras, it was 3 1/2 weeks. Not too bad. Trustee Pearson: We haven't gotten all of our other cameras up yet because of the pole situation, so we're not taking any of those cameras and putting them somewhere else. Those cameras are already slated for what we did already and how long before that's going to get done. Manager Revella: That’s correct. It's up to NYSEG. We're working with them as they do the poles. NYSEG’s job, their contract is up in a year, so I would imagine they're done within a year. Trustee Kyle: The 71,000 for the poles that's included in that 140,000? Manager Revella: No, it's for Saft electric to install the electric to the poles. Trustee Kyle: But that's still covered by the grant? Manager Revella: Yeah, still covered in the grant money. Trustee Kyle: Like Becky said, figure out what's going on with Valley Ave. If they're taking the camera from there, I think both are important, so I wouldn't want to take the camera away from Valley, but I do think that having one by Hannaford is equally important. Trustee Hall: In exhibit B and maybe I'm just reading it wrong or not paying enough attention, I'm not sure, but in payment terms. Where it says project fee and says the client shall pay the contractor some of 148,500. Manager Revella: Where's that? $140,100. Trustee Hall: That's what it shows number wise, but if you read it, $148,500 is what it written out. But then in the number form, then down initial deposit it says $49,500 and it shows $46,700. Manager Revella: The words don't match the numbers. I’ll have him update that. The numbers are correct, the words are not. Trustee Kyle: We should just have that fixed. Manager Revella: Absolutely. Trustee Hall: I think I'd like to read it more and go over it more. Read it again. I just don't like, maybe it's just me, I just don't like them seeing every single person that comes in and out. It’s kind of creepy. Deputy Mayor Batson: I struggle with this a bit. I'm just going to be real picky and I was real picky about the cameras to begin with that I didn't want to approve them until there was some sort of strategic plan and the police could approve a reason for why and some of these I just have questions on there's no story behind this. There's nothing that tells me why we need license plate 23 readers. There's nothing that tells me why the police would find this valuable. I'm worried about these licensing. Is this a year? I can't imagine that we can get $24,000 a year value out of licensing fees for license plate readers. I need one hell of a story behind this, to be able to say that this is the right thing for the village. I appreciate our eagerness, our desire to upgrade cameras which have been an outstanding long overdue thing that we've been working on, but I'm not in agreement with this as is. That's not a hard no. It's just that I need a tremendous amount of understanding from numerous people as to why this would be a good spend for us. Mayor Ramos: I agree with Deputy Mayor. There is a lot of what ifs? And how it's going to happen, how it's going to be executed and I think we need a lot more, especially the license plate readers. Do we have them on the cars? Manager Revella: We have two cars, I believe that have them for now. One I know is definitely working. Mayor Ramos: Unless the grant has indicated that the use of these license plate readers on poles at the entrance of all the villages is mandatory, I can see that. But if they are not. You're better off having roaming LPRs than you do stationary, you follow me? Again, we need a lot more answers to the what ifs and the how’s than what is provided here. Trustee Pearson: Maybe you want to invite the Chief because he might know. I don't know. Deputy Mayor Batson: The last time it was our Chief who did end up providing us a copy of the strategic plan to utilize the cameras. We also and I don't know if this is needed or wanted, we also had another police officer, I believe, from Woodbury talk to us about how they've used the technology to be successful in the past. I found that helpful. Then perhaps some sort of case study or something from this vendor. They may be able to answer that as well. Again, maybe the answer to all of this is, yeah, this is a slam dunk we should, but I just don't get that from the contract. I don't. I hate buying a product. I want to buy a story. Trustee Kyle: Can I ask another question? There is an insurance requirement. Is that something that would be covered under our insurance policy or is that something that we would need to increase the liability? Attorney Donovan: Whether this is a good idea or a bad idea, whether it's a good spend or not spend, whether it's the proper use of village taxpayer money? It's all not beyond my purview as Village Attorney. What I can tell you is the first iteration of the contract that came around with Seemless Tech when you awarded the contract before, there was extensive back and forth between myself, the vendor’s attorney and Keith Hunter was closely involved in all the insurance issues. The language that's in here, other than the exhibits and the cost and whether it's a good idea, mirrors exactly what I probably spent almost two months on trying to weedle down, so I'm okay with that language. Keith was, I didn't run this by him this time because it's the same as we did before relative to the insurance, and there was substantial changes. The original contract that came through with the cameras first time was probably three times as long as this. A lot of language came out, so I'm okay with the language of the contract. But issues, as I discussed before, those are important board issues. Trustee Kyle: I'm just curious if our insurance policy covers what's in here or is it something that we would have to get in addition to the insurance that we already have. Attorney Donovan: No. 24 Trustee Taylor: I agree with the Deputy Mayor, this is basically a contract and it's telling us what they're going to provide. It does not tell us why we need it. Manager Revella: I just want to make sure the board is aware what LPRs do. License plate readers. You know what they do. We have them now as a tool throughout the county. Trustee Pearson: I think maybe that's what they're looking for. More information of the purpose behind it all. Manager Revella: I'll have the Chief come with the plan for use and the contractor to come as well to make sure he has any questions answered, including the software licensing. Annual or not. Make sure he has that one page updated that the numbers match the words and LPR's are useful. Think it's beneficial to our community if there is an issue where we're looking for a stolen car, missing person, silver alert, Amber Alert or anything like that. These LPR's help to find those things and those issues. It also does detect other things, there's suspended license or whatever unregistered vehicle going through, they'll find that as well stolen plates, those things come up. Trustee Taylor: This is the cost we're looking for the worth. Manager Revella: It's a helpful tool. You can't have a police officer at all 8 entrances to the village. So, if you get 6 covered by the cameras, you can cover 2. That's the goal, but I'll have him come talk about that more in depth. Park Use Request – Sobo & Sobo Mayor Ramos: This is a corporate event scheduled for September 6, 2024. Between the hours of 8am and 7pm at Anita Vandermark Community Center at Olley Park. Manager Revella: They're looking for an alcohol waiver and for the ability to use the balloon. It's a tethered balloon? Jamie Noyes: Yes, it's tethered. I have the COI for that and Fred Scott, who is our insurance agent is working on the special event policy for that right now. I should have it confirmed by Friday, but I just don't have it in hand at the moment. I'm just waiting for that. And then we're also going to have additional waivers that will be signed in addition to that to cover you both you as the vendor and us the employer. We're doing that additional to that. Trustee Pearson: Is there extra insurance because of the balloon or not? Do you have to have extra insurance through your insurance company for that? Jamie Noyes: No. But I can attain it if you would like. I don't have extra insurance for hot air balloons for special events, but our special event and general liability application for liquor should be able to encompass all of that. But we are more than willing to attain any extra insurance that you would want us to have. I have no issue with that. Trustee Pearson: The people who go up in the balloon, are they signing waivers? Jamie Noyes: Yes, there are. They're signing waivers through the company. We chose Balloon Talk and through us it's like a mutual waiver that we have. Trustee Pearson: So, if something, heaven forbid, morbid happens then, you are covered. Manager Revella: We want a triple waiver. 25 Jamie Noyes: We're a personal injury law firm, so we've covered all of our bases. We don't want to be on the other side of court, that's for sure. Trustee Pearson: I didn't see any amounts on here. Usually there are amounts. Are we changing an amount? Manager Revella: Not yet. We're not sure if they were able to do the event yet, so they didn't put anything on there yet. Jamie Noyes: Correct. I wasn't sure if we were able to do the event. I was waiting for approval. I have more information like DOH and certifications from food trucks and vendors, but everybody's waiting on a location before I can really pay an invoice and do all that. Basically we just really need a location for this. And we really want to choose James Olley. Trustee Pearson: It will at least be $1350 is what I'm seeing. Manager Revella: You're using the indoor facility. Jamie Noyes: That's correct. We do have some that wouldn't be able to go into the balloons, some walking, and things of that nature. So, we wanted to make sure they had comfort with some air conditioning and food and other indoor activities that don't just exclude outside. Trustee Pearson: The amount will be $1350. Is there going to be charge for something else? Manager Revella: Minimal. If the kitchen, is in and they’re going to use it. Don’t know. Trustee Pearson: We don't even have a kitchen. Manager Revella: If we have the kitchen by then, if they're going to use it, we don't know yet. We could have it by then. Jamie Noyes: We'll pay whatever fee. Trustee Pearson: I just want it on the record. Jamie Noyes: If you give me an invoice with what you're looking for, I'll be sure to discuss that with the CEO and go from there. Trustee Hall: If you plan on having food trucks and a balloon out there, what do you plan on doing about parking? Jamie Noyes: In terms of parking, we're gonna have busing. I think just two or maybe three buses at most, but we would rather our employees get from bus. They're gonna use the busing company to get to James Olley versus everybody do parking and not all of those 250 to 300 people. Some of them are actually flying in. So, they'll be coming in by transportation as well. Really parking should not be an issue. Trustee Hall: This is just an event basically, for your business, it's not community event where anybody can go. 26 Jamie Noyes: Correct. This is a corporate event for Sobo. We call it a hooky day. Our CEO calls it a hooky day, so the whole firm shuts down and everybody goes and it's basically our day off from the firm. Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to approve alcohol waiver and park use request for September 6, 2024, contingent on receipt of items as discussed. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment Mary Ellen Matise: Tomorrow for anybody who's off because it's from 12 to 4. Juneteenth in Wooster Grove and it's going to be a hot 1. But it's a great event and this will be the 4th and they're doing it in our village. Great way to celebrate a really historic event, which was the last person to be freed from slavery in this country on June 19th. If people can, I'm doing a history table and there's going to be food. Come by. It's a nice way to recognize the event, the day and also to show support for the community. Manager Revella: AC will be on in the gym building. Cheryl Baker: In regards to the system with the cameras, do you know if there's any study that's been offered to show passive versus active enforced policing. In other words, responding just via the cameras versus patrolling and people seeing active policing. Is there a study? Manager Revella: You mean by the cameras or the LPRs? Cheryl Baker: With the LPRs. Manager Revella: I'm not sure. The fixed LPRs is newer in our area, but its spreading wild. It's been in other areas for a long time. Cheryl Baker: Is that information stored in the database? Manager Revella: The LPR data? I'm not sure. I know it goes on the alerts like when an LPR hit comes up, it's a big red screen and flashes. Makes noise. Cheryl Baker: I just wanted to mention, I noticed that the last meeting that I was unable to make there was some discussion about the Walden Business District and whether there would be a Business Council. I've been working on that. June 27th at 7 at the Anita Vandermark Community Center will be the first Business Council meeting. The purpose is to gauge whether the business owners in the village wish to have a council and to have a board formed. I also spoke with Patterns for Progress. I don't know if it's the same program we were looking at for the downtown where they can apply for a grant to do a comprehensive study to engage what our challenges are and how we can address them, possibly grant revenue to entice new businesses to be here. New York State is not overall very business friendly. There isn't much that they offer. It's driven out a lot of businesses. Is that kind of the program that they were talking with you on? Manager Revella: Yes. Cheryl Baker: Any businesses, absolutely more than welcome, seems to be a healthy response, but a lot of it's going to be on whether the businesses want to engage and participate and see what their goals and challenges are in the village. I just wanted to make a brief mention that that is being worked on. 27 Trustee Pearson: How are you reaching out to the businesses? Cheryl Baker: In person. And the ones that haven't been to, I've been sending emails and phone calls to. Manager Revella: June 27th, 7pm, just so they can hear it at home. At the Community Center. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Trustee Pearson: I'd first like to talk about Ginny got a very wonderful award, the Twyla Snead Award, for making her space and programs in this village more viable for more people and students. I'd like to just thank her for what she does and just make people aware that she got that award. National Night Out is definitely going to be a Bradley Park? Manager Revella: Yes. They have fireworks lined up and the bounce houses lined up already. Trustee Pearson: I know every time I go home from these meetings, people are still complaining and not being able to hear and not being able to see. What are we doing to rectify that situation? Manager Revella: I talked to two contractors about upgrades. There are some Ethernet issues that need to be addressed to help the feed and there's some acoustic issues that to be upgraded as well. They're both trying to get me some proposals. Trustee Pearson: We talked about the trees on the sidewalk by the bridge. Any news on that? Going up South Montgomery Street. Manager Revella: He cited them. I'm not sure they got a response, but they've been cited. They got a violation notice. Trustee Pearson: Thank you for Flag Day, for the people who were able to come. It was rainy day, not rainy and then rainy. But thank you for who came out and thank you for the village, for supporting. Thank you. Trustee Taylor: Last meeting, when Orange County Transit was here, it was to my understanding that a meeting was going to be set up between them and the Building Department. Has there been any movement on that? Manager Revella: I've heard nothing about that. I know that our attorney is going to bring up discussing attorney-client with the board about that. Trustee Taylor: I'm just concerned they expressed they wanted to have a meeting. Attorney Donovan: That’s correct. Trustee Hall: Wasn’t there an email? Manager Revella: Yes, from John. 28 Deputy Mayor Batson: Yeah, I think that balls in our court. I think they put the onus on us of setting that up. Manager Revella: I haven't heard a date from anyone yet though. Trustee Taylor: That's what I was looking for, communication. We also discussed about the development of a survey that we could get from the residents and I believe you said you were going to meet with Orange County Partnership. Manager Revella: Met with Patterns for Progress on that and they were going to help with surveys. Trustee Taylor: What’s the status? Manager Revella: I have a meeting coming up with them. I just don't remember the date. I think it's on the 11th. They do it for free. I’ll check when I go in the room. Trustee Taylor: Just to beat a dead horse. Once again we've got a public hearing. People come to the podium, mic don't work. We need to move on that. It's coming up every meeting. Manager Revella: If we don't have microphones, I encourage anyone that can to come to the meeting and be present and they can hear everything. Trustee Kyle: We spoke about the liaisonship. I spoke with Randi from the Business Council of Greater Montgomery. She is going to loop me in on all future emails and keep me up to date. I can be a point of contact for now for new businesses coming into Walden and provide the resources necessary through her so that it takes a step away from her. Like give them information and point them in the right direction for information they need or if we have the Walden Business Council that would be the next step that would help them out. With that I wanted to ask about that restaurant that was supposed to move into the Walden Diner because I know we had talked about them coming in mid-May and I haven't seen anything. Manager Revella: You didn’t see the signs? Trustee Kyle: Do we have an update? Manager Revella: Yes, he told me July 8th when I met with him. That's his hope to be opened by then. He has the coming soon signs. The other signs will go up that got approved. Everything inside is ready. It's been ready for months, so I think he had some confusion that he couldn't open till the signs were up. But I told him that's not true. You can open when you get your CO. Don't have to have a sign, but it's nice to have a sign. Trustee Pearson: Liz, can I ask your question on the liaison with the Business Council? Are you working with Cheryl on any of that? Cheryl Baker: Apparently not. Trustee Kyle: That's on me. We were. I have not. I know I need to get back to you. Trustee Pearson: So, you're kind of taking the rein on what Cheryl's doing? 29 Trustee Kyle: No. She's the primary on that. I offered to do the liaison with the Business Council of Greater Montgomery and if we did create a Walden Business Council to just be an intermediate. Cheryl Baker: I would have loved to of known that. I had spoken to Randi and I had no idea. Would have been nice to have been communicated. Trustee Kyle: She told me she spoke to you. Cheryl Baker: *inaudible* Trustee Kyle: I feel like they are separate. There's the one of the Business Council of Greater Montgomery, that ones a paid membership. I know that the Walden Business Council, that's not something that you were trying to do is have people pay into it, so it is kind of a separate entity and it's more focused on the village, but just the knowledge and resources and information that Randi can provide is what I'm trying to get from her. Not so much having Walden businesses, unless they wanted to join the Montgomery Business Council, sure. But just for me to get information from her. And in the meantime, before there is a Business Council, if they want to do a ribbon cutting or something of that nature. Trustee Pearson: I don't know. I was just kind of taking a back when you talked about that because I know Cheryl's been working on that and I think it's kind of a of a group thing. I know Randi does her thing over in Montgomery and if people wanted to pay, they'd be already a member of that. I think what you're trying to do here is to get the association up so that people can network together and maybe plan something together as a community and do that instead of contacting the town all the time. I get it. But I think they would already be part of that in the town already. Mayor Ramos: Just collaborate. That's all. That's collaboration. Trustee Hall: I just want to say the waterfront park looks nice. I drive that way every day. It's coming along, especially coming over the hill. You can definitely notice the difference there. With this being a cooling station, all the HVAC is good. AC is good throughout the whole building. Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Hall: Congrats, Ginny on the award. Sorry, I missed Flag Day. I tried to get down there. I just couldn't do it. I know, I'll plan better. The arrows in the square. Is there something we can do to make that on the ground, make it a little brighter? Manager Revella: Yes, they have to be repainted. The painters coming through to do everything in the village. He's getting scheduled with Fred. And just while you mentioned that. I know we tried it once before and one was OK with the board if we could kind of map out where we would have a delineation for cars not to go through the square. Kind of mark out so they don't go both ways on the wrong way around that center. So, it's more like an island. If I kind of delineate it more, I can do that with paint, if it's okay with the board. Trustee Hall: Yeah, just make it noticeable what people see. Mayor Ramos: Everybody good with delineation with paint? All: Yes. 30 Deputy Mayor Batson: I have two things, I provided each of you a copy of a handout. Trustee Pearson, Trustee Taylor and I met, we've discussed the past of being able to provide consistent feedback to the employees that report directly to the board. It's certainly not the letter of the law, it's just simply an outline of what we'd like to propose for those monthly touch bases, we have broken down here again, it's a template and we've all done some type of performance. I'm sorry. I want to make sure everybody understands this is not a performance review. We've done some sort of employee check-ins throughout our career, so again, this is a template. Provides an outline of why we think these questions are the best style of questions. Again, there's an infinite amount of flexibility in here, and then some certain guidelines, obviously, conversations conducted in a private room when we would like to have these touch bases conducted and then as again we could discuss our notes on a quarterly basis, but it's five simple questions, quite frankly, if you only get through the first question we're good with that. Take the time to read this. I also provided a schedule to keep it on track of who does what conversations when. Again ideally, if we can look over this and start in July, I have it all mapped out for an entire year. But again, the point of this is so that we can have regularly scheduled touch bases with our employees. So when we do get into any type of performance questions, performance reviews. Even so we can provide feedback on what their, you know, compensation looks like as it relates to end of year raises. We have a consistent set of notes. We have consistent methodology. We're all in agreement and most importantly, we are in agreement with the employees not just amongst ourselves. No official timeline, but if you could look over it, we could agree on it. Maybe by the next meeting put it into our practices. I don't know if that is a motion. I don't know that it's a code. I don't even know that it's a policy or an SOP. It's just something that we're agreeing to. We can easily start in July. And then the other thing I had was with this fancy grant, traffic is absolutely one of the biggest topics that are out there. I thought the folks on East Ave brought up a really good point is that when there is events, traffic changes. Now they're about to experience an event of summer camp and everybody wants to race down that road to get their kid there on time or pick their kid up on time, which probably will change their traffic pattern. In the past, we've explored and had some success with the portable speed thingy, I don't know the technical word, but is there a possibility to, I think we probably need to have an honest discussion about traffic as we get more police officers. Hypothetically the amount of overtime reduced, but it's still in the budget. Can we voluntarily, not mandate, ask for overtime to go on speeding. I know that previously we signed some sort of grant or payment agreement that had to do with DUI patrols during the time. Is there an opportunity for that for traffic? Manager Revella: Yes, it’s called STEP. Deputy Mayor Batson: There's just constant. The number one question we get asked is traffic, traffic, traffic and I would love to have a plan or discussion for a plan around that. *Read Community Events into Minutes* Executive Session – Issues Regarding Orange County Transit Trustee Hall made a motion to enter into executive session for attorney client to discuss issues regarding Orange County Transit. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Pearson made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. 31  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting June 18, 2024 Motions & Resolutions Public Hearing – Local Law 9 of 2024 – Residency Requirement Trustee Pearson made a motion to close public hearing Local Law 9 of 2024 – Residency Requirements. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Hearing – Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking Trustee Taylor made a motion to open the public hearing for Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking. Seconded by Trustee Kyle. All ayes. Motion carried. Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to keep public hearing for Local Law 10 of 2024 – East Ave Parking Open until July 2, 2024. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Approval of June 4, 2024 Minutes Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the June 4, 2024 minutes. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Park Use Request – Alcohol Waiver – Bergman & Ohse Trustee Hall made a motion to approve alcohol waiver for park use request for October 18th and 19th. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Park Use Request – Sobo & Sobo Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to approve alcohol waiver and park use request for September 6, 2024, contingent on receipt of items as discussed. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive Session – Issues Regarding Orange County Transit Trustee Hall made a motion to enter into executive session for attorney client to discuss issues regarding Orange County Transit. Seconded by Deputy Mayor Batson. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Pearson made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. 32