Board of Trustees

Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting March 25, 2025 Deputy Mayor Batson called the regular meeting of the Village of Walden Board of Trustees to order at 6:30pm. On roll call the following were: Mayor: Present: Deputy Mayor Chris Batson Trustees Becky Pearson Bill Taylor Ralph Garrison, Jr Kristie Hall Absent: Liz Kyle John Ramos Also Present: John Revella, Village Manager Marisa Kraus, Village Clerk Dave Donovan, Village Attorney Village Manager’s Report • We've been pushing forward on the EFC grant with help from the Village Engineer and our attorney to make sure we have the SEQR and bond resolution in place • Went through the MS4 audit, which is also on the agenda with the DEC, engineer, the DPW Super and the Building Inspector • Went over some candidates for part time dispatch and for police officer with the Police Chief. Went over payroll, PBA negotiations with the committee. Went over some issues with special counsel as well • All the RFP 's went out for consultants for the village. They’re all back now and should be able to review after the meeting • Went over some things with RBT and the insurance company regarding the budget and went over the budget prep with the Treasurer as well • Rec Department pickleball is going well. Basketball programs almost done. Teen center and after school program both going well and they're doing the updates to the train station with the Walden Community Council • Building Department issued 26 new permits, violated 21 properties. Had 4 stop work orders and 4 fire and safety inspections. They did want to report to the board that there has been no progress at 76-80 West Main Street and they've been following up with other properties, including the Zoning and Planning Board agenda • Clerk’s been updating Facebook/website, 207c, FOILs, coordinated the Village Election, worked on the bi-monthly calendar and minutes • Finance is working on the budget with myself, payroll, billing, receivables, RBT audit things, Edmunds programming and vouchers 1  • Public Works, pressing sludge, sewer plant, they worked with TAM to install new pumps at the sewer plant. Water Department did 35 mark outs, replaced 53 meters, 4 end points, 1 closing and 3 daily inspections. They're continuing to postcard properties to schedule meter updates. Public Works did clear some branches from the streets from the past couple wind storms, flushing and jetting sewer lines, and also going over the budget capital items with me • Police Chief and the Police Department have been working well and prioritizing things with the Sergeants and the staff. They had 566 blotters since last meeting, 6 arrests. There were 194 traffic stops with 71 tickets issued, 5 mva's and 20 parking tickets issued Deputy Mayor Batson: Before I ask for comments from the rest of the board, may I please call to the stand our Building Inspector? Building Inspector Wallner: I'd like to take an opportunity to celebrate another win. Keith and I from the Building Department collaborated with Jerry from the First Reformed Church to clean up the property that we brought here for the Village Board to review a couple weeks ago and I'd like to show you some pictures. Jerry Hanen: We've got a few pictures for what we did. This was our men's breakfast group from the First Reformed Church and we in total hauled 1850 pounds of brush from the house. Taylors let us come and dump it for free. We didn't have to pay for that and it was all volunteer labor. *viewed pictures* Deputy Mayor Batson: For those of you playing along at home, this was a property that was presented to us that had some building code challenges and a citizen that probably just needed a little bit of help. I think on behalf of the community, thank you. Trustee Pearson: Thank you for thinking outside the box and helping out. We appreciate that. Deputy Mayor Batson: A wonderful gesture. Building Inspector Wallner: We do have a couple of other properties that we would like to address. We realized is that there are plenty of members in the community that are struggling. And there's really no point in sending a violation when you can’t do anything about it anyway. Trustee Taylor: You've clearly provided the definition of community, and I think the message is received loud and clear. Outstanding job. Stellar approach. It's not all about violations. It's about helping people that are in need for help. I think you and your coordinated effort have exemplified exactly what living in a small community is all about. Jerry Hanen: That's what we wanted to. We didn't want to see her get a violation. We wanted to see if we couldn't help and when we were leaving, she couldn't stop saying how much she appreciated what we did. Trustee Pearson: Thank you. Trustee Taylor: Good job. Trustee Hall: Have you heard anything from 76-80 West Main? Manager Revella: No update. 2 Trustee Hall: Orange County Transit? Trustee Pearson: They were supposed to both be on the agenda tonight. What happened to that? Manager Revella: No response. Trustee Taylor: Did we communicate with them? Manager Revella: We've told them about the DEC and the spill response, but that's where we're at. Trustee Pearson: What about the Main Street one? Manager Revella: We haven't heard from him. We heard from his attorney last week. Attorney Donovan: Well, that was a couple weeks ago. That was something that we're not going to do, though. The attorney wanted us, this is may be going back a month, he wanted us to be a facilitator or a mediator between property owners. That was not a task that we were going to undertake. Trustee Pearson: Did anybody get back to him on that we weren't going to do it? Attorney Donovan: There’s nothing to get back to. The answer was no. Trustee Taylor: It happened at the meeting. Attorney Donovan: But after the meeting, Bill, the attorney followed up with me and the answer was no, just by e-mail. No formal conversation or anything. Trustee Hall: At this point, they’re going to have to take it down or something. Manager Revella: Whatever the board wants to do. Deputy Mayor Batson: I would like for them to do it. Us to pressure them, but I don't have any desire for us to spend money and be reimbursed for it. Trustee Hall: North Montgomery had to come down, I think from the front, right? So, it's not like it's not doable. Manager Revella: Yes. If the board wants to take that action, we'd have to do that to go out to bid. Attorney Donovan: My recollection, now we're going back several months because this property indicated that he was going to take the building down. But I believe that you adopted an order directing to be taken down and gave him time. Our code does require anything over 5K dollars to be bid, so you would have to bid the demolition. Trustee Hall: Do you want to send a letter requesting to be here the next meeting? Trustee Pearson: I'm cool with sending a letter and making sure he knows it's on the agenda. The board can finalize. Manager Revella: You want them at April 1st? 3 Trustee Hall: Can you get proper notice to him by then? Manager Revella: I will, but it doesn't mean he's going to show up. I'll send it to him. Trustee Pearson: What about Orange County Transit? Manager Revella: Same thing. What would they be coming for? To do what? Trustee Hall: Where are they? Manager Revella: They have to do their sewer main. They were waiting for spring. Trustee Taylor: Are we going to have them here to kind of fill us in where they're at? Manager Revella: I'll make the request, formally, yes. We can't really subpoena them to be here to force them to be here. Can ask them to. Trustee Pearson: April 1st. Manager Revella: Correct. Approval of Minutes – March 4, 2025 Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the March 4, 2025 Minutes. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Public Comment None Wellhead Protection Grant Trustee Pearson: We had a grant come through that will help with our wellhead protection through the town. I invited Jay Beaumont here. He used to work in the county in the water part of it, and now he is the Planning Board Chair in the Town of Montgomery. We spoke today about this grant and how important it is possibly for us to apply for it and move forward with it, because all of our wells are in the town, if that happens, do we get it and we move forward? He'll explain, but there are maps and things that would be made for this, and he would be able to, as a Planning Board Chair, say well, this well is close to this property and you can't do that here because we don't want to contaminate the wells. So, working together with the town and making this happen for our wells is a really good thing. He's going to talk about it a little bit. Thank you so much Mr. Beaumont. Jay Beaumont: I live on Highland Ave, so I'm a citizen here and there. The story I’d like to tell is back in my water authority days, the Town of Wallkill has a wellfield, actually 3 well fields along the Wallkill River. One was on Rykowski Lane. Back then the Mako car painting outfit wanted to come in Rykowski Lane and put in a facility. Luckily the water operator knew about it, knew where his wells were and told the Planning Board not a good place if something happens, if there's a spill, it'll wreck our well field. That's wellhead protection in its essence. You guys have 2 well fields out by Lake Osiris and then on Rte. 52, both in the town. We get developers coming in all the time and we don't know where they're going to end up, but when they do, I want to be sure through the maps that this report would prepare. That we know what areas contribute to your wells and what areas should be protected. There's no easements or takings of land or anything, it's basically information. DEC hires the consultants, they do the work. They form a team. I'll be glad to sit on the team if you wish. Your Village Engineer, DPW guy, whoever, to help with the process. Takes about a year. The 4 process is almost done for the town where we have 2 well fields. 1 set of wells on Beaver Dam Road, south of 84 and the other set of wells is off of Lakeview Terrace, off of 17k going north. We have both those outlined now, so we know where the water's coming from and how to protect it. Trustee Pearson: The grant has to be applied for by April 4th, so we really need to move on it, if we want to move on it. I want to move on it because we were talking about wellhead protection for years and we finally got the town to do a little something of a law for somewhat of protection, but not enough for what we need our drinking water. We don't have drinking water. We don't have anything. John, who will prepare that? Manager Revella: Millennium, the grant writers. Trustee Pearson: Is it a difficult grant to do? Is it taxing? Jay Beaumont: No, they had a team up at DEC, at the estuary program that could help you out. Lady's name is Anna Palmer. If she's not there, her boss is Scott Cuppett. Maybe you know him. Manager Revella: Perfect. Just need consensus. Trustee Pearson made a motion to authorize the Village Manager to follow through with the grant by April 4, 2025. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Memorial Day Parade and Celebration Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the Memorial Day Parade and Celebration on May 26, 2025. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes 3rd Annual Awareness Memorial Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the 3rd Annual Awareness Memorial on May 17, 2025 from 1-3pm. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Outdoor Café Request – Tres Leches Deli & Bakery Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the Outdoor Café Request for Tres Leches Deli & Bakery. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Stop DWI Trustee Pearson made a motion to accept funding for Stop DWI. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Sewer Projects Neg Dec Attorney Donovan: This is a grant application that you've made. You actually issued a negative declaration back in July of 2021. Whatever reason the EFC decided they wanted you to do it again. So, this is if you look at the negative declaration prepared by the Village Planner, the name of the action Village Wastewater Collection System Upgrades dated July 20, 2021, revised tonight, March 25, 2025. This is a prerequisite to the awarding of the grant. Then there's also a bond that goes with that. You have a bond resolution from bond council, Mr. Smith, with whom I have worked with for multiple years. Too many years to count at this time. Very, very fine attorney. Just when you get to the bond resolution, you need 5 affirmative votes. You need supermajority to borrow money and since there are only 5 members here tonight, you all need to vote in favor of this bond. But the first order of business is to adopt the negative declaration. Trustee Garrison made a motion to adopt Negative Declaration for sewer projects in regards to 5 SEQR. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. *Attorney Donovan read resolution into the minutes* Manager Revella: Just so the public's aware that 5.2 million actually is a reimbursement. We have grants and a loan, so it's 3.2 million in grants and 2 million in USDA loan to cover the bond. Attorney Donovan: But you have to borrow the money to start the work. Correct. Then you get reimbursed after you spend the money. Trustee Pearson: Part of that federal funding. Manager Revella: Yes. Trustee Pearson: What do we know about that right now? You were going to meet with them. Manager Revella: There's no issue with our funding. Deputy Mayor Batson: For the repayments of loan, will this start with the budget coming up in June? Manager Revella: No, it’s a year after you take out the money. We’re not taking out the money for some time. Deputy Mayor Batson: Will we by chance have any previous bonds paid off in this fiscal period? Manager Revella: We may. Deputy Mayor Batson: From a budgeting standpoint, there’s a chance relatively cost neutral against year over year budget. Manager Revella: It wouldn't be in effect on this year's budget. The one that's coming up. Maybe next year. Trustee Pearson made a motion to adopt the bond resolution for sewer projects. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Intro to Local Law 2 of 2025 – False Alarms Attorney Donovan: If I can comment on both of these local laws, last time we were here, there was some indication that some redrafts, so both proposed local laws, the false alarm and the noise ordinance I made modifications to. They're in front of you. I don't know what the board wants to do. Next week, there's going to be 3 new board members. The next step is to schedule a public hearing. I don’t know if want to do that or you want to wait. Up to you guys, but if you want it rewritten, again, you got to get someone else to do that. I’m going off duty. I don't know if the board wants to schedule public hearing or you want to wait till next week or the week after. Deputy Mayor Batson: Let's say we move forward. New board members have been very diligent coming along to almost every meeting. Trustee Hall: I do have to say that I dropped the ball on it. I did not reach out to Chief Brown to sit down and go over this with him. I knew there was some other things that he might like to talk about. 6 Attorney Donovan: I'm sorry, Kristie. When Chief was here before, there was a conversation, he offered his services. Trustee Hall: And no one reached out to him. Attorney Donovan: I spoke to John, and the idea was to take his written suggestions, put those in the law and move forward with the law, if that what the board wants. If you want to wait and meet with him to get his input, that's absolutely fine as well. But his written comments, as well as some that we got from our new Village Chief, have been incorporated into this. Trustee Pearson: On letter E, Dave, the bottom of that, where it's all in blue and so it’s not a violation. Attorney Donovan: 134-2 – False Alarms Prohibited? Trustee Pearson: No, under definitions. You have a definition there, should we also put it over under 134-2 because it's not there underneath violations. Should we put that also over there or just because it's in the definitions it’s okay? Attorney Donovan: I was trying to mold some fashion, what we got from the Fire Chief and the Police Chief. And I think both of those guys were, their objective was, let's not penalize people who make a mistake. Trustee Pearson: I got that. But it's in the definitions. It's not underneath the regular part of the code, so I didn't know if we should put that whole piece underneath the code as well. Attorney Donovan: I don't think that you need to because the one is a definition and the other is are prohibition. So, it's not prohibited unless it's a false alarm as defined in subdivision. Trustee Taylor made a motion to schedule public hearing for Local Law 2 of 2025 – False Alarms for April 15, 2025 at 6:30pm or soon thereafter. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Intro to Local Law 3 of 2025 – Noise Ordinance Attorney Donovan: The only changes here, Trustee Kyle had some suggested revisions regarding vehicle horns and Mayor Ramos had about making reference to the vehicle traffic law definition of a muffler. Those 2 changes were made. Trustee Garrison made a motion to schedule public hearing for Local Law 3 of 2025 – Noise Ordinance for April 15, 2025 at 6:30pm or soon thereafter. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. 52 Walker St *Trustee Garrison stepped off dais* Deputy Mayor Batson: I had committed to make motion on this. We need to decide if we are going to relinquish our interest as a village for making this a street. If I'm in the driver 's seat, am I allowed to make a motion? Attorney Donovan: You are. I put together a little bit of a lengthy resolution of page and a half. *read resolution into the minutes* I should also say to the board, 2 members are absent tonight. 7 Trustee Garrison is recused. So, for this resolution to be adopted, you would need 4 affirmative votes. Means everybody here has to vote yes or not. There’s no gun to your head. Trustee Taylor: John, do we have fees that are outstanding at this point? Manager Revella: That's what this would affirm, that those would be paid. Attorney Donovan: The revocation would not be effective unless all the fees were paid. Trustee Taylor: For the record, my phone is off. Trustee Hall: Mine is not, I'm watching the meeting. Deputy Mayor Batson: I think it's unfair to push this any further. I wanted to make a decision on it tonight. I understand that not everyone is here, and let me just ask, should this resolution not pass, could someone make or ask for this again in future meeting? Attorney Donovan: Yes. Deputy Mayor Batson: So, just because I'm going to make this motion, if it fails, I just want everybody to understand that the issue is not dead. Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to adopt Resolution 13-24-25 for 52 Walker Street. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. Trustee Pearson: I would like to say something because I hope that if it does pass that you can't make people do it, but I'm hoping for a non-landlocked piece of property behind. I know you can't make people do anything, but I hope that that would be a smart move on the owners of the property. 3 ayes. 1 no. Motion failed. Valley Central Response Deputy Mayor Batson: We wrote a letter to Valley Central expressing our discontent with our understanding of their capital budget and that it appears to us there wasn't any capital improvements listed for Walden for the next 5 years and boy did they respond back. Trustee Pearson: The school board meeting is tonight. We'll find out what's really going on. Manager Revella: I know this stems from some discussion from this board that there was nothing in the budget for the school for the next 5 years. Not to say they didn't do anything in the past, but the next 5 years, there's 0 budgeted so far for Walden. That’s what solicited this letter and this was the response. It doesn’t say in the letter that there's any capital improvements going on the next 5 years either. Just discusses what was done in the past. Deputy Mayor Batson: The short version of this is over the past 5 years, Walden Elementary has received 1.9 million dollars in capital improvement projects, while the other 3 elementary schools have received a combined total of $542,000. Not exact numbers, but the gist of it is that we've had our dues. So, if you'd like to learn more, Trustee Pearson says there's a meeting tonight. MS4 Review Deputy Mayor Batson: I think we just simply need to state that we have read and acknowledge this, there's no vote necessary. Certainly able to have discussion on it. 8 Manager Revella: We posted on the village website as well for public view. Public Comment Ann Sullivan: I dropped off a packet last week in regards to my property and the ditch and you were going to review it. Do you have any questions for me? Deputy Mayor Batson: We did review. Attorney Donovan: I did have a conversation with John, we had a similar situation in other communities that I represent and the matter is perhaps on its way to being resolved there through means of directed through a higher political office. In my view, this is similar to the Hamptonburg situation where it's clearly the state DOT function, clearly state DOT does not want to do it and through the offices of the state senator, who does not represent Walden, the DOT has indicated they're going to make the repairs in Hamptonburg. I've suggested to John that they pursue that same avenue here in Walden. Ann Sullivan: Similar does it mean the same. We have plans and when I looked at the laws, the plans have to be put in front of the board when work is done on these roads in the villages. The board had to approve those plans back then and inside those plans it specifically states that the village is responsible. I'm wondering if in your other similar case they have plans that were approved by the board accepting that responsibility, because then it's not really similar. That would be my question. Manager Revella: I can tell you that we found no record of this being approved by the Village Board previously. Ann Sullivan: Because it says that's the law. Then it says it'll be filed with the commissioner. So, I guess the next step then, can I ask the reason that you feel it's the state’s responsibility? Attorney Donovan: I don't want to sound too much like an attorney, but I cannot give you legal advice. I can give legal advice to my client, which is the Village Board, and my advice has been steadfast for a period of time. You've lived with it, right? I've gotten e-mail communications from the manager, from Fred Perna. Fred 's indicated he's never done work there. He's observed the DOT to do work there. Ann Sullivan: They've never done work on that ditch. Attorney Donovan: But that's not what I was told. Ann Sullivan: That is incorrect. They have never. They took a couple of trees off my yard, but they never touched the ditch because my ditch has not slowed down. My ditch runs straight through my property. It’s the property behind me that's blocked. So, even if they dig out my ditch, it would never have solved the problems. They did not do work on the ditch, but at one point they did in like 2003 removed a couple of trees hoping to dry up my property a little bit. So, the information you have is incorrect. Trustee Pearson: You're saying the state never touched the ditch. Ann Sullivan: No, because the ditch was never blocked on my property. The neighbors property is where when it runs through it gets blocked. Let's say this is the tree, it used to hit the tree and go like this, but over the years water finds its way and it kept going closer to the side and then coming 9 towards my house instead of going back. All these years I’ve been coming in and saying no, this is a problem and the village says, not me. And the state says, not me and back and forth. Finally, we were just working and I got from the state the information that I gave you, that on the plans it specifically states the work that they did back then, that the village was to maintain the drainage ditches. The law states that it had to go in front of the board. But you're saying it didn’t. How do we know that? Manager Revella: We don't have any record of it. We looked around the time period that's in the notes that you have here. Ann Sullivan: I think it was like 96, but I'm wondering when they do work, I don't know about these things, so you might know more, if they decide to do work in the village on these roads and they produce these plans and it goes to the board, gets approved. How much later? How many years later? What's the time frame between approval and the actual work being done? Could it have been approved 5 years prior? Manager Revella: I'll give you an example. They just redid the roads in the village. Repaved them. This board had nothing to do with it. They never presented anything to them, never had any discussion or decision with this board, so I'm not sure what they're following in their procedures. Ann Sullivan: So that would be the villages stance that was never presented to you and you never approved the work to be done or accepted the responsibility. Manager Revella: We couldn't find it. I couldn't find any record of the Village Board approving those plans, correct. Ann Sullivan: I will quote you properly when I talk to them. Deputy Mayor Batson: We had discussed being, I don't remember if we discussed it whether we would help or we would help you by connecting you to some sort of local politician. Ann Sullivan: Absolutely. I've already gone through Brian Maher and if you saw in there, John, I think you were supposed to meet with them. I put questions for you in that packet. That you were supposedly meeting with the state and you were having meetings. Do you see the emails? It’s all in there. Manager Revella: I was never invited to a meeting. Ann Sullivan: Brian said they were set up, but they weren’t. As long as I know that the village did not attend these meetings that supposedly were all set up and everybody was meeting and talking about this, so that you never represented. Manager Revella: I haven't been invited to a meeting for that purpose, no. Ann Sullivan: Then I will refer to, Brian Maher at this point just ghosted me. Manager Revella: I'll ask him. His new office is in the Village of Walden, so we can go there and talk to him. Trustee Pearson: Can I ask a question about your neighbor’s yard with the tree? Do you think that that was part of the problem? 10 Ann Sullivan: Totally the problem. Trustee Pearson: Then it’s the neighbor 's problem. Trustee Hall: It's the ditch that was cleared, but the ditch is supposed to be maintained. If any trees grow in the ditch itself, there's no easement. I don't even know if their rights have a ditch going through there. I met the man who originally lived in my house and he came over and he said that was never a ditch. It was just a lower point that the water would go into from the 2 properties. But somehow the water from all down 208, they put in these drains and then ran those in to 96. They ran all this water. I went across the street, took videos the other day. They're doing the construction across the street from me and you see the water flowing down from there and that's all going underneath 208, through my neighbor 's property to my property, hits the tree and just overflows. Tree is still there. No one ever cleaned it out. Trustee Pearson: But it's on your neighbor’s property. So, he's responsible for taking that tree out. Ann Sullivan: It's in the ditch on my neighbor's property. Maintaining the ditches and the water flow is supposed to be the responsibility of the people putting the water there. You're running the water there. Was not really a ditch to start with. Was really not wide enough or maintained enough for what they created and all that water that they brought in. The first house that it comes under 208 to, they put nice rocks, they made it wider. It hits the road and comes under my property. Just a little ditch. Not a big ditch. Wasn't made big. It doesn't have rocks. It really can't handle the water. My opinion. I'm not a professional water person, but it's really smaller and then it hits the tree. Just a mess. Trustee Hall: Can you put little rocks to detour it? Ann Sullivan: I could probably hire somebody to dig mine out and put rocks in, but it still doesn't do anything to the end. I don't want the water there. They're bringing it in. They keep bringing more and more of it, but they don't have the ditch to maintain the water they're bringing in. I think if you're bringing water in to maintain roads, you have to have a place for it to go safely. Trustee Pearson: Where does it end up, John? Manager Revella: To the railroad tracks. Trustee Pearson: There's not a pipe connected to that at all? Manager Revella: I haven't seen. It's very overgrown. Not sure. It’s hard to get back there. Ann Sullivan: I can't even get my backyard mowed anymore because it just is coming closer and closer to my house and my lawn guy just sinks in. The water has to be maintained. You can't just dump water from a road and not make it go somewhere. Who do you feel I could contact? Deputy Mayor Batson: We’ll will work the follow up with Mr. Maher? We will encourage him to continue to pursue that but can't make him. We can request a letter be sent. Trustee Pearson: We can make the manager send a letter to the Assemblyman. Trustee Taylor: Absolutely. Manager Revella: And Senator Rolinson. 11 Ann Sullivan: Will someone contact me? Manager Revella: Can you come back the 15th? I’m going to reach out to them before then. Ann Sullivan: I'm going to try to make I just started a new job in Westchester. Manager Revella: I’ll email it to her. Dennis Wageman: The village has a water meter upgrade program. Unfortunately, I got somehow left out of the knowledge that this was going to take place. I went to the village office over here and right away I was met with “you’re lying to us”. I said no, I'm not lying. They said, “you're lying to us because we put this on Facebook. Put it on the village newsletter. We put it on the bill. Tagged your door”. I'm not on Facebook. I very seldom read the newsletter. The bill. Even when I went to the window, I still hadn’t read the bottom of the bill. Then they said that we tagged your door. I don't remember seeing a tag on my door. What's with the tag on the door? I talked to my neighbor right across the street, who get a $75 fee on their water bill. We never got a tag on our door and ran into a fellow who was complaining as much as I was over at the village office and they said, you received tag on your door. He said “I did not get a tag on my door.” I said, well, what do you want me to do? Take a lie detector test that I didn't know anything about this until I walked up and appeared before the village office over there back on March 4th. Never knew anything about this. 1 of the things I wanted to do is find out about the tag on the door. I FOIL’d for the houses which were supposedly tagged. There were about 330-350 houses on here. My house was identified as being tagged. So was the house across the street. I don't know what happened with these tags on the door. I probably will never find out, but I'm willing to double down on my, take a lie detector test that I didn't know. That was 1 of the first problems. Second problem is, I couldn't believe what I was reading on the bottom of the water bill once it was pointed out and on the bottom of the water bill, it says a service fee of $75 per quarter until it is accomplished. Now that's kind of strange wording. I got a copy of the local law that was passed. The local law is worded quite differently than what somehow appeared on the bottom of the water bill. The local law actually says, I, being a homeowner, shall be liable for a fine of $75 per quarter for each quarter or portion thereof. I look at my water bill, I was charged $75 for the December 1st to February 28th water bill. I'm 3 days into the next quarter. I get my water meter updated. But this law says that I'm now liable for another $75 because I am in a portion of the next quarter. You go back to and I hate to use this word paraphrased, because normally when you paraphrase something, you try to take something that's hard to understand and make it easier to understand. In this case the local law was paraphrased by an unknown person to me. Actually, when it was paraphrased, the real meaning of it changed. That's why you've got a service fee per quarter until it is accomplished. Back during the December to February time frame, I think I heard it mentioned that there was there were like 50 water meters changed. Those, if you went by the local law that was passed, those 50 people were tardy in upgrading their water meter. They should have been charged $75 also. Because the local law says, quarter or portion of. Like going into a parking garage. Pay $10 an hour or a portion of. You're in there for 75 minutes, you're paying $20. Now what happened is, this paraphrasing of the law was, I guess just the inability to understand English or something. Then I guess the billing department because doesn’t want to take responsibility. Now changed it and said well, all you people that did it, you don't have to pay your $75. The law says you do. I don't know how you correct this. Something, either what's on the bill has to be changed. The local law has to be changed. But I should be charged $150 and all these other people that got it waived should be charged $75. Something’s got to be straightened out here. And that the problem with this “you knew”. I know most of why I didn't know, because I'm not on Facebook. I don't really look at the newsletter. I would have noticed a tag on the door. In fact, I've been through meter upgrades before in Walden. I had disagreements at that time because when they put a gas line in front of the house, they tore out 12 my shut off. There it was a lot easier to have a conversation with the village than it is right now. In fact, when the Water Department person came and I was talking to him and he said, I've got 7 of these to do today. And he said the first 1 didn't go very well because they couldn't shut the water off inside. Couldn’t shut the water off at the street. I shouldn't have brought that up, but I did because it's just how easy it was to understand that this was happening before. It was done because you received a letter. We can't put out letters. Look how much it costs. Well, look how much it costing me because I didn't know. I know there are other people. In fact my neighbor, who I thought was going to be here tonight didn't show up. I'm surprised there aren't a lot of people behind me in the same situation, should show up, but they aren't. The whole thing is somehow this has to be rectified with what happened in the last quarter going forward, what's going to happen? If I should be charged another $75 according to the law. Those people should be charged $75 because of the way the law is written versus the way it was paraphrased. There have been people that have been over at the window when I was present there, were making the same kind of argument. I don't know if they're going to have their fee waived or not. But it seems like it should be waived for everyone just because of the way this whole thing was rolled out. It seemed flawed from the beginning. At least you have to make the law and what's on the water bill the same. There was a lot of legalese coming from this side. What was on the water bill certainly could have been a lot clearer and a lot more in legalese terms. What I'm asking for is that something be done. Probably everybody $75 should be waived because there's a problem on both ends with the last quarter and going forward. Trustee Pearson: Did you have a new meter put in? Dennis Wageman: Yes. That's the other thing. You take a look at the tone of the local law. It appears that the local law assumed that you knew about this. I certainly didn't refuse to do it. I did it 2 days after I knew about it. So, I didn't refuse. It seems like if you neglect to do something it would be you saying I'll be there on Tuesday and you went shopping and the Water Department ended up being there. You neglected your duty. To me, to neglect it, I had to be aware of it. I think the roll out not having letters sent was kind of a failure. There were too many assumptions made that people were going to be on Facebook. They were going to read the newsletter, read this fine print. What caught my eye was the $75. The fine print didn't. You can review your water usage at whatever. It wasn't red. It wasn't bold. It wasn't an enclosed piece of paper. That's enough of my complaint. Trustee Pearson: If I'm understanding correctly, you had a bill that you paid the $75 on originally and then you got your water meter after that first quarter? Now you’re into the next one and you have a new water meter. Is that what you're saying? Dennis Wageman: You said paid. I'm a stickler on words. No, I didn't pay. Trustee Pearson: You didn't pay the first quarter then? Dennis Wageman: I paid the water bill. They gave me the option not to pay the $75. They said that was going to be attached to my taxes. I figured, hopefully we can get this essentially resolved before the tax bill comes out. I found out about this on a Monday night. Tuesday morning I was over here complaining about the $75. They said, “did you make arrangements to have your water meter replaced?” I said no, I called, they said they were going to call me back and make arrangements, so they called me back on Tuesday afternoon. I think it was Wednesday I had the water meter replaced. My problem is I cannot explain why I did not have a tag on the door. I think a lot of other people should be having the same issues and I think they are because when the water meter replacer person from the Public Works came, he said he had 7 more to do that day. All those people in some way should have been charged. Trustee Hall: Do you know who you spoke with? 13 Dennis Wageman: No. He was a nice guy, can carry on the conversation and didn't take him very long at all. Trustee Hall: I mean up here. You spoke with somebody up here. Dennis Wageman: That's another issue. It was a very combative situation at the window and it was combative with other people that were there talking about the same thing. I guess the thing that bothers me about this and where I wasn't believed or whatever. Somebody and I don't know who it is because at one point there were 4 women in that little glass cubicle. It was unbelievable. And then somebody said, it kind of got terminated a little bit. Somebody and I wish I would have paid attention to this too, they said, “we'll either have the Village Manager or the Mayor call you”. Not going to happen. I just still have not gotten the call. That's just an issue. Trustee Garrison: To be clear, you're assuming that all of other people were never charged. Dennis Wageman: No. I was told they weren't charged. Because of the wording on the bill. The wording on the bill is a service fee of $75 per quarter until it is accomplished. The window told me, and I don’t know who set this date of December 1, 2024 because I guess this program has been going on for 5 years. Somehow this date got thrown in there. And because it was paraphrased on here, they were reading as $75 per quarter until it is accomplished. Trustee Garrison: But you didn't pay the $75 before. I don’t know which $75 we’re talking about. Dennis Wageman: No, I didn't pay it in cash. I said I’ll pay the water fee because of my other problems with snow and stuff like that. I'll pay the water fee, but I'm going to try to resolve the $75. Trustee Garrison: Was the $75 charged to you the quarter before it was replaced or is this the quarter it was replaced in? Dennis Wageman: The quarter before. Trustee Pearson: He's saying the law says that now he's going to have another $75 2 days into the next quarter. Trustee Garrison: I'm trying to acknowledge the fact of you were charged the $75 for the quarter that you did not have the new meter. And you just said you didn't pay that $75, correct? Dennis Wageman: Right. Trustee Garrison: Just to filter through everything, however this gets amended going forward. The fact is, the $75 was before you switched the meter over, which is still owed as a fine for not having it done because it was a previous quarter before you had the meter fixed. I understand you're looking for this quarter going forward, but the $75 from the quarter before is still owed. I hope you're not looking to get that waived. Dennis Wageman: The problem with this, is the law. Trustee Garrison: The law states $75 per quarter or the portion of. You just read it and then on the bill, it says $75 until accomplished. Regardless, the quarter before it was replaced, there's a $75 fine. It was not accomplished previous to being accomplished. Correct? 14 Dennis Wageman: Correct. Trustee Garrison: So, even with the wording on the bill, $75 until accomplished, you still didn't accomplish it in the quarter you were fined for. That’s $75 is still owed, just like all of the other 300 people that it never got fixed for. Dennis Wageman: You missed the point. The point was that the window over there wasn't charging the $75 to the people that got it done in the last quarter. Trustee Garrison: But you didn't get it done in the last quarter. Trustee Pearson: And neither did they. Deputy Mayor Batson: We don't have an answer for you, Sir. So, if you could just let us take that back and look into that and validate that, we'll be more than happy to. Dennis Wageman: That came out in the conversation in the window over here. Which really does need to be looked into. I'm sure that was done because of the wording on the bill. Deputy Mayor Batson: We will look into if your water was upgraded within that quarter, were we waiving that for that quarter. We will look into that. I don't have an answer for you at this moment, but we'll work with the girls up there to validate that. Dennis Wageman: That goes back to a FOIL request I put in which I never got a reply to, which really says the same thing that I know that what's on the bill is different than what the local law says. Deputy Mayor Batson: We'll look into that as well. Ray Lustig: I’d like to start off by thanking the Village Attorney for the proclamation that he drafted. Although I disagreed with the money thing. On the overall basis, I probably would have agreed and it was acceptable. I appreciate the efforts that you made in that regard. Before I go on, Ms. Hall, I would like to ask you why? Trustee Hall: I really don’t have to answer you. Ray Lustig: Ms. Hall, you have a fiduciary duty when you take your oath here to be a Village Trustee. Right now, the village collects this nominal amount of fee for a vacant lot, whereas a house brings in roughly 12k a year in revenues and tax revenues. As I heard Ms. Thompson say during one of the campaign speeches, she was talking about maximizing revenues and otherwise try to cut expenses. Here's a easy opportunity for the village to maximize revenues. For some unknown, on a street, after a 120 years, they have not exercised the interest that I've asked them to relinquish. And you have taken it upon yourself to say no. I think you reached your fiduciary duties and I hope that it is very obvious for people to see. Secondly, go back to Mr. Taylor and you had made, I watched your interview, I was very impressed. 1 of the things that you had said. Trustee Taylor: What interview? Ray Lustig: When you were talking about the elections with respect to Ms. Pearson. It was this past week or so. Trustee Taylor: I didn’t do any interviews. I don't know what you're talking about. 15 Ray Lustig: At any rate, you had mentioned about a disconnect. Trustee Taylor: No, you're gonna have to give me more. Ray Lustig: I'm sorry. Becky, you did a thing on being mayor. I just watched a couple days ago. Trustee Pearson: Yes, the Community Council did that. It was me, Lynn, and it was the mayor. Trustee Taylor: I was not involved in that. Ray Lustig: I thought it was you. It wasn't. That the person mentioned there's a disconnect between the board and it was just kind of left that there's a disconnect out there and we're trying to communicate better. I thought about that and I was quite impressed with the observation. Disconnect, I thought about it, really when someone comes before the board. This is the Zoning Board, Planning Board, this board doesn't really matter. The government. The idea is what can we do to make this work? Idea is, let's work together and do the best for the village. It is not to, “I don't feel like answering the question”. It's what is best for the village. Is it 12k dollars in tax revenues? Or a couple hundred? There's your disconnect. Because not everybody wants the best and is on the same boat going the same direction for the same reasons. That's kind of all I have to say about that. I will want to express my disappointment. Expressed to Ms. Hall. Trustee Hall: That’s fine. I'll take your disappointment. So, when you bring it back in the next couple weeks. Maybe you won't have this. Ray Lustig: No, I’m done. I will say that now I will have to evaluate my options. You see here, I have representations on village letterhead saying that this is a buildable lot. I have assessments here from the town and county assessors saying that the value of the land is worth 42k dollars and it's taxed accordingly as a building lot. I think that I cannot get a fair trial amongst the board of my peers in this village. So, I will have to seek alternative to exercise my rights and I have to evaluate that. But I will say what came down is totally wrong. It’s wrong for that village. It was wrong for someone that might become a resident in this village. And it was personally disrespectful to myself. Deputy Mayor Batson: I agree with you and I would encourage us to put this on the agenda next week and I would encourage it to be voted on again when there is a different set of individuals up here. Ray Lustig: Mr. Batson, I want to say in my 4 meetings before the board, you've been the most rational, common sense person on the board for other issues and not just for me. I certainly appreciate the way you look at things through your own eyes. The best member that I've seen on this board. That's just really unfortunate. Deputy Mayor Batson: I don't have the power to put it on the agenda next week. So, if I could ask that to be left there. Ray Lustig: I’m not interested in kicking the can down the road. I think we made a decision. We had 4 weeks to evaluate this and at the request of Ms. Hall, this is what happens and she won't even say why. “I don’t have to answer you”. That's what the village is getting from this trustee. RBT Donna Crowley: I provided a listing, it contains a list of the 27 bank accounts that you have along with the bank recs summary. It’s a bank reconciliation progress of each one and the status that 16 they're in. They're all in different stages in the process. Basically, for all of them, reconciling items have been identified. Easier items have again also been recorded. But now, unfortunately, to move forward, there has to be research done on the many reconciling items that are there to identify what they are and how they should be recorded. In order to be able to do this, we think, and I think you would agree to cost efficiency. That is not something that you want to pay us to do. The staff has access to Edmunds, access to the papers, access to everything. They would be the ones doing the research on that, and then we could help them when we see what those things are, record them. There's a lot of them so it's going to a while. Some of the bank accounts are in better place than others. To start, they have opened up a new checking account to run the bills from. Which is now a cut off point that's reconciled, and it's the stuff before that that it's not reconciled where things were not recorded. Things are recorded incorrectly and things were just passing through the wrong bank accounts. Also, Edmunds behind the scenes, is not set up correctly. Things are not flowing through Edmunds like you would expect them to. Unfortunately, you’re past the training point of Edmunds, so none of the people you currently have now have been trained in Edmunds. So, they need to make phone calls and we're at the mercy of Edmunds to explain the problems that are having and when you call them, they don't always know, you're getting a face, who then has to steer you to the other people. Besides the bank recs too, I do want to add that when we do come in to help, we're doing the bank recs, but we're getting asked other things, other questions, other things that they also need help with. So, it's not just bank recs that we've been helping with. Trustee Pearson: Our staff needs help with it, is what you're saying. Donna Crowley: They have questions. They're new trying to navigate the things that are being posted wrong in Edmunds. There's a lot of other questions also we're doing trying to help them and train the best we can. Trustee Pearson: Posted wrong for how long? Donna Crowley: Bank accounts were done, things started going wrong in the 2022-2023 year. That is why the bank recs weren't done and why the audits not done for that time frame, yet. Trustee Pearson: The 23 audit is done now. Donna Crowley: No. Trustee Pearson: Oh. 22 is done. So, we're 2 years behind. Manager Revella: Your fiscal year ending in 22. Fiscal year ending in 23 is not completed yet. Trustee Pearson: And we're almost at the end of 24. We're 2 years behind. Manager Revella: We're almost at the end of 25. Donna Crowley: That’s a summary. I think Jean wants to add some stuff, that day-to-day activities, finding the problems. Treasurer Degon: I gave this sheet to everyone. I know it's a long sheet, but it shows you what was completed through 22. You can see g, k and l. Which happens to be the street opening permit bond, water fund and general fund. I'm not worried about the street opening bond. The problem with 22 and 23 with Edmunds, we have to roll back the years, have to kick everybody out the system, roll it back and do the journal entries then. So, I kind of waited on that a little bit so that I have them all in 1 shot and I'm doing it 1 time. We work 7:30-4:30. Edmunds is open 8-5. Most of the time I do it on 17 a Friday so I can kick everybody out at 12, shut the window. Have time to do that. I'm not concerned about the street opening permit bond. It's off by $4500. That's about 3 permit bonds. The problem that I've found with trying to find that $4500, is that if it was paid by cash. Receiving money is kind of an issue too. They weren't properly tracked when you receive them, so you have to enter a code to receive it. Then there's a tracking ID, and there's a description. We're all doing it now. We're trying to use the tracking ID 's. We're putting descriptions because if there's just a cash receipt in there for $1500 and it’s miscoded or whatever, plus nothing's cleared because we've never done a bank rec through Edmunds. Basically, everything from 2019 is uncleared. There's a lot of information in there, so if I run a report, it's gigantic and I'm looking for $4500 that I haven't been able to find. Which do I choose from? So, the biggest problem with the general fund, is that it's receiving money. It was cutting checks and it's also the A fund. What I'm trying to do is pull the A fund out. It needs to be separate just like the water/sewer. Ideally I wanted to just be receiving of money and then through journal entries trickle it down to where it belongs. Trustee Pearson: Who collects the money and who puts it into the computer when you get it? How does that work? Tell me the process. Treasurer Degon: Collecting money you get at the window, you get checks, you get cash, you get credit card. Which is another problem. The WHIP is through Edmunds, that’s the credit card, we found with pulling up the WHIP, basically water/sewer payments, no matter how they come in, should be deposited to the water fund. We're finding that the WHIP is just sending it to general, sending it to wherever. Most of the time it’s water, sometimes it’s general. Focusing on the WHIP, which I want to open an account, just like the lock box because the lock box is where you get your bill and the stub goes to Jersey. That’s through Orange Trust. I opened up the lock box because we were having the same problem. Applying it and sending it to different areas. Now we have them just sending it to lock box and we have complete control over that and it's cleared out every 2 days. We have a handle on that, we have to get a handle on the WHIP. As far as completed for 23, it’s really just the last 3. Those last 3, if we get those finished and into 23, it has to go into the AFR. Which I will need assistance from RBT because I have not done an AFR and AFRs are extremely important. They affect your business with banks, they affect your business with grants and funding. We have to be compliant and we're not compliant right now. We all have a meeting tomorrow with Edmunds. With John 's approval, we're closing the window from 1-2 for training with Edmunds. I went higher up because I did have the argument with them saying that none of the employees here were trained. Not even the Building Department were trained on Edmunds. Darlene was the only one that was trained but was during COVID and it was through Zoom. If we were just new to Edmunds, they'd give us 4 to 5 months of assistance training us, setting us up. What I can see is we were never set up properly. As far as the GL accounts matching the bank, they just don't match. The GL accounts in Edmunds should match the bank. There's 29 accounts. Reconciling 29 accounts every month is a job itself. Trustee Pearson: But you were talking about consolidating them for months now. Treasurer Degon: I want to get them down to around 10. Starting with the AP again, we opened up the AP. Everything 's great. So, when we run the check runs we find after the check run is done, Edmunds actually generates a report that tells you how much to fund from the A fund, the F fund, the G fund, the L fund. All those funds are going into AP. Then we fund from Orange Trust and fund it with a journal entry. That AP account, all the checks match. All the funding matches to the bank account. Edmunds is telling me it's off by $4800 and they cannot tell me why. There’s some kink in Edmunds that's an issue with that. It stopped me from moving any further to move more accounts in there yet. That’s part of what the meeting is going to be about tomorrow. Trustee Pearson: John, how hard is it to shut down Edmunds for a day? How many people are 18 using it? Can't you shut it down for a whole day and work on it in a daytime? Manager Revella: Every department is in Edmunds every day. Trustee Pearson: So they go in the next day. Treasurer Degon: Everyone's busy. Trustee Pearson: I get it. But they can put their stuff in the next day. Manager Revella: If you have someone that needs a permit, they're not getting more until the next day then. Trustee Pearson: They can't put it in till the next day? Why can't they just take it on paper and put it in later? Manager Revella: No, that's not how it works. Trustee Pearson: Why? What's the big deal? Manager Revella: We can make them wait a day. Trustee Pearson: I'm not saying that, but why does it have to go in that day? Can’t go in the next day? Manager Revella: If you're taking money in that day, you have to take it that day. Trustee Pearson: Does it go to the bank that day? Manager Revella: It goes in the system that we received it, otherwise there's money that it's not received. Trustee Pearson: Can't you do it on paper and say receive this, have them sign it and put it in the next day? Manager Revella: I don't know if you want to do that. Trustee Pearson: There's got to be a way to think out-of-the-box to make it happen easier so that she doesn't have to be here for half a day and maybe have a whole day to do it. Just trying to make things possibly… Manager Revella: I'm okay with shutting down for a day and getting it done. Trustee Pearson: Will a day take it? Treasurer Degon: A day? No. Trustee Pearson: A day every so often? Treasurer Degon: Denise, who I've worked with before, has worked with other villages where, you know we've all been understaffed for quite some time and we've been behind. But other villages do put on the website, we're shut down for 1 day. This office is shut down for a day for catch up. And 19 especially during the time, I don't know why, when the Clerk and the Deputy Treasurer carried this office for a really long time with the transitions of a Treasurer and the Deputy Treasurer/Clerk. Trustee Pearson: I get it. I understand. Treasurer Degon: To come into it and believe me, I wish I was further along than I am, but it's just if you could just see how it's done. The thing that opened my eyes is when I went to the Town of Montgomery and I saw how they work and I saw how simple it was. It's really just simplifying what's done. They have Edmunds. Trustee Hall: Does Edmunds have someone to come that can train you? Treasurer Degon: They don't make house calls. I don't believe. Trustee Hall: How would you get training on Edmunds? Online? Treasurer Degon: The meeting tomorrow is only for an hour to discuss. Trustee Hall: And that's been posted that the office is going to be shut down for an hour or so? Treasurer Degon: It’ll be posted on the window. Manager Revella: The Clerk's office is open. Trustee Hall: She won't be in on any of that? Treasurer Degon: She is. But fortunately, she can't shut her window. We're all going to be at our own computers, invited to the same meeting for an hour to discuss our needs. Someone's going to ring the bell. Someone's probably going to get up. I just wanted us all to kind of be in tune and get our questions out there and what our concerns are so we can move forward with them. Don't know what they're going to say. And the problem with Edmunds is it's such a robust database, you really want to tailor it to your village the best that you can. They didn’t know if you’re receiving rehab loans. You need that information so when you’re missing information like that, especially when you're receiving money, it's very hard to find. We're putting that into practice now, but these are things that I also want monthly statements to just automatically invoice for rehab loans. They're sent out monthly. Why can't we set up a reoccurring invoice? The escrows tracking them better. Same thing. It's a lot of manual entry that we do. It's very tedious and the reports are terrible. I’d like to tailor a report to what we need. Maybe they can help produce something that makes sense for us. Apparently, they're number 1 in reviews. Donna Crowley: I think there are cheaper options out there. Trustee Pearson: What are the options? Donna Crowley: There’s UNIS, New World. UNIS, that’s one that a lot have, especially bigger cities and stuff. *inaudible* Treasurer Degon: I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with some sort of a cost because they were like, we can't just give you onboarding again. Unfortunately, it was during COVID. I don't know how well the people were trained that were here. But none of them are here to retrain the people that are coming in. Plus, the way it's been done, to me from my position, if it doesn't make sense. It's really hard to figure out these bank recs. 20 Deputy Mayor Batson: Jean, the training you're suggesting exceed the training budgets allotted for line items? Treasurer Degon: I don't know. Trustee Pearson: Have you put anything in the budget for training? Treasurer Degon: Well, no. I only put the extra money in for when we got them in the cloud. I put extra money in there because I do believe that we need to invest in a payroll system. Because Edmunds is a 1 stop shop. It's not an expert in any 1 area. You know you're going to use it for utility billing. You're going to use it for escrow, rehabs, but the payroll is just not up to par. It's never going to be fixed for there. Just printing the W2s and 1099s. I have to file for paying the payroll taxes to the IRS, to New York State. They have to be timely and compliant. I've gotten an IRS bill stating that something was late and that was like a 53k bill. Thankfully, I called them up and they just misapplied. But I also don't want to be responsible for that. Village of Montgomery, Village of Maybrook, Town of Montgomery, they all use Paychex. As a Treasurer, I don't want to sit with that responsibility of being noncompliant for the IRS. I don't know why they weren’t brought up before. I don't know why another Treasurer didn't say, hey this is a lot. Trustee Pearson: They had Paychex before. Marisa, did you have paychecks before? Clerk Kraus: Yes. It was a long time ago. I was told that it was a nightmare. Treasurer Degon: I've heard the same from this village, but I don't understand how. I don't know what the issue would have been at that time. Trustee Pearson: Donna, do you see other communities using a lot of Paychex and that kind of stuff? Donna Crowley: Yes. Trustee Pearson: Is it mainly Paychex or is it other companies? Donna Crowley: Paychex or ADP. Treasurer Degon: I'm familiar with ADP, but I feel like they're more expensive. It’s not going to take the responsibility away of payroll. But it's going to include the time clocks, at least for this building. It'll be the Building Department, our department. It'll be the library. It'll be PD. That will populate up into the software. Just have to manually enter DPW and Parks and Recs. Trustee Pearson: Do other departments have problems with Edmunds? Building Inspector Wallner: It’s not very user friendly. Trustee Hall: Is it something that's not easy to use because you haven’t been properly trained on it? And maybe it’s not setup properly. Treasurer Degon: Possibly. You're welcome to come up between 1 and 2, hop on a computer. Deputy Mayor Batson: Do we have contractual obligations with this software? 21 Treasurer Degon: Yes. Deputy Mayor Batson: We would need to wait till we're out of a contract. I would encourage you to look for solutions that will be better understood. Treasurer Degon: We have to get through this first before thinking of moving on to a different software. It's a lot of accounts and we get it down, Deputy Treasurer/Clerk can do 3. Deputy Treasurer can do 3 and I'll do 4. They'll be done monthly. The cash will be there and it'll match every GL account. It's just getting there. It's not just about doing bank recs. Deputy Mayor Batson: What’s the path forward? Continue with RBT until we get these reconciled and then look for a better software solution? Treasurer Degon: I would believe that's what we do but on top of that, what I would like and I know that we tried with Denise, 1 of the biggest things is that we need RBT’s IT to deal with our IT so that she can get on the laptop. Because if you're able to get into Edmunds and not have to come into the office. I'm assuming it costs more to travel to come in. Donna Crowley: We have a growing number of people that are in their situation and it happens to be with Edmunds. We put it into our IT yesterday or today to get 1 laptop, separate laptop, that has access to RBT and segregated only for Edmunds for different municipalities. Trustee Pearson: So, you can log in to another municipality through that laptop. Treasurer Degon: Which I believe will make the process much faster. Trustee Hall: Will it allow you more time with her? Treasurer Degon: I'm saying that she wouldn't have to come to the office. It would probably be less to travel. If we can bang through a few accounts while we're on the phone. She'll identify something. This needs a journal entry. I’ll journalize, because she can’t. They’re not allowed to, but they can identify it. If I say I don't know how to do, they can help me do it. I think that piece is major to Making this a faster fix. I don't how fast, but faster. Then at least get through to 23 and get onto the AFR file that. Finish up through 24. File it. Trustee Pearson: What's our time frame? What are you hoping? Treasurer Degon: I don't want to give timeframes anymore. I failed. I fail with timeframes. I’d like to say 23, the problem is it's going to be that general fund and the water fund, it's those 2 that are going to be the hardest ones that we haven't even really touched yet. Deputy Mayor Batson: It’s not negotiable. It has to be done. Treasurer Degon: There's so many transactions. Donna Crowley: You have to remember, any item for cash, that's not recorded, there’s another side to that. Deputy Mayor Batson: Do you have a total dollar that's unreconciled? You said once 1 fund was $4500. Treasurer Degon: It's going to be 3 bonds at $1500. 22 Manager Revella: No, he's talking about in total. How much isn’t reconciled? Attorney Donovan: Only if you know. Let’s not be putting numbers out in the universe here. Treasurer Degon: I don't know the total of it. Deputy Mayor Batson: Fair enough. Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Garrison made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Miscellaneous Comments from the Board of Trustees Trustee Pearson: I know there was something written about the phones being up and running. Are they? Manager Revella: We're still waiting for RCLS to approve the phones in the library to be able to have the system up. Today, they made progress on that downstairs. Trustee Pearson: I know there’s been talk about people wanting more pickle ball time. I don’t know if it's possible. How it could work. I do know we have 2 open courts that are at the park. But I know there was some talk about hopefully maybe be able to get more hours. I don't know if it's possible. Just a thought. Mike does say it's one of our money makers, so why not do a money maker? Cameras, where are we at with the cameras? Manager Revella: They’re still putting the LPRs on. They’re almost done. Trustee Pearson: What about the cameras that were on the poles for NYSEG. Manager Revella: That's the ones we're talking about. Trustee Pearson: Kitchen. We were at the building the other day. Where are we at with that? Manager Revella: Picking out cabinets. Trustee Pearson: The grant for Riverfront that you guys were going for. When do you know that? Manager Revella: I don’t know when it comes back. It's T-Mobile. Trustee Pearson: Do we need to worry about tax cap? Doesn't that have to be done in a certain time frame before we vote on the budget? I don’t know, I haven’t really seen the budget. Manager Revella: It does. Do you want to go over the tax cap? We don't have to go to the tax cap unless you want to. Trustee Pearson: I don't want to go over it. But you’re not supposed to go over it unless you do something that says you might go over it. Manager Revella: Understood. I don't anticipate going over the tax cap. Trustee Pearson: RFPs we're going to look at that tonight. 23 Manager Revella: Yes, you should have a synapsis that Marisa printed out for everybody. It has who responded. They're in the office on my table. Trustee Taylor: John, I've had some people wanting to know what we are doing or what can be done about some of the zombie poles that are still out and about in the village. Manager Revella: They're on them. NYSEG has actually been helping us to get it accomplished. They've been sending notices to the Public Service Commission on our behalf as well, to let them know that it's not them, it's these other 2 entities. It’s been helping. Trustee Taylor: What does the resident do when they sit there and staring at a zombie pole for the last year? Do they notify somebody? Manager Revella: They can get the pole number and confirm with us that it's been noticed. That would be helpful. Then we can let him know that, yes, we noticed then and we let the Public Service Commission. Notify me or the Building Department. Trustee Taylor: Congratulations to Mayor Elect Pearson, Ms. Thompson, Cheryl Baker, Ralph reelected. Congratulations to all, look forward to next week and starting anew and also I'd like to extend personal thanks to Ms. Hall for her help. Sitting next to her has been a valuable experience and communicating has been one of better communications that I've received in the last year. Same thing for Mr. Batson, communications and discussions were greatly appreciated by myself. Last but not least, Dave. Communicating with you has been an education for sure. But a positive one and you are going to be sorely missed by me personally, and the rest of the folks on the board can express their opinions, but I appreciate the help you've given me in the last year. You've always responded when I had a question or needed to be educated and you've never had a problem reeducating me when necessary. Attorney Donovan: Thank you, Bill. Trustee Hall: First, I like to say I heard great things about the Walden Community Council. They held their penny social. I did miss it. I heard it went pretty well. Hopefully, I can be there for the next one. I won't be here, so I want to mention now that April 12th Honor Flight going out of Shop Rite and April 12th is also Hudson Valley Saint Baldricks. If you guys are around, the clock starts at 1. I want to thank everybody for giving me a shot 2 years ago. I came on not knowing pretty much anything. I learned a lot the last couple years. Unfortunately, the mayor 's not here, but I ran with Mayor Ramos and Chris and Ralph and it was fun. The opinions that we have for the 3 of us, the guidance. I'm going to miss it, now you're both stuck with me. When I first came on it was Trish and Becky. Think I inundated them with questions and they had no problem answering it anytime. Becky still does. Bill, when you came on last year and Liz, it's been an experience. Thank you, everybody. Dave, you're gonna miss my colorful language, you know where to find me. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you, everybody. Trustee Garrison: First, I want to wish Officer Reynolds well. He took a new position over in the Village of Montgomery. He's been a pretty huge staple here in the Village of Walden PD for a long time. I just want to wish him well over there and I hope he gets to spend time with his family that he is truly looking for. Chris Batson, Kristie Hall, thank you, 2 years I feel like together as a team and as a whole here on the board. We set out to accomplish some things. I think we got a good amount of them accomplished and it was a pleasure working with you guys the last 2 years. Thank you for the re-election, to the community. Thank you for those that voted for me again. Last 2 years, took a little bit to learn. Leaned on a lot of people. Becky, Bill, you 2 for sure. Mayor Ramos, who is not here. The next 2 years I look to put forth a lot more effort and time and consideration into this and I 24 am truly excited to work with the new board with Lynn and Cheryl, I think we're going to accomplish good things and as long as we can work as a team, there's really nothing that can stop this village from going forward. Dave, what is this? He's just gonna leave me high and dry. Thank you truly, for not just my 2 years here, but all of the years before me that you put into this village on the various boards here in the village. Greatly missed. Whoever comes in to fill your shoes, it's a tough task to follow. Good luck to you, Sir, and your retirement and whatever you choose to do and have fun over there over in Ireland, London, or wherever you venture with your wife now that you're doing your things. Deputy Mayor Batson: I think Mr. Lustig would like to speak. Ray Lustig: I left my phone here when I left and I came back and I just thought through it a little bit and perhaps I was a little bit in haste saying that we shouldn’t continue with the new board next week or next meeting. I would be more than pleased to have the board reconsider under the circumstances. I just wanted to retract my statement of not going forward for the next meeting and perhaps with a little fresh air and different set of eyes. Deputy Mayor Batson: I will ask for it to be put on the agenda. I think it takes 2 of us or the mayor, not completely sure of the rules. Again, I would encourage you and everyone else playing along at home or in the audience to feel free to speak freely. If it gets heated, if it gets emotional, it gets heated, it gets emotional. That’s all fine. Everybody in this village should be able to speak freely here. You’re all good. Ray Lustig: Thank you very much. Deputy Mayor Batson: I, too, will sound like a bit of an Oscar speech. This is my last meeting so, Becky, thank you. You were a wonderful mentor. I appreciate it. Mr. Taylor, man of integrity. Glad you're here. Kristie. Thank you for St. Baldrick 's, for the fire stuff and while most of us were bouncing around trying to say things delicately. Thank you for not saying indelicately. Thank you for having the courage to just say them. Ralph, thank you for being passionate. I wish you the best of luck in both your professional and your personal life here. Liz, you're not here, but keep asking questions. We all learn from your questions. Mayor Ramos is not here. Thank you for inviting me to do this. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. To Marisa, to John, to Dave, to the Parks Department, thank you for all that you do. No clue how you do it. I think you do a wonderful job. Dave is also leaving us and so on behalf of us, got you a little something. *Presented plaque to Village Attorney* To our new Trustees and Mayor, best of luck. Trustee Pearson: Dave, I know you're leaving, but you probably can't wait to get rid of me, thank you. Thanks for helping me, I’m sorry for putting you through a lot. I appreciate what you did for me. *Presented certificates to Trustee Hall and Deputy Mayor Batson* there was something for the mayor, but he’s not here tonight, so we’ll get it to him. Attorney Donovan: I do want to thank everybody. Whatever I may have given, I certainly received much more because I enjoy the legal aspect of this work. What I enjoy most of all is the relationships you get to build. I think we all know about the, for lack of a better word, nonsense that goes on at higher levels of government. I have tremendous respect for the people who serve their communities because you do it for no other reason than to do good in your community. No one's looking to be governor or CEO of some fortune 500. You do this for the right reason and I always feel invigorated when I come, believe it or not, even if it's 11 o'clock at night and Becky wants to know why we're all leaving, because there's so much more to talk about. I appreciate everyone's passion. I appreciate what you do for your village. I do want to thank Brian Maher as Mayor, Tara Bliss, who was the Village Clerk way back when. Worked so many years with Marisa. The different 25 Treasurers that I've worked with behind the scenes, Mike Bliss and Freddie Perna, 2 great guys. And you should all appreciate, everyone in the public, Rob and Dean, I shouldn’t forget them, but everyone in the public should appreciate the hard work that John Revella does. I don't think anyone really knows. There’s nothing like getting emails at 2 o'clock in the morning Saturdays, Sundays, something is on John's mind. He really cares. He's in a tough spot and give him some slack sometimes. He's got a hard job to do. He does it really well and that's my plug for John. Thanks to all of you for all you do for the village. A real privilege to represent you these 12 years and thanks to everyone in the public who's dedicated to their community. Executive Session - Employment History of a Particular Person, Collective Bargain Negotiation with the PBA Trustee Pearson made a motion to enter into Executive Session - Employment History of a Particular Person, Collective Bargain Negotiation with the PBA. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Garrison made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. 26  Village of Walden Board of Trustees Regular Meeting March 25, 2025 Motions & Resolutions Approval of Minutes – March 4, 2025 Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the March 4, 2025 Minutes. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Wellhead Protection Grant Trustee Pearson made a motion to authorize the Village Manager to follow through with the grant by April 4, 2025. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Memorial Day Parade and Celebration Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the Memorial Day Parade and Celebration on May 26, 2025. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. 3rd Annual Awareness Memorial Trustee Hall made a motion to approve the 3rd Annual Awareness Memorial on May 17, 2025 from 1-3pm. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Outdoor Café Request – Tres Leches Deli & Bakery Trustee Pearson made a motion to approve the Outdoor Café Request for Tres Leches Deli & Bakery. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Stop DWI Trustee Pearson made a motion to accept funding for Stop DWI. Seconded by Trustee Taylor. All ayes. Motion carried. Sewer Projects Neg Dec Trustee Garrison made a motion to adopt Negative Declaration for sewer projects in regards to SEQR. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Trustee Pearson made a motion to adopt the bond resolution for sewer projects. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Intro to Local Law 2 of 2025 – False Alarms Trustee Taylor made a motion to schedule public hearing for Local Law 2 of 2025 – False Alarms for April 15, 2025 at 6:30pm or soon thereafter. Seconded by Trustee Garrison. All ayes. Motion carried. Intro to Local Law 3 of 2025 – Noise Ordinance Trustee Garrison made a motion to schedule public hearing for Local Law 3 of 2025 – Noise Ordinance for April 15, 2025 at 6:30pm or soon thereafter. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. 52 Walker Street Resolution Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to adopt Resolution 13-24-25 for 52 Walker Street. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. 3 ayes. 1 no. Motion failed. 27 Payment of Audited Bills Trustee Garrison made a motion to approve payment of audited bills. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. Executive Session – Employment History of Particular Person, Attorney-Client Deputy Mayor Batson made a motion to enter into executive session to discuss employment history of a particular person, attorney-client. Seconded by Trustee Pearson. All ayes. Motion carried. Reconvene Trustee Garrison made a motion to reconvene the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees. Seconded by Trustee Hall. All ayes. Motion carried. 28