Town of Mount Hope Town Board Meeting Sep 3, 2019

The town board meeting of the Town of Mount Hope was held at the Mount Hope Town Hall on September 3, 2019 at 7:30pm with the following present: Deputy Supervisor Matt Howell, Councilman Brian Carey, Councilman Jim Jennings, Councilman Chris Furman and Town Clerk Kathleen Myers. NOT PRESENT: Supervisor Chad Volpe.

OFFICIALS PRESENT: D. Bavoso: Attorney, D. Hassenmayer: Highway Supt., P. Rickard: Police Chief.

Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Deputy Supervisor Howell called the meeting to order at 7:30pm & asked audience to silence cell phones. He called for a moment of silence in memory of the late Senator Bill Larkin.

MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Furman that the minutes of the August 19, 2019 meeting are accepted as submitted. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

CORRESPONDENCE:
1. Resignation from Court Officer Ramon Rodriguez effective immediately
2. Resignation from Highwayman Bobby Wickham effective 9-4-2019
3. 2019/2020 Orange County Snow/Ice Agreement for approval
4. Park bench dedication request from Alex Chun
5. Howells Fire District fuel agreement
6. Police budget modification

COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Councilman Jennings: The village board meeting is 9-5-19 at 7pm. Town planning board meeting is 9-18-2019 at 7pm.
Councilman Furman: There’s no ZBA meeting this month. He congratulated the MV Youth football league on their opening day. All 3 teams beat Newburgh. He stated to Dean, that he received the insurance certificate but they put the wrong address on it. They are working on it.
Councilman Carey: Back to school tomorrow. Watch out for kids walking and buses. He spoke about handicap parking at the park. There’s very limited parking at that pavilion. Is there any way to do something with the dirt road to make handicap parking off the fence? Dean: every concert we’ve gone to this year has had cars parked on both sides of that road. People are using it. To make it handicap, it needs to be more of a solid surface. We have millings to put on it or pave it. Whatever you guys desire. It is used as a parking area. The parking area between the tennis and pavilion is limited. It always has been – the way it was laid out and built. Discussion on parking. Dean further explained the septic system for that bathroom is on that hill but it’s 50’ off the property line. If you so desire, we can continue the road down and around. At the bottom of the hill there always was a road. Councilman Carey will put pictures online of the pickle ball, tennis courts & basketball courts being lined. He noted the newsletter was going out today and tomorrow. He clarified with Town Clerk who said it is being prepped to go out but none were out yet. The early voting schedule is in the newsletter. He attended a C/T/V meeting with Councilman Furman last week in Newburgh. Discussion there was the passing of a resolution by municipalities for “17 FORWARD 86”. He gave Attorney a sample resolution for his review. This initiative is to make three lanes on Route 17 from Harriman up to Sullivan County.
Dep. Supervisor Howell: He noted the change in the next meeting date for the town board meeting. It was changed from 9-16-19 to 9-23-19. There will be a budget meeting 1st at 6:00pm then the town board meeting at 7:30pm. The 2nd budget meeting will be on Sept. 30, 2019 at 6pm. The Veteran’s parade will be November 9, 2019 starting at 11:00am.
Councilman Carey added that the budget meetings are not recorded.

HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT:
Supt. Hassenmayer noted (to Councilman Furman) that he needs to add more garbage cans at the football field. He will have them there for the next weekend. He reported that they started on the new playground equipment install at the park today. The area was fenced off & they started to remove the older playground equipment. They’re in process of digging up the swings to be relocated. Councilman Carey spoke re: football insurance certificate. Councilman Furman explained the address being incorrect. A corrected certificate will be provided. Councilman Furman noted that the tennis, basketball & pickle ball courts look good. He asked Dean if he could seek prices for the Hidden Valley office for siding, doors, windows. Discussion followed. Dean explained it is a special district. Any work out of “D” should be billed to that special district. Dean can solicit prices. He will meet with Councilman Furman to discuss this.
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POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Rickard noted the budget modification is for the fair costs reimbursement. He added that there is a level 2 sex offender living in the village now; it’s an offense from 20 years ago. When he gets more info from the state he will pass it on. School starts tomorrow. We are all set with the SRO’s.

VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
Trustee Loeven confirmed the date of the sexual harassment class. It is 9-18-2019 at the senior center 6:00pm. She thanked the police department for the ‘no parking signs’ by the federal prison entrance. Additionally, she spoke re: the village hall/Seybolt Avenue intersection. The ‘left turn yield’ sign that the county put up is gone. Chief Rickard will check on this. Discussion on the trucks loading/unloading on Main Street in the village. Signage was put up but not being adhered to. Chief Rickard will have officers patrol there more often.

FINCHVILLE TURNPIKE SPEED LIMIT:
Attorney Bavoso explained that because of the towns ‘type 2’ designation, our town cannot change the speed limit by a local law. This board would have to get together with the orange county highway superintendent; this board would pass a resolution going along with the county supt. recommendation to the dept. of transportation where they would have to change the rule regarding that particular road. The D.O.T. has the say in it however the town & county supts. would have to request that from the D.O.T. Chief Rickard added that the last time we attempted to do that was on Greenville Turnpike and when he reached out to the county, they said the town has to hire a firm to do a traffic study at the town’s expense. The county will not do that. They will then look at the data from a professional company and they would then make a recommendation on lowering it. Councilman Carey asked if there’s a way to put the speed trailer somewhere for the game in 3 weeks to get some info from that and if we do go the next step to the county to show them this is the data out of our machine. Chief: we can do that. The county said this is why we went to this system because every town wants to lower the speed limit & this is the way to separate the serious ones from the neighbor saying ‘people are speeding past my house’. If it’s really an issue the town will pay the $5000 for the speed survey. Supt. Hassenmayer added that 10-11 years ago we could fill out a TE-9, send it to the county they would sign off on it & send it up to the D.O.T. The D.O.T. would fund/hire the traffic study. The state changed the law years ago, a few years after we had the speed limit changed by the elementary school, they changed the law. The lower municipality is just who pays for it that’s different. Chief: we’ve been going, Chad, myself & Janet Sutherland is gonna help us with this. We can’t even get a speed limit sign put on Greenville Turnpike forget lowering – the county won’t even put a sign there. Just to get the ‘no parking’ signs was quite a big deal. We got rejected the 1st time through. Late June we got them to take another look at it. Councilman Carey: if we get you a copy of the football/little league schedule – is it possible maybe next year look at it a couple times? Councilman Furman: I brought this up because I sat there during the opening ceremony and watched cars come up over that hill, and looking at the kids that were there, & the speed limit turned from 45 to 30 right there at the barn, & I got thinking now we have 4H there as well. In a few years hopefully 4H will get busier. He’d like it to go back beyond 4H so hopefully people are slowing down. Chief: we don’t have the same issues with little league as we do with football. Chief will assign someone on Sunday – shoot me a schedule. Attorney Bavoso asked if there is a reason you can’t put a ‘reduced speed ahead’ sign somewhere on that road. H’way Supt.: I just made a note to check the signs – we do have up by the barn ‘reduced speed ahead’ because technically the end of the road is 30MPH where it reaches the village.

RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT RESIGNATION FROM COURT OFFICER RAMON RODRIGUEZ:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to accept resignation from Court Officer Ramon Rodriguez effective immediately. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT RESIGNATION FROM HIGHWAY WORKER BOBBY WICKHAM:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Jennings to accept resignation from Highway worker Bobby Wickham effective 9-4-2019. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

MOTION TO APPROVE 2019-2020 SNOW & ICE AGREEMENT WITH COUNTY OF ORANGE:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to authorize the supervisor to sign the 2019-2020 Snow & Ice Agreement with the County of Orange for certain county roads for $4,800.00/mile for a total of 9.18miles. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

PARK BENCH DEDICATION REQUEST:
Highway Superintendent would like to see this program discontinued as we have enough benches for the park.

MOTION TO DISCONTINUE PARK BENCH PROGRAM:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to discontinue the park bench program.
All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.
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RESOLUTION TO APPROVE THE FUEL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE HOWELLS FIRE DISTRICT AND THE TOWN OF MOUNT HOPE:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Jennings to approve the fuel agreement between the Howells Fire District and the Town of Mount Hope& authorize any town official to sign on behalf of the town. (Disclosure: Councilman/Deputy Supervisor Howell has no connection to this fire district.) All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

FUEL TANK INSPECTION:
Highway Supt. Hassenmayer reported the fuel system/log-in was inspected last Tuesday. We were cited with 2 violations on each of the major tanks out front for a lack of a spill bucket test. It’s a test that wasn’t conducted last year when we had our annual testing. He received notice of the violations & we have 30 days to have the test done with no penalties. The test is scheduled for next week. It’s gonna cost us probably around $600 by the time we’re done to have these tests done.

MOTION TO APPROVE POLICE DEPARTMENT BUDGET MODIFICATIONS:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to approve the following:
Increase revenue #1520 by $2,018.88 and
Increase revenue #3120.4 by $2,018.88. (for police service to Otisville Country fair.)
All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Furman; carried.

MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Furman to approve the following bills (Abstract #24 & Abstract #25):
Abstract #24
GENERAL A: #543-546 $49,462.36.
AND
Abstract #25
GENERAL A: #547-555 $10,492.32
GENERAL B: #68 $ 2,997.06
HIGHWAY: #117-118 $21,256.77
SEWER: #70-72 $ 1,271.62
All in favor: Howell, Furman, Jennings, Carey; carried.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
Alison Miller clarified the date for the 2nd meeting in September being 9/23. Deputy Supervisor stated this meeting was moved from the 16th. She reminded everyone of the FOTOS tricky tray on October 5.
Diane Loeven spoke re: senior trip September 16-19.
H’Way Supt. spoke re: Pingotti Blacktop Maintenance; they will be re-doing both parking lots at no charge
MaryBeth Horzepa confirmed there is no ZBA meeting this month with her mother-in-law Linda Franck.

BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilman Jennings commented that school starts tomorrow. Wished all a good year.

MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to adjourn the meeting at 8:03pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Jennings, Furman; carried.

The next town board meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 23, 2019 at 7:30pm at Town Hall. Budget meeting will be at 6:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk

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