Town of Mount Hope Town Board Meeting May 18, 2020

The town board meeting of the Town of Mount Hope Town Board was held at the Mount Hope Town Hall on May 18, 2020 at 7:30pm with the following present: Supervisor Chad Volpe, Councilman Matt Howell, Councilman Brian Carey, Councilman Jim Jennings, Councilman Chris Furman and Town Clerk Kathleen Myers.
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief P. Rickard, Attorney D. Bavoso.

Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Volpe called the meeting to order at 7:30pm.

MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell that the minutes of the May 4, 2020 meeting are accepted as submitted. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

CORRESPONDENCE:
1. (2) police Budget modifications
2. April 2020 Supervisor’s report
3. Supervisor budget modification
4. April 2020 Otisville fire report
5. Howells Fire insurance certificate

COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Councilman Carey reminded everyone of the school elections. Ballots will be mailed out May 26, 2020. They are due back June 9, 2020. Not sure where our #’s are at for the 2020 census. Supervisor Volpe stated they are low. He asked the Supervisor if he heard anything about Orange County Emergency Management office handing reusable cloth masks out. Supervisor stated that was discussed on a conference call last week. They are to be handed out to each county legislator. Not sure who is supposed to be handing them out. Councilman Carey was made aware by the Town of Deerpark. He thinks we should get them in case people want them. Councilman Carey asked the town clerk if we need meals volunteers. She stated no.
Councilman Furman reported there is no ZBA meeting this month. This week is National EMS week. Say thank you if see someone. Last week was National Police week. Thank them as well. He thanked our police department for going above and beyond. The FOTOS car show was cancelled. It was supposed to be later this month. He doesn’t see one happening for June either.
Councilman Howell has a couple updates with summer camp coming up later in this meeting. And, also rescheduling our youth center grand opening.
Councilman Jennings reported the village meeting will be May 21 at 7pm on facebook live and our planning board will meet on May 20 at 7pm via ZOOM.

HIGHWAY:
Supervisor Volpe reported for the highway department. Part of soft opening for phase 1. We need to have 90 days of PPE on hand. He has worked hard with Dean & Paul to make this happen. The court was the last department to be up and running tomorrow. As you can see there’s a new door put in here. This is part of our new protocol. A person comes in, they have to be buzzed in in order to go down the hall. We’ll be able to confine them to that area – get their name, address, phone number, temperature, all a part of being a tracer. So, you can go back in the history. This allows us to be able to go back and say..’John Smith came in here last week, he tested positive’. We can go back and see the data and see we had 6 people in here that day and we can contact them that they were exposed to the virus. The police department is already in compliance. So is the highway department. We have not opened yet to the public here. With the door being done, there will be a clip board on the other side of the wall and primarily it will be Kathleen, Paula & Angie getting somebody at the door. He was waiting on the thermometer for the court. So, all of that information will now go up to the court so they will be in compliance. We are pretty much covered. He was told as of this Friday we are allowed to open the tennis courts. He will get with Dean to take the padlock off. There’s been huge conversations over the restrooms at the park. The way it is right now, if you want to open the restrooms at the park, we have to have an attendant on duty the entire time they are open. After every use it has to be cleaned. This is what would have to be done to open them during phase 1. Self-cleaning porta-potties was something sent to the state to see if that’s acceptable. Councilman Carey requested signage for the restrooms’ doors.

SUMMER RECREATION:
Supervisor Volpe explained that Orange County did not fir the criteria to open this past Friday. As of Friday, we had 5 of the 7 matrix we needed to open. Today we only had 4 of the 7.
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He gave the board a copy of what’s in the hospitalizations. Summer camps are Phase 4. The earliest we would be able to open summer camp would be July 20. His opinion is we should probably cancel.

POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Rickard noted his 2 budget modifications. One is reimbursement from Howells Fire District for training we did for them. The other is reimbursement from Dep Chief Maresca for a class that was cancelled that the reimbursement check was made payable to him instead of the town. He referred to the antibody testing which was done last week. Middletown Medical did the whole town. Police employees all but 2 elected to take it. 3 came back positive for antibodies. The police awards would normally have been this night. We are not able to do them. The police officers that would have been receiving awards are: Cody Hunt, Dedicated service award goes to Sean Burke. Maybe in the fall we can do the awards. Also, Angelo Vellake, Ian Holmes & Nigel Balgobin receiving accommodations for activities ie: arrests, tickets. Today we had people climbing the basketball fence and we had to chase them out. We are getting complaints about speeders. The speed trailer is out around town. Supervisor asked the Chief if he heard anything about the courts re-opening. Chief: Yes, Tuesday the courts are opening separate from the phase opening. That doesn’t mean they’re having court. It means the judges are gonna be back and the clerks will be back. But they’re still no having court. That’s one of the complications we’re having with tickets/arrests. We’ve been told to put them out sometime in the future.

MOTION TO APPROVE POLICE BUDGET MODIFICATIONS:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to approve the following modifications:
Increase revenue A1520 by $175.00 AND increase A3120.4 Police C/e by $175.00 (training reimbursement for Dep Chief Maresca) AND
Increase revenue A1520 by $114.25 AND increase expense A3120.4 by $114.25 (police training to Howells Fire District). All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

MOTION TO APPROVE SUPERVISOR’S BUDGET MODIFICATION:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Howell to approve the following:
Increase A1081 PILOT revenue by $1631.31 AND increase A1330.4 Tax Collector c/e by $1,631.31 (payment done by check sent to us, had no info on it, Angie deposited it & it was supposed to go to Kathleen for tax collecting) All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

MOTION TO APPROVE SUPERVISOR’S REPORT:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Jennings to approve the April 2020 Supervisor’s report. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

SMOKIN’ GRATE BBQ:
Councilman Furman explained re: Connor Wilson – Smokin’ Grate BBQ. This is a food trailer which is usually doing events. There’ are no events going on. He wanted to do something for the community. He would like to park his trailer at our park. He provided insurance. It would be done online. He just needs a spot to park to have people pick up their orders. There would be no interaction other than for people to pick up their food. There wouldn’t be anyone hanging out there eating the food. Mr. Wilson asked Councilman Furman if this was possible. He doesn’t see anything wrong with it. He is from our community and owns a business. Chief Rickard: I don’t think he can do it based on the Governor’s phases. The town is not even allowed to open its doors. The town is not allowed to sell/giveaway food as part of this phase. Discussion on beaches/outside theaters. Councilman Howell asked the attorney: if he had a store on 211, people could pick up from the store, correct? Attorney: correct, but that’s not town property. His concern is it doesn’t sound like anything different than any other facility use because you’re basically letting him use it for a private purpose. They would have to go through that purpose. Additionally, be aware that if you do it for one, you’ll have to do it for everybody that applies for it. I have problems with allowing a private business to operate on the town property. Unless, you’re going to allow anyone to do that. That’s just from the legal prospective. I don’t understand why he couldn’t do this from his home or something like that. Or if he had a friend with a business and a parking lot that you could do the distancing – why they couldn’t do it there. If it’s just location, I understand. But I don’t think it changes it being a facilities use application. Supervisor: when Chris talked to him on Friday, I spoke with him; I said it is something that the board (a) would have to vote on (b) would need an insurance certificate and actually when I got off the phone with Chris, Kathleen said he would need a peddler’s permit. Attorney: I didn’t think about that. Supervisor: me neither. Attorney: things that come up immediately are: hours of operation, proper food permits, anything that you would do for the fair you would have to do for that. Furman: he didn’t want to do it out of his home because he lives on a busy road. He didn’t want to complicate things. If he used someone’s commercial parking lot in the town, would that be in violation of anything? Supervisor: with their permission, he would only need the peddler’s permit. Attorney: it is not what he wants to do – it’s where he wants to do it. On town property – it’s not a good idea. Town Clerk: have him call me so I can tell him everything I need on my end.

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SUMMER REC:
Supervisor asked the board their thoughts. Councilman Howell: confirmed the best-case scenario is July 20 opening? That cuts the camp in ½. I don’t see that makes sense. Who is gonna send their kid to camp for half the time? Unless you modify the cost. We would have to have more kids to cover expenses. We don’t know the guidelines we are gonna have from the state. Councilman Jennings: agrees with Matt. Councilman Furman: He agrees but wants everyone to know it is not our choice but we are being forced by the Governor. Councilman Carey: he agrees. He thinks it’s horrible. People are locked in their house. Some people are not going out. Because of the guidelines – there’s nothing we can do about it. July 20 is best case scenario. Supervisor Volpe will let the county know we are withdrawing our application. I will have it put on our website. With all the timelines, it’s just not feasible to hold it.

YOUTH CENTER:
Supervisor Volpe suggested cancelling the June 19th grand opening. We’ll check again at the next meeting.

MOTION TO CANCEL 2020 SUMMER CAMP:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Supervisor Volpe to cancel the 2020 summer camp due to the restrictions from the Governor’s office and COVID-19. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

SUMMER CONCERT SERIES:
Supervisor Volpe stated that with the concert series we have more flexibility with it. We don’t need to make any changes. He’d like to see if we can have a few if not all concerts.

COMMUNITY DAY 2020/NIGHT OUT AGAINST CRIME:
Supervisor Volpe we talked about moving fireworks to night against crime. That’s a phase 4. Chief Rickard doesn’t see the Night Out Against Crime happening based on the current guidelines from the Governor. Even under phase 4 you’re still not gonna be able to have more than 10 people together. We want to do it but….Supervisor: Mike Romano does a lot of electric for us – he said the guy that sets up the shows, normally by this time, there are 100 towns that have booked dates- nobody has booked dates because they don’t know if they’ll be able to have them.

MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell to approve the following bills (Abstract #19 & #20):
ABSTRACT 19:
GENERAL A: #285-298 $ 8,120.63
GENERAL B: #42-43 $ 3,735.36
HIGHWAY: #72-75 $ 2,622.56
SEWER: #38-39 $ 961.96
AND
ABSTRACT 20:
GENERAL A: #299-312 $ 42,150.30
GENERAL B: #44-48 $ 14,025.16
HIGHWAY: #76-77 $ 17,548.92
SEWER: #40-42 $ 1,411.85.
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilman Jennings: the fair is up in the air. Some upstate have been cancelled but some are still holding out hope.
Councilman Howell: when things open, hopefully the concert series can happen.
Councilman Furman: has 2 happy announcements: his friends Time & Denise’s daughter gave birth this morning to a baby girl. His friend Jackie, who was in need of a kidney, received her kidney last night.
Councilman Carey requested executive session.
Councilman Howell: added that they are working to get the planning board meeting working through facebook live as well.

MOTION TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION FROM REGULAR MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell to enter into executive session at 8:08pm to discuss a personnel issue. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

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MOTION TO RECONVENE REGULAR MEETING FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Howell to reconvene the regular meeting from executive session at 8:21pm. NO ACTION WAS TAKEN AT THIS EXECUTIVE SESSION. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

TOWN CLERK received a message from facebook live:
ROSE PHILLIPS would like for Councilman Carey to email her (she provided her email) with regard to the WIFI at the youth center. She gave her email address. She is looking forward to story times in the resource room with the kids.

Supervisor Volpe reported that City of Middletown is on for their cleanup and Town of Greenville cancelled theirs.

MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman to adjourn the meeting at 8:22pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.

The next meeting is scheduled for June 1, 2020 at 7:30pm at Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk