Town of Mount Hope Town Board Meeting July 20, 2020
The town board meeting of the Town Board of the Town of Mount Hope was held at the Mount Hope Town Hall on July 20, 2020 at 7:30pm with the following present: Supervisor Chad Volpe, Councilman Matt Howell, Councilman Chris Furman, Councilman Brian Carey, Councilman Jim Jennings and Town Clerk Kathleen Myers.
OFFICIALS PRESENT: D. Bavoso- Attorney, D. Hassenmayer- Highway Supt.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Volpe called the meeting to order at 7:30pm & asked audience to silence cell phones.
MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman that the minutes of the July 6, 2020 meeting are accepted as submitted. All in favor: Howell, Volpe, Carey, Furman, Jennings; carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
- April/May/June mortgage tax receipts from Orange County
- Supervisor’s budget modification
- Supervisor’s report June 2020
- Block party request from Arina Soler (resident at 14 Franklin Lane)
- T/O Mamakating public hearing notice re: Vacation Campground local law July 21, 2020 @ 6:30pm
- Building dept monthly reports March/April/May/June 2020
- Palmer’s Ark impound report June 2020
- Travel advisory letter by Councilman Furman
- Highland Ave bridge replacement letter by Councilman Howell
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Councilman Howell drafted the letter for the Highland Ave bridge replacement with assistance from the town attorney in support of the village and towns request to use Highland Ave bridge replacement Main Street extension as a pass road. He hopes to persuade the county to see our point of view. The grand opening for the youth center is all set for Friday.
Councilman Jennings reported the village meeting was this past Thursday. It was quiet. The fire house is working on their alarm system. He talked to Chris and will walk with him on Saturday to look at the fields at the town park.
Councilman Furman reported the ZBA will meet Aug. 5th at 7pm. MVYFC sign-ups are complete as of July 17. Their season schedule is starting August 24th. Check their website or facebook page will keep you updated. MV school district will hold graduation in 8 small ceremonies in 2 days (4/day) on July 30 & July 31. Check website for more details. HV sewer district, either Friday or today, they were supposed to start testing smoking the lines to see where some intrusions are coming in. There were 2 pumps that failed that have been replaced. In the near future, we will be doing some updates to the lab building. FOTOS is selling $5 tickets to win Disney park hopper pass/valued at $1,000 for 4 tickets and good ‘til July 2021. The drawing is Aug 1st. Check the FOTOS facebook page for the website. They are also doing a virtual tricky tray fundraiser you can join on the facebook page. FOTOS received a grant for $5,000 for recycling receptacles to be used at the school and around town. He congratulated the CLASS of 2020 and wished them good luck. He wrote a travel advisory letter in reference to the NYC metropolitan area which he read into the record. In short, he advised residents to avoid going to NYC & if you have to, to use extreme caution. He further cited some key highlights from this month’s crime statistics. (Letter will be on file in the town clerk’s office.) He appreciates our police department and would never vote to defund them.
Councilman Carey apologized for not being at last meeting; he was stuck working. He congratulated Patricia Reynolds on her win for the MV school board seat. She was sworn in July1. Facebook likes: 1500, 1558 followers. He posted about buying EZ PASS from the town clerk’s office. MH youth center applications: 1/household. Applications are online, at town hall, can be emailed and available at village hall. Return them to town hall. He has a concern with our court using the senior center. Library cards was another big thing as far as putting a fee on them. Otisville little league contacted him for projects the town could help with at the park. He will get more detail from Brian as to what they would like. Supervisor Volpe asked if their season was done. Councilman Carey and Dean were talking about this before the meeting. He will find out. He knows they did a cement slab for the bleachers. He received pictures.
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HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT:
Supervisor Volpe asked Dean what the concrete was by the D field. Supt. Hassenmayer had a couple guys working at the shop on the screening plant before we towed it in here from the gravel bank. He is down to a 4-man crew so he took advantage and did some park work. Beginning of last week, we roto-tilled our softball field and turned over the dirt. Guys did an excellent job. While we were there, there was on bleacher that was moved out of the way for the new playground; never had a pad so we could leave it there so you could leave it there and mow around it instead of moving it every week. We did that. We tried to do the catchfence/safety fence/netting that’s way up high because it has fallen down. It’s hung by a steel cable; it rusted and broke. We wanted to borrow the lifting basket from the village’s loader from the village to lift personnel up to fix it but they were using it today. That should get done tomorrow. Supervisor Volpe noticed a new pad poured at the new walking trail for the bench. Dean stated it was poured a while ago with some extra concrete we had. The walking paths were repaired last week; especially the newer one. It got beat up with the heavy down pours. Supervisor Volpe thanked him for meeting with him and Councilman Furman at the sewer plant. He knows we have a little bit of work ahead of us. Dean added that the rec center – the parking area that was paved and striped – we ran out of blue paint. There will be handicapped spots. He reported the floor guy is making good progress. It will be close for Friday. He did the outside border. Tomorrow he’s doing the inside. They worked all day Saturday. Supervisor thanked everyone that’s been there for not leaking pictures because he wants it to be a surprise. Dean reported there’s an issue with the chimney and the gym. The insulation guy put a plastic bag over it & water got in it and collected water. The leak has been taken care of. There’s also a leak that developed in the police station again. The guys have worked on that over the years 3 or 4 times. He explained the vent pipe from the restroom area and the hole in the tin roof. He’s aware of it. He will try to get someone there to fix it. Supervisor Volpe added that the restrooms at the park will be closed for 4 days. Dean stated the power will be turned off at the park. Mike has scheduled O&R to turn it back on Thursday. He asked Brian to put it on facebook. It will be open for fireworks.
POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Supervisor Volpe spoke with Paul today about a couple things. Everything is A-OK. To reiterate, he’s already working on the 2021 budget and there’s no intention to defund the police.
VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
Trustee Loeven reported that the wiring is being upgraded at the fire house so that’s why we don’t hear the whistles blowing. Rather than the alarm getting tripped every 5 minutes, that’s been shut down. The outside of the building will be painted – they’re deciding on the colors. Between that and the new roof – that’ll be a real nice face lift. In the fireman’s hall, we are upgrading the bathrooms to be handicap accessible. They are soliciting bids. They would like to find a local contractor who would like to bid on this. They have not had a lot of people showing interest in this because it is not a major job. When you have a small job, it’s hard to get people to bid. It doesn’t require a lot of moving plumbing. We’re not jackhammering the floor. It’s a matter of making doorways wider, arranging some things, changing out the stalls so that one of them is wide enough. If anyone knows any local contractors, have them call village hall.
CONCERT SERIES:
Supervisor Volpe wanted to make sure the village knows about the concerts which just came together on Sunday. And confirmed with Diane that she would relay to her board about the grand opening. She put it out to 150 Mount Hope seniors. Councilman Carey added that he got this flier today but he won’t post it until after the grand opening so as not to take away from the grand opening.
YOUTH CENTER:
Supervisor Volpe has tried his hardest to make sure, now that it’s changed a couple of times, if there’s anyone that anybody thinks of that we need to extend an invite to, I know Rose has done a good job of inviting anyone that has contributed to her room. I had Kathleen reach out to John Bonacic way back when it was in March. He’ supposed to be sending his daughter in his place. He reached out to Aileen Gunther. If anyone thinks of anyone, feel free to invite them.
FIREWORKS:
Supervisor Volpe noted we talked about this at the last meeting. Everything looks great for that. Parking is from 7-8:45. At 8:45, Finchville will be shut down until all fireworks are shut down. Dean will take care of the sand this week.
PROPOSED LOCAL LAW ENTITLED: BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM LAW:
Attorney Bavoso spoke re: proposed local law for battery storage. Prior to shut down, he sent everyone a copy of the proposed local law for ‘Battery Energy Storage System’ that would go into the zoning. This is for facilities that are battery warehouses that collect solar energy & hold it so that once they do start filling up the slots for selling then they can sell it out of there as well. He will resend the law tomorrow morning. This would not affect the 2 applications before the planning board now.
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MOTION TO SCHEDULE PUBLIC HEARING FOR PROPOSED LOCAL LAW ENTITLED: BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM LAW:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Howell to set a public hearing for proposed local law entitled: Battery Energy Storage System, on August 3, 2020 at 7:30pm at town hall. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE SUPERVISOR’S BUDGET MODIFICATION:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Carey to approve the modification as follows:
Increase revenue B1560 Safety Inspection Fee by $3,000.00
Increase expense line B3620.4 Safety Inspection c/e by $3,000.00.
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
2020 NEWSLETTER:
Supervisor Volpe would like all information for the newsletter emailed to him by August 14, 2020 & he’d like for the highway supt to have the spring cleanup dates in his article. He would like the building department to do a tear out centerfold for items needing permits as a quick reference.
MOTION TO ACCEPT SUPERVISOR’S MONTHLY REPORT:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Jennings to accept the June 2020 supervisor’s report as presented. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
BLOCK PARTY REQUEST / ARINA SOLER:
Everyone received this via email. Councilman Howell asked if the board has to do anything with this request. Supervisor stated the board would have to do something if they wanted to shut down one of the town roads. They would have to get permission to do this. The letter doesn’t ask for that. The attorney needs to see the proposal to answer the question. (Attorney was given letter review while board moved forward with agenda.)
2021 BUDGET:
Supervisor Volpe is already working on next years budget which we had a sales tax/county call on Friday. A few meetings ago, even Dean was concerned about the CHIPS money. He found out on Friday how they are actually doing that. NYS sales tax comes in, a % goes to the county & a % goes to NYS. The % that goes to NYS has always funded the CHIPS money. Now, they put it on the county because of COVID. So, the pot for the county has gotten smaller because of sales tax revenue; now off the top, C/O Middletown, V/O Otisville etc. – everybody’s CHIPS money gets paid and now we split what’s left. This changes the %’s. We originally forecasted 11-15% difference in sales tax revenue. It’s gonna be more like 18-22% because of these changes which triggered him into budget mode. Kathleen will be sending out the budget sheets. They need to be back by the middle of August. He would like to have budget meetings before the 2 board meetings in September (8th & 21st). Ad needs to go in paper.
MOTION TO SCHEDULE 2021 BUDGET MEETINGS:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to schedule to 2021 Budget meetings on September 8, September 21 & October 5 (if needed) at 5:30pm before the regular town board meeting. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
BLOCK PARTY REQUEST / ARINA SOLER:
Attorney Bavoso followed up on the letter from Ms. Soler re: block party request. It doesn’t appear that she wants to shut down the street. You may want to clarify that. He would also suggest that she give notice to her neighbors as he sees that she wants to have live entertainment. Supervisor and Town Clerk will follow up with Ms. Soler.
MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Carey to approve the following bills (Abstract #28 & Abstract #29):
ABSTRACT #28:
GENERAL A: #398-415 $46,444.20
GENERAL B: #60-63 $11,733.15
HIGHWAY: #107-115 $87,496.98
SEWER: #56-57 $ 1,128.19
AND
ABSTRACT #29:
GENERAL A: #416-425 $ 6,057.97
HIGHWAY: #99-104 $46,976.59
SEWER: #58-60 $ 559.20
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
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PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
Rich Rebman asked why the board wanted to get rid of library cards. Supervisor doesn’t want to get rid of them. Rebman: the town is not gonna pay for them now. Supervisor: everyone that would want to do it would pay for their own library card. Rebman asked why that would be. Supervisor stated it’s just a proposal. Supervisor: the amount of uses compared to what we used to have – considering we are gonna have a resource room with internet access which any resident is going to be able to use. Furthermore, 8,000 residents & only 100 residents actually get it so those 8,000 residents…Rebman: it doesn’t go by residents. It goes by household. Supervisor: regardless, there’s a lot more households that don’t use it. Rebman: it doesn’t hurt; you got how many millions in surplus? Councilman Carey asked what we did with this last meeting. It was brought up obviously because of sales tax not coming in that we normally would get. It was brought up as a proposal. Supervisor: I basically went through every item that the town could…. and it’s my idea to come up with the ideas & if the town board is good with it, that’s great. If they think it’s a horrible idea, that’s fine, too. Councilman Carey: ultimately, the goal is to raise certain amounts of money to generate so we don’t have to raise taxes which haven’t been raised in the last 6 years. I think that’s where the idea came from was to generate money other ways so we wouldn’t have to raise taxes. I’m sure when we sit through our meetings, we’ll figure out a way so we don’t have to do that. Rebman: you’re not generating money that way. The items he was talking about was raising the cemetery and town fees. It’s a small hit on the budget. It was said that for library cards, I have a card, everybody has to pay. Why does everybody have to pay? Why wouldn’t it just come out of my taxes? Diane brought up a good point, not everybody is gonna use everything. There’s not many things we get out here. I understand about the resource room. What’s gonna be in the resource room? Councilman Carey: come Friday at 5pm and you can see it. And, again there’s only gonna be a certain amount of people that use that.
Diane Loeven asked about the fireworks. At their meeting last week she announced when fireworks were gonna be and said people were free to bring food if they wanted, but that there would be no vendors because that’s what was announced. Brian was at the meeting and said there wouldn’t be vendors. Supervisor: 2 vendors, there’s 3 people. There’s Smokin’ Grate BBQ, Blueberry Mountain – which are both Mount Hope residents. And, the Otisville Boy Scouts Troop 1 will assist with parking cars. Touchless car parking. They will put a donation bucket out. There’s no fee to park but a donation if you want. The 2 food vendors still have to apply to the county because it is food to make sure they have whatever they had. They have to have hand sanitizer at their place & proper PPE in order to do any kind of service. Councilman Jennings added that there is nothing on the fliers for the fireworks that there will be vendors. Supervisor: that’s because it was a last-minute thing. Jennings: when did this change? From last meeting ‘til now? Supervisor: I reached out to 2 vendors. Jennings: should we open it up? Carey: I have no problem with it. Supervisor: opening it up to what? Jennings: to other food vendors to give other people an opportunity to sell stuff. Councilman Furman: I think the reason is, the 2 vendors are in our town. I know for a fact that Smokin’ Grate, Connor, has had the worst year he’ll ever have, hopefully, because his business is all based on that. He doesn’t see a problem with it. Supervisor: I had no intention of opening it up. Councilman Howell: food vendors makes sense but other things like arts& crafts. Jennings: was referring to food vendors not arts & crafts. Further discussion ensued. Supervisor asked Councilman Jennings if he would want to get food vendors for the concert series. Supervisor has 1st 4 weeks booked with bands. If anyone knows of other bands/singers, he will show them how to do the flier so we can add to it. Ms. Loeven spoke re: concert series and food vendors. It’s a limited amount of time. She suggested the not-for-profits perhaps selling stuff. If you’re going to look at having anything like that, that might be where you would likely have more people interested. Supervisor: if anyone wants to spear head getting people to be vendors, can do it. Furman: doesn’t have a problem doing it. Maybe if there’s that many they can share weeks.
PROPOSED FEES & PENALTIES:
Supervisor spoke re: fees list from last meeting. He noted that driveway permit can be done by resolution. Burial fee – resolution. Attorney will check on this with Kathleen as it may require notification to the state. Cremation- resolution. Clean-up fee – keep track of the hours and bill it. Attorney: amount would be done by resolution the attachment to taxes will require a local law. Supervisor: cemetery plots by resolution. Hauling – resolution. Games of chance done by resolution. Library cards – resolution. Towing allows town board to set by resolution. Municipal search will change it to building department fees then by resolution. Application fee – resolution. Mailing list – resolution. Attorney confirmed the above, he will check on games of chance; added that if you wanted any change to the code is if you want the provision in your taxation law that if these fees aren’t paid within a certain time, that they then get attached to the property taxes of the person responsible for taxes. Supervisor added that he and David spoke with the building dept prior. There’s a couple issues with a house that was condemned. And another issue with a house that clearly needs a fence around their pool. Both issues have gotten to the point where they need a court. We’ve don’t everything on our end. Our court has been closed. On our end violations were sent. People closed on a house that clearly said on the title search “do not close”; there’s no fence around the pool. They closed anyway. We are aware of it. David/Glenn are working with the building dept to schedule court appearances. Attorney: at the moment the summons would be for a date after reopening is scheduled to take place. If needed, that could be rescheduled by the court. Councilman Jennings is the liaison for the court. Councilman Carey is aware the court wants to use the senior center due to volume of people coming in.
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Councilman Carey continued: Right now, you can rent the senior center for up to 50 people. He thinks it’s insane to allow the court to use the senior center. We have people coming to court probably not local, maybe some of them are, but the majority are probably from out of town. With COVID going on, I don’t think it is the smartest idea to allow people from out of town to come through the senior center, then to allow the seniors and renters to start using it. The concern needs to be, we can sanitize to get around this but, I don’t see what the issue is to use the current court. He knows there was a discussion about having 3 court officers not 2. My opinion on this, I think it’s crazy that we would allow them to have court in the senior center. Supervisor: I was contacted to help them as to how they can re-open. I’m on pretty much every conference call, but I don’t know if there’s some sort of court protocol. I’m not privy to that. When they originally asked, I did openly offer them the senior center as a solution. They could come in one way – go out the other way. Court has had zero revenue the last 3 months. Not just our courts – no courts. I wanted things to be expedited. I met with the court clerks, officers & justices – I went over my vision if we were moving out of the court to the senior center. It seemed like it was a doable, feasible way of limiting the amount of people that came in. And then, a few days after our 2-hour meeting, the board received an email asking for additional resources. We talked about it a little at the last meeting. Somebody suggested a site visit. It seemed like towards the end of our meeting that we were set on the idea of where in the senior center you could let 1/2/3 people in then have the rest of the people waiting outside. Once the court kinda went through a bit, you would screen the next set of people. That being said, obviously, it could be done the same way at the court where one court officer stays in the court scans you in….if it’s 50% you could 30 people in the court and you hold maybe 10, as the justices go through the arraignments and they let 3-4 people go, the next 3-4 people can come in. Rotate to the back of the room. In my opinion, it wouldn’t slow the justices down because they have behind the scenes….even if things are adjourned, each person’s case is called, it takes a few minutes for each case. That was my feeling after that meeting that it could be done that way. Councilman Howell added that he asked John Goldsmith why they needed more personnel and the short answer he gave “is because of the restrictions from COVID capacities, because of the building & the %’s and there’s only 1 way in – 1 way out”. Supervisor added that he knows they talked about having Dean move over the metal detector. It looks easy; but he would have to have Dean look at it. Councilman Carey doesn’t think it’s a great idea to do this. Councilman Jennings will reach out to John & Joe about this. Discussion ensued with court times.
BOARD COMMENTS:
Supervisor Volpe: as of today, the senior centers can be opened but the CDC has zero protocol for seniors to do exercise & have regular meetings. If you go to NYS website for CDC guidelines, there’s zero guidance.
Councilman Carey looks forward to the grand opening and the fireworks. He has scissors and ribbon.
Councilman Furman looks forward to the grand opening and the fireworks.
Councilman Howell had the letter for the Highland Avenue bridge replacement/Main Street extension. He read this into the record. It’s not feasible to send people and emergency services on an 11-mile detour. Supervisor Volpe added that the town and village DPW could help with this project. They will try to talk to Aileen Gunther about this at the grand opening.
Councilman Jennings hopes to see everyone at the grand opening.
Supervisor Volpe added that the fireworks show is honoring the local 1st responders. He thinks they got a bad rap lately. I personally appreciate everything they do. Fireworks are donated by Mike Romano electric. Our safety is provided by Mount Hope police, Otisville fire & Howells fire.
Diane Loeven thanked Matt for putting the letter together for the bridge replacement.
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Carey to adjourn the meeting at 8:50pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Furman, Jennings; carried.
The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 3, 2020 at 7:30pm at Town Hall.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk
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