Town Board Meeting January 19th 2021
(Public not permitted due to COVID.)
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Attorney Bavoso – via phone, Police Chief Rickard.
Supervisor Volpe called the meeting to order at 7:30pm following the Pledge of Allegiance.
MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman that the minutes of the January 4, 2021 meeting as submitted are accepted. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
1. Resolution for court audit
2. Letter from Bohler re: OYA Shoddy Hollow Road solar project decommissioning bond
3. Public hearing notice- T/O of Wawayanda re: Zoning & Related Code Amendments 1-19-21 7pm
4. Mortgage tax statement December 2020
5. Complaint re: New Vernon Road
6. Police budget modification
BOARD REPORTS:
Councilman Howell reported that the annual audit for the receipt books for all town departments and the court was completed on January 10 with Councilman Carey. Everything is in order. The paper work for the court was completed. He asked if there’s a way to post when the youth center building is rented. He’s had questions from people about this. If they want to go use the pool table/ping-pong table – how do people know if it’s already being used. Councilman Carey suggested a magnetic sign to be posted on the door. Supervisor Volpe would like to try using the signs.
Councilman Jennings reported that the planning board meeting scheduled for the 20th has been moved to the senior center on Baker Street due to the public hearings. Village board meeting is 1-21-21 is at 7pm. At their last meeting the village approved the parking lot from the railroad for $190,000.00. Diane Loeven had mentioned to him that she’s been getting a lot of calls about the library cards. He’s hoping to have an answer for her tonight.
Councilman Furman reported there is no ZBA meeting for February. On his personal Facebook page for councilman – there’s people that have been putting a lot of things about where to go for the COVID shot. Orange County Office of the Aging is open 9-5 Monday through Friday, 845-615-3700. The county is doing everything they can do to get this right.
Councilman Carey noted that Dollar General is open. He posted something on the town Facebook page as far as what the county shared. He shared information on the Facebook page that he received from the governor’s office. He spoke about the acoustics in the senior center. He looked in to curtains and stuff you can hang on the wall. He is thinking maybe we could do something different with the ceiling in there. He thinks a drop ceiling with certain tiles might solve the problem. We’re not really having a lot of meetings in there. Maybe we can get an estimate. He will call around to get some prices.
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT: (by Supervisor Volpe)
Supervisor Volpe reported that Dean was unable to make the meeting tonight. The sewer plant is moving along. The barn at the park has a big leak in the roof. Dean will get the board some prices. Depending on how big the price is, we may have to put an ad in the newspaper and bid it out. Councilman Carey asked where the line is and if we maintain the barn. Supervisor: 4H owns the barn – part of selling it – we never did a lot line change. The difference is- the town has rights to the barn forever. Exclusive rights to it & exclusive maintenance to it. As long as the town board never says we don’t want it – it’s our forever.
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POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Rickard reported on the budget modification. The federal government pays 50% of the ballistic (bulletproof) vests that we are required by law to purchase for every officer. We lay the $ out and they reimburse us the 50%. It is kept in a separate account (required by law) and maintained by Angie. We are looking to fill the 2nd full time opening. We are done with the canvass. We are done with the interviews. He and Chad will be interviewing someone on Thursday. We hope to have someone to be approved for the next meeting. The police reform & reinvention committee – hopefully everyone has gotten their survey. 60 were done as of today. The committee is meeting Feb 10th at 6:30pm via zoom. Hopefully that night they will adopt our plan which then would go to you guys and shortly thereafter for review at the public hearing and then hopefully adoption after March 1st. He reported that individuals interviewed for certain crimes needed to have it video-recorded. The original video recorder no longer works. It needs to be replaced. He found a replacement with Knight Watch for $1440. He requested a brief executive session.
MOTION TO PURCHASE VIDEO RECORDING SYSTEM FROM KNIGHT WATCH:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Jennings to approve the purchase of a video recorder from Knight Watch @ $1440; funds to come from capital reserve. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE BUDGET MODIFICATION FOR POLICE DEPARTMENT:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman2nd Councilman Howell to approve the following:
Increase Police Fees A1520 by $2175.00 &
Increase A3120.4 Police Contr. By $2175.00 (ballistic vest reimbursement)
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE JUSTICE COURT AUDIT:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman that the justice records/receipts & docket have been duly examined and that the fines therein collected have been turned over to the proper officials of the Town of Mount Hope as required by law. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
CHIEF RICKARD further reported that he had 5 people out for COVID. The last person came back today. By the end of this week, everyone that wanted a vaccination, will have gotten theirs.
2021 LIBRARY CONTRACT:
Attorney Bavoso reported (via speaker phone) that he spoke to the director of the library and a couple members of the board. As he mentioned in previous emails, they are happy to go back to the one card/household instead of one card per person. The whole household can be registered to use a single card. They are also willing to give a monthly report as to the renewals. The supervisor likes that and he asked Kathleen to call towards the end of November – we had no idea how many cards we had used for the year. We were waiting for a bill. A monthly report will be very beneficial to us. Contract will be effective tomorrow.
MOTION TO AUTHORIZE TOWN SUPERVISOR TO SIGN 2021 LIBRARY CONTRACT WITH PORT JERVIS FREE LIBRARY:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Howell to allow the Supervisor to sign the contract with the Port Jervis Free Library for the year 2021. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
BOHLER/OYA SOLAR DECOMMISSIONING BOND:
Supervisor Volpe asked the attorney if he had the decommissioning letter for OYA. The attorney has seen it but has not had a chance to go over it with Glen. He assumes if it was forwarded to the board that he was okay with it. He will verify for the next meeting.
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Supervisor Volpe added that as with solar farms in the past, we will not be approving this until there is an actual PILOT in place. Shoddy Hollow had reached out to Glen, Dennis & Supervisor Volpe to sit down and talk – maybe due to COVID, the talks kind of just ended. Dennis is aware that we have not set up to have an actual PILOT yet. The Supervisor informed Linda that he doesn’t want the planning board to take action because he doesn’t want them to get approved. Normally part of being approved in the permit the process is to have a PILOT in place. As of today, we do not have a PILOT in place. He doesn’t want to vote on it. The attorney will let Glen know about that as well.
RESOLUTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Furman to approve the bills for Abstracts #1 & #2:
ABSTRACT #1:
GENERAL A: #1-23 $ 64,412.44
GENERAL B: #1-2 $ 12,632.84
HIGHWAY: #1-2 $ 46,635.90
SEWER: #1-4 $ 4,007.82
AND
ABSTRACT #2:
GENERAL A: #24-37 $ 11,852.66
GENERAL B: #3-5 $ 760.97
HIGHWAY: ` #3-8 $ 6,947.15
SEWER: #5 $ 153.41.
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
DISCUSSION ON SHODDY HOLLOW ROAD PROPERTY SBL 6-1-25:
Attorney Bavoso: per the board’s request had sent out contracts to the buyer’s attorney. The buyers have signed. The buyer’s attorney did not send back any proposed changes to the contract. We are happy with this circumstance. He is comfortable with the board voting this evening to allow the supervisor to sign the contract. That officially puts the town under contract for the property and would start the 30-day time period for the permissive referendum pursuant to town law section 64. No questions for the attorney.
MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE SUPERVISOR TO SIGN CONTRACT FOR SALE OF SHODDY HOLLOW ROAD PROPERTY SBL 6-1-25:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Howell to authorize the supervisor to sign the contract for the sale of the property SBL 6-1-25 for $90,000.00. All in favor: Howell, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; ABSTAINED – Carey; motion carried.
**PER TOWN ATTORNEY: any sale of town owned property is subject to permissive referendum which means that there’s a 30-day period where residents will have the opportunity to file a petition for it. Even if we are able to close prior to that 30-day expiration, we won’t be legally allowed to close.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION:
COUNCILMAN CAREY referred to the last meeting that a resident came and the use of the walking path at the town park even though we don’t maintain it or plow it during the winter months. He thinks since a resident came to us and informed us that they’re walking in the snow – he thinks there should be some sort of signage telling people that we don’t maintain the park – whether it be plowing the asphalt or the walking path. Councilman Jennings thought Dean was going to get a quote for a plow for the side by side. Councilman Carey thought we said we weren’t going to maintain it. Councilman Furman asked the attorney what kind of language we would use for a sign(s) at the park. Attorney Bavoso asked if there are set hours for the park. Supervisor: the only sign up there say that it closes at dusk. Bavoso: he will work on it and put something together for next meeting. It’s gonna run along the lines of “please be aware that the town does not currently maintain these trails during the winter months & therefore you are assuming the risk of that lack of maintenance.” He’ll have it ready for next meeting in time to run it by the insurance company as well. Supervisor will run it by the insurance company after he receives it from David and he will have Dean order it. Councilman Carey asked to do this for the dog walking park.
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TOWN BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilman Howell stated that in regards to the remote meeting this evening, being as we’ve got an open to the public tomorrow for the planning board, I feel that the meeting this evening should have been open to the public as well.
MOTION TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to enter into executive session at 7:55pm for police chief contractual issue. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO RECONVENE REGULAR MEETING FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to reconvene regular meeting from executive session at 8:07pm. (NO ACTION WAS TAKEN IN THIS EXECUTIVE SESSION). All in favor: Howell, Carey, Volpe, Jennings, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO INCREASE SALARY FOR POLICE CHIEF for 2021:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to alter the police chief’s salary for the 2021 calendar year to reflect the following number: (original amount was $34,999.00), change the amount to $37,400.00 for 2021 police calendar year. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Volpe, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO ADJOURN:
MOTION offered Councilman Howell 2nd Councilman Carey to adjourn the meeting at 8:08pm. All in favor: Howell, Jennings, Carey, Volpe, Furman; carried.
The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 1, 2021 at 7:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, Town Clerk, RMC
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