Town Board Meeting February 5th, 2024
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief M. Maresca, Highway Supt. D. Hassenmayer.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Rickard called the meeting to order at 7:30pm.
MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Carey that the minutes of the January 16, 2024 meeting are accepted as submitted. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
1. Proposed 2024 snow plow contract with Cornell Cooperative Ext.
2. Resignation from Police Officer John Erps, effective 1-26-2024
3. Firearms Policy for review
4. Meeting minutes from American Legion 1-24-2024
5. Community Advisory Board meeting minutes 1/23/2024
6. Little League liability insurance
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
BOARD REPORTS:
Councilmember Jennings: A couple different dates for the easter egg hunt were discussed. The board agreed on March 24, 2024 2PM with a rain date of March 30. He thanked Marie (Bubilo) for her help with the new phone system install.
Councilmember Furman: ZBA meets 2/7/2024 at 7pm. Football fundraiser went well. Chinese language classes are going well. Senior craft sale went well. He attended a meeting with the towns & associations – there was a lot updated with the county. He asked if the town could help with the cost of the hardware/brackets to hang the veterans banners. Private donations will be accepted by the Phil Adamson or Heidi Phillips. Municipalities are not allowed to do this. Discussion ensued re: letter from J. Zoll with regard to proposed new development next to Hidden Valley and the proximity to the power lines.
Councilmember Carey: she met with the little league and Paul & Dean about the fields. She attended a meeting to discuss the concert series bands. Series will run from 7-8-2024 thru 8-16-2024. The sledding hill in the village now has safety rules posted – it is available for sledding. Village will be putting in new playground equipment and new tables at their park. DMV mobile unit will be at village hall on 2/16/2024. Fire calls: 15 medical calls, 5 mutual aid, one CO alarm, one automatic alarm, one brush fire, one car fire. Little league pancake breakfast will be 3-10-2024. She attended the senior craft sale. Linda Renner thanked the town for advertising for the senior craft sale.
Councilmember Davis met with the Asian American advisory committee on 1/31. Planning board will meet on the 21st at 7pm. Next town board meeting will be on February 26 due to holiday and AOT meeting in NYC.
Supervisor Rickard: He received a letter from Pike County library re: current contract which expires 3-19-2024. The price will go up $5/card. We can vote on this at next meeting. The new phone system is up and running. We have some difficulties with it & trying to work them out. The police department needed 9 phones and only received one. He spoke re: lack of ambulance service. County exec has held 2 meetings. Governor’s budget proposal is to make ambulance service mandatory for municipalities. There’s no financial pick up for us. If this gets mandated – we have to pay for it. There’s no state aid for this. He spoke with Grenville and Wawayanda town supervisors. Greenville already has an ambulance service. There’s been discussion for Mount Hope and Wawayanda to go in on this together so we could afford the 24-hour ambulance service. It would all have to be worked out. This will apply to the village as well.
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT:
Supt. Hassenmayer discussed the gutters on the youth center building. When the building was 1st refurbed, they put gutters on the gym side not on the kitchen side. If you want them, we have to start getting estimates. The trees were cut and the fence cleared out at the sewer plant. The guys have been working pretty steady out here in the addition. Bruce’s carpet may be here next week. After the flooring is down, we’ll go back and finish the molding. Supervisor Rickard: the insurance company gave us a $500 credit for the tree cutting.
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POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Maresca noted the firearms policy. Councilmember Jennings had a ? on the rifle portion. Chief: personal rifles was the addition to the policy. Jennings: do the personal rifles get checked. Chief: yes. That’s part of the requirement. Has to be approved, checked, and you have to qualify. This is going to be very restrictive. Supervisor Rickard: I spoke to Selective, our insurance carrier, on the rifle policy. They said as long as the rifles are inspected on a regular basis – they had no problem with it. Councilmember Davis asked is we have a range master. Chief: we do and we are sending Curt soon to the next class.
VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
The mayor thanked the town for housing one of the firetrucks at town hall while there is masonry work done at the firehouse. The village gave 31 poles for the VFW to use for the banners.
LITTLE LEAGUE FIELD EXPANSION:
Supervisor Rickard, Keri & Dean met with some little league members. They want to build a field opposite the “C” field. They will pay for everything 100%.
TOWN HALL ADDITION:
Supervisor Rickard noted the new addition is quickly coming to the finish. The door was moved down. Tomorrow NAS is coming. The window coverings/blinds, flooring & furniture is left to do. We got 2 quotes for the blinds – we couldn’t get a 3rd. Lowest bid is from Custom Drapery for $2,784.00. The other bid was TWG (the company that did the current blinds) – their bid is $4,168.00. The flooring was Bruce’s Carpet as the low bidder for $6,587.00. OGS website was $11,217.00. Floor Covering International of Middletown was $11,072.28. He recommends going with Bruce. He went with Keri, Amanda & Marie to look at furniture at a state contract price. They quoted $21,249.56 and we have $28,000 in office equipment reserve. Councilmember Jennings asked to get copies of the quotes so he could see what they’re getting. He asked about the chairs for the board members. He asked what kind of chairs they’d be getting. Councilmember Carey explained what they look like. Supervisor explained that the quote includes 5 new chairs for the board room. For the office, it will be one chair per desk and one chair for a guest. He noted a price quote error with a difference of $38.88 = $21,287.74.
MOTION TO APPROVE FURNITURE PURCHASE FOR TOWN HALL ADDITION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Carey 2nd Councilmember Furman to purchase the furniture from the equipment reserve from Hudson Valley Office Furniture for $21,287.74. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE WINDOW COVERINGS PURCHASE FOR TOWN HALL ADDITION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Carey 2nd Councilmember Furman to approve the purchase for the blinds/window coverings from Custom Drapery for $2,784.00. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman; NAY-Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE CARPET/FLOORING PURCHASE FOR TOWN HALL ADDITION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Carey to purchase the flooring from Bruce’s Carpet for $6,587.00. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman; NAY-Jennings; carried.
PAYROLL SERVICES PROPOSAL:
Supervisor Rickard spoke re: payroll services. The accountant recommended going with a payroll service for the town. They recommended Paychex. They sent a proposal. Board members received a copy of their proposal. This would be to switch from internal payroll and from KKBN doing the reporting and the W2’s to having a contract with Paychex to do the payroll. Councilmember Jennings thinks we should do electronic timestamps for all departments. He noted a company called Paycheck Iris. Supervisor Rickard added that highway uses electronic timecards, police do a physical sign in, the court has a time clock and, in this building, we have a fingerprint reader. Discussion.
MOTION TO AUTHORIZE THE TOWN SUPERVISOR TO SIGN AN AGREEMENT WITH PAYCHEX:
MOTION offered Councilmember Carey 2nd Councilmember Furman to authorize the town supervisor to sign the agreement with Paychex to start doing our payroll. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT RESIGNATION FROM POLICE OFFICER JOHN ERPS:
MOTION offered Councilmember Jennings 2nd Councilmember Carey to accept the resignation from Police Officer John Erps effective January 26, 2024. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT THE FIREARMS POLICY AS AMENDED:
MOTION offered Councilmember Jennings 2nd Councilmember Davis to approve the firearms policy change from the police department. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
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2024 SUMMER RECREATION PROGRAM:
Supervisor Rickard noted that everyone has been pitching in and helping with summer rec. The hours will be July 8 through August 16, Monday through Friday, 9am to 3pm. Residents: for 1 child is $750.00, $1450.00 for 2 kids, 3 kids are $2175.00. NON-RESIDENTS – 1 child $950.00, 2 kids $1850.00 & 3 kids $2775.00. We still need to hire an assistant and a medical person. We’ll start accepting applications tomorrow. Evening registration hours: 2/12, 2/26, 3/12, 4/8, 2/21, 2/28, 3/20, 4/17. To break even we need 65 children.
MOTION TO APPOINT DOUGLAS VARCOE TO THE BOARD OF ASSESSMENT REVIEW:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Furman to appoint Douglas Varcoe to the Board of Assessment Review. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO APPOINT CHRISTOPHER RUCKDESCHEL TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS AS AN ALTERNATE:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Carey to appoint Christopher Ruckdeschel to the Zoning Board of Appeals to fill the vacancy. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
2024 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES:
Supervisor Rickard reported that there are 3 bands confirmed so far. The town v. village share will be 80/20. To try to get more people out to the concerts, we will be putting an ad for RFP’s for food/alcohol trucks to be at the concert series. This is something they do in other towns for their concert series.
MOTION TO SEEK RESPONSES FOR RFP’S FOR A FOOD AND BEVERAGE/ALCOHOL CONCESSION VENDOR FOR THE 2024 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Furman for the Town of Mount Hope to solicit RFP’s for Food & Beverage/Alcohol Concession Vendor for the 2024 Summer Concert Series. Sealed bids will be accepted through April 1, 2024 3:00pm. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Furman to approve the following bills (Abstract #3, #4 & #5):
ABSTRACT #3:
GENERAL A: #29-42 $ 12,560.34
GENERAL B: #5-13 $ 2,653.20
HIGHWAY: #3-4 $ 4,171.20
SEWER: #6-7 $ 249.65
AND
ABSTRACT #4:
GENERAL A: #43-50 $ 15,343.58
GENERAL B: #14-17 $ 592.62
HIGHWAY: #5-6 $ 48,411.49
SEWER: #8 $ 245.00
AND
ABSTRACT #5:
GENERAL A: #51-66 $ 21,227.65
GENERAL B: #18-22 $ 973.59
HIGHWAY: #7-8 $ 288.99
SEWER: #9-10 $ 3,523.43.
All in favor: Rickard, Davis, Furman, Jennings; ABSTAIN – Carey from Abstract 3, voucher 10; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT AND AUTHORIZE THE TOWN SUPERVISOR TO SIGN THE SNOWPLOWING SERVICE AGREEMENT WITH CORNELL COOPERATIVE EXTENSION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Furman 2nd Councilmember Davis to accept and authorize the town supervisor to sign the Snowplowing Service Agreement with Cornell Cooperative Extension for 2024. All in favor: Carey, Davis, Rickard, Furman, Jennings; carried.
HIDDEN VALLEY SEWER UPDATE:
Supervisor Rickard reported the town received (4) violations from the NYS DEC for the Hidden Valley sewer treatment plant. He met with Jason who touched base with our attorney. We’ve responded to the NYSDEC with how we will correct the violations. Violation #1: we are not manning the plant enough hours during the week. There’s a requirement of the # of hours someone has to physically be there. Violation #2: we had some expired ammonia tablets & we quickly fixed that by throwing it away. Violation #3: there was an issue with the lab results which the engineer said was a lab-related technical issue to be corrected by the lab – nothing to do with us.
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HIDDEN VALLEY SEWER UPDATE cont.:
Violation #4: we have a person that is onsite some of the hours that doesn’t have the proper license.
If the current operator can’t be there for the mandated hours, we will have to find a 2nd person. This is not negotiable with the state. The violation has been answered and we haven’t heard anything back. Supervisor thanked Dean for taking care of the trees. Ketcham went to look at the fence. We have a $1000 deductible – insurance company paid us today $2131.00. He met with Jason last week to discuss how to move forward. There’s no problem with the plant itself. The problem we have is water infiltration. This is common in most systems. The problem with us is it is a lot of water for a very small system. We have authorization to go up to about 60,000 gallons/day. We have spikes of 80,000 gallons on some days. We are going to come up with a 5-year capital plan. The immediate short-term plan is to scope out the pump station to see why all that water is coming in.
PUBLIC COMMENT:
Mary Carver: Has the scope been scheduled? Supervisor: has not been scheduled. Carver: what’s the cost for that? Supervisor: I do not have a cost. Carver: 5-year capital plan? Is there money involved? Supervisor: yes. The cost is borne by the sewer district. The water has to be stopped from coming in to the system. Carver: when the scope is done, can one of us be there? Supervisor: as long as it is feasible. She asked about the advisory committee. Supervisor: public hearing is scheduled for 2/26. After the public hearing, we can vote on it that night. Supervisor also noted that we do not have a SEWER USAGE LAW. Attorney is writing that. Probable will be ready for the next meeting. We need to have a law regulating the sewer system and we do not have one. Carver: how is this possible? Supervisor: I asked the same question. The professionals don’t know how that got overlooked every year.
Mike Meere: what does that entail? Supervisor: it entails some of the things we talked about like you can’t cur into the pipe to put in your sump pump into the sewer system. You can’t tie your storm drains into the sewer system. Meere: I know I talked to you about flow meters but I think that would help you figure out where a lot of the water is going. Supervisor: the engineer also mentioned flow meters but he was pretty confident that if we can figure out where that water is coming from into that pump station – that could eliminate 30-40% of the infiltration. I will have him come and make a presentation once we get a couple more things ironed out. Meere: what’s the plan if it is found that there are sump pumps in peoples houses? Supervisor: Once the law is in effect, I would think there would be fines/fees.
Mela Hsu: congratulations to all that won the election. Thank you to all that support the Asian community. They appreciate the town giving them the space for the Chinese language classes. Chinese New Year celebration on February 17 & 18, 2024 at youth and senior centers. Working on parking situation with Mike. This is free for the public. The shuttle will have a fee. Councilmember Davis suggested we close the gym for these 2 days.
MOTION TO CLOSE THE GYM FEBRUARY 17 & 18, 2024:
MOTION Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Furman to close the gym at the youth center building February 17 & February 18, 2024. All in favor: Carey, Davis, Rickard, Furman, Jennings; carried.
PUBLIC COMMENT continued:
Diane Loeven: there’s no parking on Baker Street? Supervisor: handicap there is. And vendor parking & police employee parking. Loeven: thank you for the senior boutique (to Paul) for trying to help with the table situation. It was a successful fundraiser. She did a general recap for the Hometown Helpers. She asked if summer rec registration forms are online. Supervisor: if not already, they will be. Loeven: spoke re: little league. Their proposal of the new field is across the street? Supervisor: yes, across from “C” field. There’s no money in the budget for any town money to be spent on the field. The only thing we can contribute is as in past years – the clay. She asked about the ZBA meeting and what is on the agenda. Councilmember Furman: its OYA solar. She asked about the village not being a part of the ambulance. Supervisor: as explained to me, the village would be responsible to provide ambulance service to their residents.
Doug Tripken: spoke re: VFW equipment needed for the banners. Supervisor: we can’t make donations to private organizations with tax payer dollars. Last month with the heavy rain the creek behind my house overflowed. The town came and cleaned out a lot of the brush. Last year in February a small pine tree fell and broke my fence. I called Dean and the town came and cut the tree. I had to repair my fence. Point is, that sewer or pipes are not enough for another storm that happened a few years ago. Something has to be done.
Mary Maurizzio: read into record a statement with regard to a residence on Route 211 by Carboy Road that is displaying an American flag on a flag pole in an upside-down position. Flying a flag upside down means to signal dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property. She finds this offensive, disrespectful & abusive.
BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilmember Carey noted that she has had requests for a mirror for the gym. Supervisor Rickard will look into getting one.
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MOTION TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Carey 2nd Councilmember Furman to enter into executive session at 8:55PM for a personnel matter. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO RECONVENE THE REGULAR MEETING FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilmember Davis 2nd Councilmember Carey to reconvene regular meeting from executive session at 9:22pm. NO ACTION WAS TAKEN IN THIS EXECUTIVE SESSION. All in favor: Rickard, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilmember Furman 2nd Councilmember Jennings to adjourn the meeting at 9:22pm. All in favor: Carey, Davis, Rickard, Furman, Jennings; carried.
The next meeting is scheduled for February 26, 2024 at 7:30pm at Town Hall.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen A. Myers, RMC
Town Clerk
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