Karen Smythe 0:01
Thank you. Ready, you ready? Okay. The first item on the agenda is accepting the minutes from june 8 in the june 8 meeting. How do we have a chance to review comments? your comments take motion to accept the minutes.
Speaker 1 0:26
So moved.
Karen Smythe 0:27
Great. Second, Craig. First, so we'll go with that.
Frances Uku 0:33
All
Karen Smythe 0:33
in favor. Next item is acceptance of the agenda, any. I would say only, and I don't mean to speak for our constituent here, but perhaps if I know why you're here, discussing the speed humps and traffic count might be of particular interest to our, so here, so here's, here's what I'm going to suggest. Right after we accept the agenda, we do need to go into executive session, and then we have public public comment, so the public will have a chance to comment, and then it, and then what you're asking is that we move that up to an earlier discussion, which is fine, or in front of the registrar, in front of the registrar. Cool, everybody. Okay with that.
Frances Uku 1:29
And then I had a proposal for you all as well, which I was just sharing with Perry before. It's just an update for everybody, as I was saying, as I shared an update in the June meeting, I reported on the financing situation that we had with EFCN. As Karen and I shared with you, we were waiting to hear back from EFC, and we did hear back from EFC. Can I suggest that
Karen Smythe 1:55
sounds like an item, a discussion item, not a discussion on the agenda. We're just talking about the agenda. You want to add an agenda.
Frances Uku 2:01
No, no, I just want.. I have an item of that on the agenda, but what I would like to propose is moving that up, so I can only, particularly because we have later on the advance, and I feel like if I give you a little bit more context of how we got to that position, that will help you see that that is something that we should be moving forward with. It's just what I'm proposing, this has been for me anyway, as far as my involvement.
Karen Smythe 2:27
So, your request is that we move the sewer expansion financing,
Frances Uku 2:32
yeah,
Karen Smythe 2:32
to before the funding advance.
Speaker 2 2:35
Sure,
Karen Smythe 2:36
item is that what you're asking?
Frances Uku 2:37
Yeah, I was anywhere earlier. I had originally planned to ask for it to be moved right after public comment, but I don't mind as long as it's kind of of a piece with the other, so it can move, it can move to right before funding advance, if you wish,
Karen Smythe 2:58
if that's what you're requesting,
Frances Uku 3:01
I'll do have
Karen Smythe 3:02
no objection to that. Do you think it sets up the stage? Okay, any other adjustments to the agenda? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to accept the agenda. So moved. Thank you. Second.
Speaker 3 3:16
Second.
Karen Smythe 3:18
All in favor. Great. Okay, I request a motion to go into executive session for matters pertaining to employment.
Speaker 3 3:30
So moved.
Karen Smythe 3:31
Thank you. Second. Thank you. All in favor, aye. Okay, this should not take long. Let's
Unknown Speaker 3:36
do it. Second.
[transcript continues — part II of II]
Karen Smythe 0:00
Thank you. All in favor. Great. Okay, so we've done that. So we are now on to public comment.
Melkorka Kjarval 0:08
Who wants to go first?
Karen Smythe 0:18
We're going to talk. Yeah, I was gonna say the order of things is public comment comes now, so if you want to just make some comments, you're welcome to, and then we're going to talk about, then we're going to get to our agenda items. If you don't want to make a comment, that's fine, we'll, yeah, I don't have
Jim Rogers 0:33
a comment at this point.
Karen Smythe 0:34
Okay,
Jim Rogers 0:34
I mean, my concerns about speeding have been noted, and the speed signs up there. I know you're gathering some data and considering speed bumps, and so my only comment is I'm in favor of speed bumps, particularly around blind curves or long straight straightaways, because the traffic is not what it was even three years ago, right? So it backs up to fix street from the red light, even on weekdays, it's not just a weekend phenomenon anymore, and that's what produces the cut throughs, so it's not like our neighbors speeding on my street. So I know you're taking steps, I appreciate that. That's my comment.
Karen Smythe 1:17
Great, Charlie.
Charlie Rubin 1:20
Okay, thanks for having me. I'll try and keep it as brief as I can. I know I only have three minutes. I think
Karen Smythe 1:28
we appreciate that.
Speaker 1 1:30
I wrote out some notes to myself, so for whatever reason, I started trying to help these are two homeless men in the village and continuing on that quest, so as you know, we have these two homeless men, one is sort of epilepsy and alcoholism, the other is schizophrenia, and both of them are kind of barely able to take care of themselves, they kind of take care of themselves, except that they don't have any shelter, so Tommy had been in this car over the.. it's probably
Karen Smythe 2:04
best in public. Let's not use names. Yes,
Speaker 1 2:06
I'm sorry. One of them had this car that was just towed away a week or so ago, and I'm not sure why, although I presume it's probably created some damage around it. It wouldn't surprise me, but in any case, now they're both sleeping on the ground again, at least. Tommy, I don't see it, Adams, the one. Sorry,
Karen Smythe 2:26
let's not use names. One of
Speaker 1 2:27
them I see more than the other, but I believe they're both sleeping on the ground again. So, having kind of worked in this issue for a while, I think I've come to the conclusion that the easiest and best way to help them move is simply to get them, get them both a vehicle, so they can sleep in out of the cold and out of the rain, and the finding of the vehicles is actually relatively easy to do. I'm working with another fellow, Randy.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 3:00
Oh, that's not
Speaker 1 3:01
neat, but we believe that we could find vehicles for them, so that isn't so much a problem. The problem is where are they allowed to exist? So that's kind of why I'm here tonight. I don't really want to ask the village board for any funding or any resolutions or anything, just like a very simple ask, which is, Could you help us figure out where two vehicles could be parked and not get taken away by the police? And to my mind, just a few possibilities. One of the best ones would be Village Land. The village owns a few parcels of land. I checked them all out, and to my mind, the best one would be next to the fire house in the far corner. There's a kind of a patch of grass, not very close to the firehouse. To my mind, that would be a pretty good spot. And if it were village land, the village board could simply decide to allow it, and then it could happen. These guys would have a place to be, but if that's not possible, then the other things are the other two kind of going down would be nonprofit organizations that have parking lots or possibly private land. In terms of the second, I actually think the best spot I've seen that this could happen would be the back of the Masonic Lodge parking lot, and the thing is, I could go and ask them, would they allow this, but I guess what I'm asking is, if I could get buy-in on an idea like this from the village board, and the village board asked, or the village mayor asked for permission to do this, that would go a lot farther than just some random person asking, so that's why I'm here, is to ask you to, if you could think about where possibly two vehicles could be parked, especially over the winter, and could you help us get permission to put them there. So another couple possibilities would be the Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church, which both have large locks, but the Masonic Lodge is very isolated. There's not much back there, and it's not used that much. My friend and I had agreed that we would go, or we would regularly go and clean up trash that they might accumulate, because I know that's an issue. Possibly we could ask the police to check on them occasionally. The only thing really left in is gasoline money, because I don't think they would need to be registered. They'd just be sitting there. They don't really need to have insurance, so gasoline money, perhaps a small gofund, we could cover that. We've had donors in the past that have donated many hundreds of dollars, would more be better? I mean, yeah, could be very a social worker, could be refunding from the village, maybe, but it doesn't seem like that's very easy to make happen. So, I'd say let's just focus on making sure that these men don't freeze to death this winter, and I believe from my experience so far that the best answer is probably a van, any kind of car, ideally a van, so they kind of lie in the back would take a seat. So my specific ask through the board is, first, would you consider allowing two vehicles on village land, possibly near the firehouse, or if not, could you help find another spot? Because this again, it says this, this is the core crux of the problem. Can you help us find another spot where someone will allow a couple of eagles to be parked with, understanding that they'll be cleaned up, hopefully police checking on them, and it's well known and semi efficient, so I think that's it. And just, if you have any questions,
Karen Smythe 6:53
we appreciate you coming in. Thank you.
Perry Allen 6:55
Thank you. Thank you.
Karen Smythe 6:58
Okay, the next item that we put forward is the speed humps and traffic count. I'm the one who put that there. I just wanted to give you all an update. The update is the speed humps are on order, and for education purposes, a speed hump slows you down to about 15 miles an hour. A speed bump is slows you down to about five miles an hour, and so we determined that the hump was better than the bump. The things you learn, and so there are two speed humps on order. It's part of the street maintenance budget, where there's there's money in that budget, and I did not get an update as to when they would, I think it's probably a couple weeks, so I'm hoping that by the end of July we will be able to install them. Exactly where they're going to go hasn't, hasn't yet been determined, but but one will be not, not far from your house in terms of, and and your other outlet there, and I believe, and we'll have the data. I think we have sort of the first run of data, 30 miles an hour. It's not that they're speeding, it's more that it's dangerous there, because the road is so narrow, and there are a lot of people walking, and there's more of a - I've heard it referred to as a blind curve. You've got people coming around the corner, and so that's
Perry Allen 8:26
particularly dangerous. Yeah,
Karen Smythe 8:28
and so I think the notion is that we put one sort of towards this side and then one closer to
Melkorka Kjarval 8:36
the with towards this side. Can you, sorry,
Karen Smythe 8:38
sorry, when I say toward towards Route nine,
Melkorka Kjarval 8:41
okay,
Karen Smythe 8:41
and then the other one closer to the community center,
Melkorka Kjarval 8:44
okay, and and both has not yet been
Karen Smythe 8:47
determined, I haven't,
Melkorka Kjarval 8:49
but both are like both lanes, or yes, both sides, both directions, yes, yes,
Karen Smythe 8:52
it's it's all the way across, there will be signs on both sides that say speed hump, and I'm not sure they have a little pattern of what you can paint on the road, to you know, sort of the arrows that point out the fact that you're about to hit a speed hall. I don't know if Jake is planning to put those in or not. I had a
Melkorka Kjarval 9:14
question. I'm sorry. I had a question about the location of the speed trailer, so it was speed
Karen Smythe 9:19
trailer, yes, because it's
Melkorka Kjarval 9:20
about, I was, I went on to parcel access, and I measured it. It's like 125 feet from the stop sign, which is like a T. So that's like people have to be either starting to accelerate or slowing down because they're about to hit T. Is that the most accurate place to get the speed? I know it's a really tight thing, there's not a lot of space to put a speed trailer,
Karen Smythe 9:42
but but the answer is the speed trailer catches you as your, as it sees you, so you don't have to be that close to the speed trailer for it to pick you up.
Melkorka Kjarval 9:51
Okay, so
Speaker 2 9:52
it's picking, I think, to
Perry Allen 9:53
that point as well. It's with where it is, it's approaching where people are going to be slowing regardless, but to that point, Patrick did say in his email that he's going to be switching it to the other side of the street.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 10:07
Okay,
Perry Allen 10:07
so to also be taking data as to how people are entering the neighborhood in terms of speeding.
Melkorka Kjarval 10:12
Yeah, but because you're coming from, you have to turn to go. I'm just wondering, if people are faster, do you think they're faster around the curve or do you think they're faster around the, sorry to break the wall. Yeah, do you think they're fast around the curve, or do you think they're faster, like coming off of route nine?
Jim Rogers 10:33
You mean coming off a route nine, turning on it's, it's hard to choose which for a certain kind of driver coming off route nine, like they're definitely gunning it, definitely people coming around that curve. I know the 20 miles an hour just suggested non-enforceable speed, but they're usually to 25 to 30% above that around that curve, which has the other problems. So they're slowing into the curve, accelerating out of the curve, and then 20 feet, 25 feet later, see the stop sign and are applying the brake, so it's really hard to say, and then speeders both ways, and it had speeders on Elizabeth, because it's just this straight away,
Melkorka Kjarval 11:18
I mean, I think that's something about the building, so everywhere you live, you have speeders cutting through, because the weights,
Karen Smythe 11:23
well, and the other, the other thing is, is that when you're standing still, 30 miles an hour feels like a lot, yeah, so sometimes it may feel like they're speeding, but they may not, they may not officially be speeding, but it's articulate, that's why we're looking, we're looking to gather data as well, because there's no space for the pedestrian really to go easy, exactly,
Perry Allen 11:41
yeah if
Jim Rogers 11:41
the humble aqua or near that corner is going to solve at least that particular problem. I don't know how I haven't timed them coming around the bend, or I'm not near the bend, closer to the community center. I know that's a problem, but I haven't been as much of a witness, I mean,
Karen Smythe 12:02
one from my standpoint, I think, if you know, for those who are cutting off the corner, if you end up having to go over two speed humps, it slows down your ability to go zooming through and get to the other way, so it's, it, you know, that will hopefully just again make people realize they need to just not expect to go flying through the outskirts of the village. There are so
Perry Allen 12:28
many families in the neighborhood now, so many young kids that it's, I think, just setting the precedent as well. You know, it's really fantastic that we're really looking out for that.
Karen Smythe 12:38
Yeah, so, as I say, in a couple weeks we should have now also recognize that, so the speed trailer is now working again, and so it's, it's over there, and Patrick's going to flip it around, and then he had one other location, probably Elizabeth Street, that he was going to put, and then it will move around the village, I think Linden Avenue. We actually have evidence that people regularly speed above 30 miles an hour. Oh, I bet.
Perry Allen 13:02
Yeah,
Karen Smythe 13:03
Park Avenue, to be honest, they, they do that there too. Yeah, sure,
Perry Allen 13:06
definitely. Sorry, no, please go for it.
Melkorka Kjarval 13:09
Just that there is a.. there are websites that you can go and see the speed counts, like how much speeding happens already in certain spots in the village, which is helpful. Oh,
Perry Allen 13:17
interesting. Based off of so Douglas County
Karen Smythe 13:21
Transportation Count. Well, this beautiful lead-in. Thank you very much. So, the traffic count that I mentioned is done by Dutchess County Transportation Council, and that's another thing I didn't print out, but they are now going to, instead of having two sort of rubber wires attached to the road, they will now be using cameras. These cameras are up on a pole. They're about this big. Literally, all they do is count the number of cars that go by and the speed. They're not picking up any, they're not, they're not reading the license plate, they're not picking up any personal information, nothing. It's literally just, did a car pass, did a vehicle pass, how fast was it going, and that's
Melkorka Kjarval 14:03
it. When you're done, I'm just gonna finish.
Karen Smythe 14:06
Yes. Oh, sorry, it's okay.
Melkorka Kjarval 14:07
It just,
Karen Smythe 14:08
you just got me excited because you let you let into my traffic, very
Melkorka Kjarval 14:11
enthusiastic about this. Yes,
Karen Smythe 14:13
and so I'll just end mine. Otherwise, I'll interrupt you halfway through again. They will be doing their traffic count on Cherry Street and on Church Street, I believe those are the two that they will be doing it on. So, when people..
Craig Rothstein 14:34
well, yes, the only Church Street.
Karen Smythe 14:35
Yes, well, there's extension over there, right?
Craig Rothstein 14:38
But this is.. and I was going to ring this up after everybody stuff is done interpreting, but this is not about speed over here, it's about people who don't stop the stop sign, and there are people who come rush hour, because I got my son heading off on his bike, and we've had a lot more kids in the neighborhood than when we moved in. People do not act as they act as if there is no stop sign. There's not even slowing down, so it's wild to me that the police cars are right here, and they're flying through the Prince Street stop sign.
Karen Smythe 15:09
So that's obviously a different issue. Yes, so I just wanted to clarify that the Dutchess County Transportation Council traffic count, they actually do one every year, which is where the information comes from. It's on their website, and they will be cameras, so if they will, they are not the flawed cameras are sort of longer and more. These are simple,
Melkorka Kjarval 15:30
yeah,
Karen Smythe 15:30
they're on a pole, and they're about this big, and it'll probably be August. That's
Melkorka Kjarval 15:35
it. The two things I was gonna say was that there is, there are two websites that you can find traffic counts, they're very interesting. One is through the Dutchess County, because they do annual ones, but also the D O T has recorded once as well, so you can click on the different spots. So I'll send you those links if you're interested. And then there's also The New York Times, just did an article about how big vehicles are. This is something we probably all know, but like, and it's really the thing is, like, when destruction crashes happen, now they're most likely fatal because of the just because
Perry Allen 16:08
I have felt like trucks nowadays are just larger. Is that true? Is that what this article is about? Are you talking about
Melkorka Kjarval 16:15
personal or like, like commercial? Personal, personal, yeah, like
Perry Allen 16:19
personal trucks, and like every truck is an enormous truck,
Melkorka Kjarval 16:22
and in general, because they can make a better profit margin, but also like the bars that they so that you don't get crushed, those are bigger, so you can't see pedestrians as easily, so it's like it's from all different angles, and then commercial trucks are bigger too, because they keep passing things and allowing bigger trucks, which means we're having bigger commercial trucks come down the roads that we maintain infrastructure, which is not fair to local municipalities
Craig Rothstein 16:47
led by state troopers that have portions of a bridge on them that are coming through, that's been increasing over the
Karen Smythe 16:58
years can
Melkorka Kjarval 17:00
get damaged like a bad thing that happened,
Karen Smythe 17:03
and this is the damage. Yes, gotcha.
Perry Allen 17:06
Interesting, which the
Melkorka Kjarval 17:07
potholes are really bad on Route Nine. It's like we were scheduled, apparently, to get 199 Is is going to be in the fall. I was looking at it's one of the projects coming up, is they're going to be doing 199 but it's really bad on one night
Karen Smythe 17:21
they're going to be filling potholes, or no, they're gonna
Melkorka Kjarval 17:24
be raping it all up and redoing, so
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 17:26
paving it, yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 17:27
paving on one night, but this one is like when you get
Frances Uku 17:33
once you get past the lights, it's just
Karen Smythe 17:36
they did, they did fill in a couple potholes all the
Melkorka Kjarval 17:42
time. Do we have any
Perry Allen 17:44
way to push for that as the villager? I mean to raise an alarm that we need of need or no advocacy
Melkorka Kjarval 17:54
brings us to another. Remember, remember,
Karen Smythe 17:58
remember this whole conversation when we get there,
Perry Allen 18:02
okay.
Karen Smythe 18:03
Yes, it's on the agenda.
Frances Uku 18:05
Just really quickly on the speed hump, because you did mention an email from Patrick. I get the sense there's a thread. I will not respond because open meetings law, but could I be CCD? Or just
Karen Smythe 18:17
so. Thank you for saying that, because what I would really like is I was going to suggest that we have Patrick come to our July meeting and have him talk about the data, so we can share the data, and he can, he can articulate how the trailer works, and how, if it's here, it does, it catch you right as you come around the corner, how that works. This is the thing that shows
Craig Rothstein 18:38
the digital readout of how fast you were gone. Those are very effective. They are very
Karen Smythe 18:42
effective. Yes, he
Perry Allen 18:44
shared data in which there was some percentage of which, how many cars passed through, how many of them were speeding, et cetera. It was really interesting to see, and was really, really interesting about Fisk was not necessarily how many of the cars were speeding, but just how many cars are passing through, and I think that's part of what makes it feel or part of what is dangerous about it and thus necessitating the speed hump to just mitigate is how much traffic is passing through in a short amount of
Karen Smythe 19:12
time. Yeah, so I think having Patrick share that information and being here to answer all the questions that will obviously come as it relates to, and it also will be just additional, additional information for the 25 mile an hour request, but yes, so that's I would, I will make a note to put that on the agenda and see if Patrick's able to join us for that. I will give him, I will tell him how much time he has. Does he like
Perry Allen 19:47
to talk? Yeah, when he gets the mic. Welcome to the club.
Karen Smythe 19:53
He's very passionate about his subjects. Okay, next item on the agenda. All
Jim Rogers 20:02
right, don't be offended by me saying this, but thank you for your attention to this matter.
Karen Smythe 20:14
Okay, next item is so the registrar and Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics is an appointed position, and therefore also is a position that requires an oath of office, and that oath of office needs to be taken within 30 days of the appointment, and so therefore we need to make this appointment now. I believe we might have done it at our reward.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 20:40
I thought it was a carryover position that you appoint once and then you're done, but no, they need to be, and they will be in the future on the New York, so whenever you appoint a clerk or a deputy clerk, presuming that you want them to serve as the registrar and deputy registrar, it needs to be on that New York paperwork, so,
Karen Smythe 21:02
so that is literally what you learn. What what we are doing here is to formally appoint the registrar and deputy registrar as Jen Kavanagh's registrar and Diana Devins as deputy registrar of vital statistics. This would be your opportunity to ask, what does that mean? What do you do as registrar? Vitals
Frances Uku 21:23
and deaths,
Karen Smythe 21:26
we had any births?
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 21:27
I had a birth last year.
Karen Smythe 21:29
I've seen the death certificates, but that's very exciting. It's the same price
Melkorka Kjarval 21:38
in or out, 10 bucks. You were threatened. threatened people I could take you out of this building.
Karen Smythe 21:48
Very bizarre. May I have a motion to second it? And I heard Perry next, and this is Resolution Number 27 Any other questions? All in favor, aye. Alrighty, so the next item that we moved is the sewer sewer finances. So, yeah, Fran, why don't you go ahead with Fran wanted to share.
Frances Uku 22:21
Sure, so this, if I can take you back to February, this journey kind of started for me at attending at Nicom in Albany. I had gone to Nicom and Trustee Macarini, then Trustee Macarini, and I attended a municipal infrastructure. I'd never heard of EFC before, but the program coordinator from EFC was on this panel, and they were talking about sewer water and sewer systems, and so there was a Q&A, and only because it's more interesting for you to hear, I brought my little speaker, and I'll just play you what happened, so you can get a sense of here. I have a question. I'm from the village of Red Hook in New York. We host our own wastewater treatment plant, and we applied for the most recent round of REA funding, as did the town. The town is hoping to expand their sewer district and send it over to us, and they were approved for their REA grant, and we were not. So we have now a situation that I'm calling the pipes to nowhere. They are ready to send that over to us. We have no way to receive that. Do you have any recommendations about we as a board, I mean, other than obviously applying for future cycle, what we could be doing?
Paul Kuscha 23:40
So I think the first step is usually if you haven't set up a paper to kind of map, because that could be the best way to figure out, but sometimes it was like there's an eligibility issue or question like that, and sometimes it was just, we're this is oversubscribed and was not quite so high on the funding list, I didn't exactly really help, but that also sounds like a great question too, that I can also come forward and see if it gets more details on, because you're exactly right. You don't want to be a project where, well, we're only doing half of it, that might also be one to look at for like a wee nimg award in the future as well, because you've got two municipalities working very closely together, that sort of all the pieces of this project have to be completed, and we have affordability goal. We have a development as well that we would like to support.
Frances Uku 24:29
So, there's the town, yes, but we have zoning and an affordable affordable housing project that we would like to be able.
Speaker 3 24:37
I was just going to bring that up, that this might be a sort of interesting year to look at, because the current proposed executive budget has two $50 million more than was any previous one, and also has a huge focus on affordability and housing, which none of these had previously. So, I think this would be a very good year to look at going forward with that.
Frances Uku 24:55
Thank you so much. Okay, so that was kind of where everything started for me. His mentioning img, you may have heard that I didn't quite know what the difference is between we are and img was, so I started following up on that, and as he had recommended following up with them to schedule a debriefing, I sent an email, then they scheduled a meeting to which I invited the mayor, and I came in and briefed the mayor about some of the background and where we were, and then we had a call. We have this call with EFC, and I presented what I thought possibly happened, that we had this IMA, and the town and the village weren't quite aligned, and the town had applied alone, alone being by themselves, not alone, like taking out money, and the IMA, which I've also included, and if anyone wants, I can kind of walk you through that's in the board, yeah, the
Karen Smythe 25:58
village board, yes, yes, so the village board at the time was certainly aware that the town was looking to do a sewer project.
Frances Uku 26:07
Yes, no, of course. Then, but then the point I was making is that the town did the img, but the but the village did not, so I'm not so the ima was there.
Karen Smythe 26:17
The ima was, it was all happening at the same time, so the town was not finished with their map plan report, all their etc, and so rather than wait for them to finish and then for us to be too late, we applied for a different we a grant, so that's actually why, and why they applied for an IMG and didn't actually coordinate with us is certainly an interesting question.
Frances Uku 26:41
No, believe me, and this is why on both the call that we had and a subsequent call, which we have had with the town, we are small municipalities, and we don't have always the resources to stay on top of, oh, well, you know, they're doing this, this, that, and we are doing this, this, that, and so village knew they were
Karen Smythe 27:02
applying for a grant. The village, I don't believe the village knew they were applying for an inner municipal grant.
Frances Uku 27:08
I see,
Karen Smythe 27:10
so under the under the umbrella of WIA, there are lots of different types of grants you can apply for, and they obviously chose to apply for the IMG,
Frances Uku 27:18
but the IMG is not a kind of we are the img is its own lane and the we are it's
Karen Smythe 27:23
under the umbrella of we are
Frances Uku 27:26
I have the program guide and I went to the I mean this is EFC themselves even as recently as the as the call I mean yeah it's in here and it's it's
Karen Smythe 27:38
sorry I didn't mean to interrupt, go ahead and continue.
Frances Uku 27:42
So, yeah, I mean, I'm also not it. I'm sharing with you how I got to my understanding of at the end of this is, is EFC is is going to be rescinding has requested that the town return the grant award, but we'll get into that later, but basically this is just setting up how I got to be involved in all of this, and where we are currently, so yes, so we took it seemed from the call that Karen and I had in February that EFC was not aware that the town had been awarded a grant with the villages not also being in the picture, so they went back and they did more looking at what they had in front of them. It's, I imagine, an embarrassing situation for them as well, because that grant should never have gone out the door when it was always supposed to be an inter municipal between two municipalities and one municipality wasn't there, so cut to June, so we got a call to set up, and it's all of the principles from the town and the village, and that's what it is, ultimately, the, as you know, I said on the call that the town, it's not a question of the villages having imperiled the town or having done anything to they received an award that they shouldn't have, so now EFC has requested that back. The town will have to do what they do at their next public meeting, but this is an opportunity for us, because it now puts us in the position that we should have been, or the, you know, again, I'm not legislating who should have done what or when, but now we're in this. What you said, right from the beginning, is I'm, excuse me, I'm as shocked as anyone else that that this is where this is so good for us, this is so good for the village, and so I'm bringing you up to so sorry, I'm so thirsty, because this is our chance now to discuss how we would like to move forward as a municipality undertaking an img with the town. Now, what was discussed on the call, and I've since spoken to both of the Roberts, and my understanding is that their understanding is that so there has to be a lead municipality from the purpose for the purposes of the grant, but each municipality is still completely in control and the authority, the lead municipality on their part of the project, so it, the town, it seems to have been agreed, both Roberts and the grant writer is Brandy Nelson. She works at Tye and Bond. And what seems to be the path forward that I put to you, and you know everyone can have their opinions about whether it does seem like the way to go, but for Brandy to now, Brandy Nelson was also the grant writer for a, so there is a village, which I only very recently learned about, and went to Millerton, that is also in Dutchess County. They are in the town of Northeast, so very similar situation to us and Brandy package a very nice img package for them, where the village hosts the wastewater treatment plant, and the town, you know, needed to connect, and so they, the difference
Karen Smythe 31:11
is they have no sewer at all, so they are stepping from scratch, and they, as two municipalities, got together themselves and said we together will do this, and that's how that's how it led
Frances Uku 31:23
to
Karen Smythe 31:24
the img, the img, they started out from the very beginning working together.
Frances Uku 31:27
Okay, well, you know, as, as I'm getting in, it's a decision for us to make whether we wish to, you know, join the town in this way, and I just wanted to put, to try and bring everyone along in the way that I may take what you will from it, but this is, yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 31:49
when was the last call that happened last week? Last week, last week, and at that call, can you just lay the groundwork of who was at that call again? Sorry,
Frances Uku 31:59
yeah, so it's town lawyer engineers EFC, a whole bunch of legal finance engineering from EFC. There's like 25 people from them, and then us, the mayor, myself, and Robert Flores.
Melkorka Kjarval 32:15
Okay, and then the town is a town supervisor, just a town superior player,
Frances Uku 32:19
but the lawyer
Karen Smythe 32:22
and couple from town.
Frances Uku 32:22
yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 32:24
got it, and so just I'm trying to, no, please, I'm so basically EFC formally asked them to, but they, they could choose not to,
Karen Smythe 32:38
the, they asked them to
Melkorka Kjarval 32:41
refile, basically with a joint, well,
Karen Smythe 32:43
they asked them to rescind the acceptance of the grant that they were provided, yeah, and, and they, they, they can't guarantee a grant, you have to go through the process, etc. but they, they encouraged us to reapply jointly, because part of what happened was the town applied just for their portion of the project, and the opportunity is to apply for the whole project that includes all of ours plus all of theirs, and IMG is 40% they can award you 40% of the total project cost, whereas other, we grants are only 25% So, and the reason why
Melkorka Kjarval 33:30
we, I'm sorry, no, go ahead. The reason why we didn't jointly apply for an IMG originally was with the, we're different engineering things of getting, we were going for a different grant, or we
Karen Smythe 33:39
were, we, we have been working on going for grants for two years now. The town decided that they wanted in, they were sort of, and they were doing their thing, and they were also running up to the deadline, and so it didn't start out as, oh, let's do this together, got it? It started out as, we're already working on our
Melkorka Kjarval 34:01
grant cycle, basically, and
Karen Smythe 34:03
they were doing theirs, yeah, and it turned out they were doing an IMG, and it was not, because again, and well, go,
Frances Uku 34:12
no, no, no, no, you are completely in the.. I was answering questions, so I'm not actually sure where we left off, but that seems to be.. let me see.. my notes.. there was anything else I was going to share with you. It's that seems to be the approach that.. that I.. because I asked on the call, would anything.. would it be possible to just kind of go as is, like not change the terms of the IMA, which you have in front of you? One lead municipality must apply, the town has the, they did it before, obviously they didn't do it the quote unquote right way, but they have the resources to package everything on, but we would still keep Delaware, Robert Flores is still, and this is still our project, we have the bigger project, the town has their own, but the resources, as far as the grant that Brandy has done this very successfully, if what if the town were willing to be lead municipality, this is something that we should grab. As far as the grant, it's nothing to do with the implementation, so there's the applying, and then there's actually the receiving, the receiving of the funds
Melkorka Kjarval 35:20
to have them pay for applying,
Frances Uku 35:21
yeah. Basically,
Karen Smythe 35:22
and honestly, they're not - they wouldn't ultimately be paying a whole lot more, because the work has to be done on both sides. One of the things that we will be doing is re-looking at our costs. The original cost estimate was 20 or 19 point 5 million, and that was at least two, if not three years or stacking up. It was at least two years ago when they did that, and we've repairs costs have gone up. There's the other thing that we've been, we've added a couple of items: one is solar panels on the site, to it will never cover the full cost of electric, but to mitigate some of the cost of electric, because it's a, it's, it's, it's actually a good location for that, and the other is a receiving station where we could receive our own pumped out sludge from the collection system, right now we pay a company to, to take it out, and then, and then take it to somebody else.
Melkorka Kjarval 36:25
Yeah,
Karen Smythe 36:25
it's not something that we would do. It, we're not looking to be in that business, but the opportunity could be in the near term to accept certain other municipalities, sludge, that would all be vetted, et cetera. You don't want just anybody, so it could be a cost revenue generating opportunity, but the real opportunity is to reduce our costs, and so those are two things that are added that were not originally part of the project, and so the opportunity we have is to increase our estimated project costs. The town is not going to do that. They indicated that they are not, they don't want to do that, or they're not going to.
Frances Uku 37:10
That's fine in the
Karen Smythe 37:11
grants, so we still have to do all of our work related to our project.
Melkorka Kjarval 37:16
Yeah,
Karen Smythe 37:16
I mean, we effectively have, and logically the village should be lead, it's we are the bigger project, our project can go without the town, the town's project can't go without us. Yeah, but given that the town is, this is a disappointment. This is not an easy thing to say, "Wow, we just got two and a half million and now you're telling me I have to give it back with no guarantee that I'll get it back, so it is. It is not a happy..
Melkorka Kjarval 37:47
there's a risk for them giving it back. Yes, but then there's also a risk for the whole system not being fundable because it's too much for us to carry, so they have to weigh which risk is worse for that, and
Frances Uku 38:00
they have earmarked the money, like that's something that they were not, you know, they were not, not that they weren't shy about it, but they want this project to happen, like stat, and yeah, I
Melkorka Kjarval 38:10
mean, the TND needs it, right there. Oh no, I mean
Frances Uku 38:13
EFC, I don't even mean, oh,
Melkorka Kjarval 38:15
I see, because there are a lot of, well,
Karen Smythe 38:17
yeah, I mean, there, there are a lot of, to
Frances Uku 38:19
say the least,
Karen Smythe 38:20
factors that go into them wanting to, wanting to see this whole, the whole project work, because there's also the Rocco project that has gotten, I mean, they've gotten a couple of grants, and obviously it's all connected, and so it's all very positive, and again, I would say EFC, because they are not allowed by law to guarantee a grant, no, but they came as close to saying you, you have a really, really, really, really good, yeah, like really, really, so it, and because it's 40%
Melkorka Kjarval 38:52
yeah,
Karen Smythe 38:52
as opposed to 25 it's, it's a big, it's a big deal, and what's the grant cycle that we're eligible to go for, end of July, end of july 27 Okay, now the other, the other piece to that is there's a pool of grants that draw from the same fund base, so whether or not they call that we uh or call it something else, the we a grant and img, or from that there is a separate, so you can't get multiple from that pool, so you have to pick one. Is the other issue you can't say, 'Well, let me, let me try a couple and see which one they decide to give us. So it's a little bit of a crapshoot when you're, when you're doing your grants. There's a separate grant called Water Quality
Frances Uku 39:40
IP
Karen Smythe 39:41
investment program, or something, W K I P, sounds like radio station, W Q IP. Yes, sorry, K IPC, you had said Q, and we just.. so that's. let me think back to that, so EFC had asked us for when we did the water quality, the water test well sampling prior to the first sewer project, we had test wells here, test wells there, the water goes this way, and there was evidence in in the reports that showed that there were traces of things on the other side of the business district, which was one of the factors that went into the grants that we did get for phase one. EFC said we need, we need the reports from the lab. We couldn't find them. Delaware couldn't find them. I had asked the prior engineer from CT mail didn't get a response EFC as CT Mail, and they actually found that, so now that we have the now that we have
Perry Allen 40:53
the lab
Karen Smythe 40:54
certified data, the response was with that plus having a consent order.
Perry Allen 41:01
Yes. Okay.
Karen Smythe 41:02
So, there has to be some silver lining to having a consent order, that that puts us higher up the list for a WQ IP grant,
Melkorka Kjarval 41:09
and that's a separate addition. Do both separate
Karen Smythe 41:11
pot, we can do it's great news. Yes, so that is that is that is an exciting prospect. So, from my standpoint, logically, in the grand scheme of things, the village should be the lead, but I, there's no, as, as you said, they're two, effectively, they're two separate projects, because the town will be responsible for doing their collection system, and then the portion that they are contributing to the wastewater treatment plant, that'll just be effectively cash with us,
Frances Uku 41:40
that's right,
Karen Smythe 41:40
because the wastewater treatment plant project is our project, we will do that project, and then we have to do our own collection system. So, once the grant funding is awarded, I'm sure there's details that we'll have to work out, but I'm assuming that because there's only a little overlap, what the town gives to the village for the wastewater treatment plant, that's an overlap, so we won't double count that exactly, so the village will get our portion, they get their portion, and
Frances Uku 42:06
then they,
Karen Smythe 42:07
and it goes lighter there, so I don't think there's a meaningful difference, I think it's in deference to the disappointment and frustration on the town's part, I think it's, it's not a terrible thing for us to say, you know, what you know, in a normal case we would logically be the ones, but in this case
Melkorka Kjarval 42:28
they're doing a trip to sort of allow, allow
Karen Smythe 42:30
you to, because, because we are in it together, and we both have vested interests in making this work.
Melkorka Kjarval 42:40
Question again, when is it due? July, july 27 27th or 22nd 27th Okay, that's my wedding anniversary.
Karen Smythe 42:50
27th the 22nd
Melkorka Kjarval 42:52
the 27th
Karen Smythe 42:53
Okay,
Frances Uku 42:54
27th anniversary. No, the
Melkorka Kjarval 43:00
question was, are we doing any kind of like official ask as a board to the thing, or we just sort of see where the town, because they're having a meeting after ours. There are
Karen Smythe 43:11
all kinds of things that we will get to approve, and so having this conversation, so you were all aware, is very helpful. We will need to approve allowing the town to be lead, okay, we will need to authorize the grant, and we also will need to start the process of increasing the bond, the bond resolution. We have a bond resolution for 20 million. The Delaware is looking at what makes sense to increase the cost to, and so it's not small, but and again, the idea is they give you 40% of the project cost as you apply for it. If it turns out it's higher than that, they don't increase the percent they give the amount they give you, so you're better off, and again, you don't want to go crazy, but you want to have a realistic view of what it's going to likely cost,
Melkorka Kjarval 44:09
and a lot of the aside from like inflation costs are like ideas to mitigate the overall operation cost, like the improvements, yes, so like for
Karen Smythe 44:18
example solar, there's a cost of putting it in, but then the ongoing cost will, will presumably be less. Same with the reception area, it there's a front end, but that will mitigate some of the cost
Melkorka Kjarval 44:34
technology that we're using in the plant is more electricity, like it takes more electricity because you're filtering it through those screens, and it is better, but also
Speaker 2 44:45
it does, it does,
Karen Smythe 44:48
and this way Jake will get his vacuum truck.
Frances Uku 44:54
We love to make Jake happy.
Karen Smythe 44:56
Well, he doesn't really want it, but he knows it would be useful to have.
Frances Uku 45:01
Okay, so just a few more things, because so yes, another exciting thing that EFC pointed out, not only does the bucket that Karen was referring to, of the monies, the IMG, all of where that comes, that increased this year, because the governor in the state budget has a huge emphasis as the person at EFC, and then if you followed the executive budget, very late executive budget that has extra, so that part is bigger, and then also they apparently just months ago EFC changed the structuring of this IMG, so other grants and other monies that you've had outside of that do not count against your grant award, so you get to keep if you're given a 10 point 4 million and you happen to have got a 2 million grant here, or what you know that you keep that, and then you just get the full, so that's very exciting. Also, the last thing that I, and this is something we'll come to much later, because we still, as you said, we still need the resolution to all of the things, so this is down the road, but as part of the packaging, we'll also need to discuss, because EFC, I took a look at what a WEA and IMG, because we have done previously, we as and so disclosure of disclosure of all obligations, meaning debts, is something that we'll have to do as we package, and specifically, if we have any non-efc debt, they need to see all of that, so that's something that you know we'll come back into, and that's, and
Karen Smythe 46:33
that's true, for, I mean, so we did that chart a year ago, we just update that chart, that's that's a standard, and the sewer, the water, the water grants that we have that we're in the process of paying off that were done under, under, yes, Mayor Blundell. Those are exempt, they're exempted, and we also applied for an exemption for the sewer, because you have a percentage up to a certain percentage of your budget, I think that you're allowed to borrow certain things exempted. It's not counted, and so we applied for an exemption for the sewer debt, and that was approved. That's, we have plenty of space from that standpoint, great, and I just wanted to mention, so the governor also put in place pro housing community program, and we applied for that, I want to say two years ago, and maybe we applied for it a year ago, but it was just up for renewal, and that renewal has I did put in that renewal, and they may or may not ask for more information, but
Frances Uku 47:48
okay,
Karen Smythe 47:48
we are still great. Thank you. In good
Melkorka Kjarval 47:52
status certification, how does that work?
Karen Smythe 47:55
Basically, when, when the the initial application, we went through a process as a board, we all did a resolution saying yes, we want to be a pro housing community, that was part of it, and then it was getting up a whole bunch of data, and so it was that it was a bigger lift to make the application to do the renewal, it just, you just had to fill out a chart of any building permits, excuse me, for new houses or ADUs, and we haven't had a lot.
Perry Allen 48:24
What does it mean to be a rural housing community? It
Karen Smythe 48:28
basically just says that we, as a board, are supportive of more housing. There are communities in the state that are not interested in more housing, and so, or are not interested in doing the
Melkorka Kjarval 48:41
work in
Karen Smythe 48:42
engaging in that process of saying yes, we'd like more housing. Some people
Melkorka Kjarval 48:45
feel congested.
Karen Smythe 48:46
Part of what part of that came from is initially because we know we have a housing problem in the state of New York. The governor started out with stick instead of a carrot, and the stick did not go over very well, like you have to do this, and so it shifted to a positive. So, if you are a pro-housing certified community, you have access to grants that you don't have access to. If you're not going through that process,
Melkorka Kjarval 49:13
she was like pitching it to the Nicom, like all the mayors in the governor's mansion, and it was not a happy crowd.
Perry Allen 49:22
Yeah. Oh, interesting.
Karen Smythe 49:25
Because it was more of a, you have to do these things, and generally, when you know, again, local folks don't like to be told what they have to do. So she shifted it. Yes, and we have home rule. So she shifted it to, let's you know, for those who want to make the effort, we'll make it worth your while. It's a similar, it's somewhat similar to climate smart communities. You get money if you're a climate smart community. Yeah, you have access to grants that you don't have access to otherwise. So, like, your grant like
Melkorka Kjarval 49:54
extra stars on them.
Speaker 2 49:55
Yeah, definitely. So that's
Karen Smythe 49:59
that's it's a, that's a great preview, because in July, you know, stay tuned. We will definitely have a variety of things that we will need to approve to move forward. We have a lot like, and so the engineering report, it just needs to be touched up. It's not starting from scratch, so we're not, and so, yes, on the one hand, there's work to do. On the other hand, a vast majority of the work's already been done.
Frances Uku 50:26
You weren't kidding about the 634 pages either. Yeah, but actually, yeah, actually really interesting, and like the table of contents, and I don't know that I'll be reading all, but, but it's very impressive
Karen Smythe 50:43
background and stuff that I see. Why
Frances Uku 50:45
it costs, it costs money. Yeah, you hired
Karen Smythe 50:48
engineer to do that. Yeah,
Frances Uku 50:49
that's right.
Karen Smythe 50:50
But again, the work, the work to do the img has to happen on both sides. Absolutely. If Ty and Bond does the final wrap up, we've still, yeah, it's a handful of hours that they've done that we wouldn't do, but it's not a huge difference. But I do think, given the circumstances, as I said, much as I would like it to be a village to have the village take the lead, because we are taking the lead in reality, I think as a gesture, courtesy and a gesture to the town. I think you're right. I think that's that's a reasonable thing to consider,
Melkorka Kjarval 51:24
if they choose not to, you know, give back the award. Just saying, do we have any recourse, or do we have any, like, sort of.. I mean, we can always choose to not serve them, right? Like, it's always up to what we're wrong, we
Karen Smythe 51:42
we, we, I mean, we're probably still at a point where we can say, you know, you were not going to, we don't need to do that.
Frances Uku 51:50
No,
Karen Smythe 51:51
ultimately want to expand our sewer, and it is, it is because they are going to be contributing to the capital. It's a, it's a positive for us, it is, but if
Melkorka Kjarval 52:02
there is a way that we can mitigate the cost to our residents, and I just, you know, I just want to make sure that we, yeah,
Frances Uku 52:11
they'll rescind it,
Karen Smythe 52:13
but even, even either way, arguably
Melkorka Kjarval 52:20
goes to trust, yeah. It's fair. It's fair. On the flip side,
Karen Smythe 52:25
the benefit of having extra users is that you, yes, it's, it's like it's going to cost more to operate the system, but it won't cost. It's amortized over more people, so everything doesn't. No, I totally, it's a
Melkorka Kjarval 52:40
positive for Tab, and as our customer, I'm just saying I want to make sure that the funding that it's coming, I think EFC has
Karen Smythe 52:47
has the leverage to encourage the great,
Melkorka Kjarval 52:51
great to do awesome,
Speaker 2 52:55
yeah, tap in,
Perry Allen 52:56
yeah,
Karen Smythe 52:58
and also just to be to be clear, the way the way the project is being drawn is there will be a separate pipe force name that comes from the town that will go directly into the plant, and so we will have both a, we will have, we will measure the quantity, and we will be able to test the test, the do various tests on the what's referred to as the influent, in case there's an issue, because if, because the influence indicates how much work you have to do to treat it, to then make it meet the and so if there's a problem, there's a way to determine if it's coming from the town or if it's coming from somewhere else, so that's the benefit of having them have a separate entry to the plan, and that's all being thought about as they're engineering
Melkorka Kjarval 53:47
it. Yeah, and then yeah,
Perry Allen 53:49
Who's going? Do we have.. sorry, this is maybe a sewer team discussion, but inspecting that system is that could be under Jake's purview once it's under operation.
Karen Smythe 54:00
So the specifics of how it gets operated, etc. is something that we still need to work out, work out those details. There's a certain logic for the town to pay the village to do the maintenance of their collection system, and so if that's ultimately going to be a question of contract, because obviously that they any capital work that's on them, we want them to do their billing, but there's, I mean, they are looking to create a water district because they would like to hook up to our water for that area, because, as the supervisor said, yeah, but what about water? I'm like, yeah, it's a good question. Think about that.
Perry Allen 54:44
Okay, this might be too big of a question, but is there any room for us to annex at all for the village to grow? You know, Mckeon has this idea that the town should grow, but let's flip it on its head, in which the village, and then it's all under our purview anyway. You know, we don't have to worry about all this.
Karen Smythe 54:58
It's not a crazy idea. Yes, there's a lot. There's a logic to that section, and then there's a logic to the farmland to the north to go to the town.
Perry Allen 55:06
Yes, I mean,
Karen Smythe 55:07
that would be a very logical swap to say we've got the infrastructure, we have it all already
Perry Allen 55:13
agreed. And then he doesn't have to worry about it building all these districts. Yeah, well,
Karen Smythe 55:18
he's already got a sewer district, so he just has to do the water, does very well
Perry Allen 55:21
do
Melkorka Kjarval 55:22
a couple water districts, though.
Karen Smythe 55:24
Yes, to do several. Yes,
Melkorka Kjarval 55:25
he has to do a lot of infrastructure work that he doesn't seem to prioritize. Is there any sort of
Perry Allen 55:32
room for conversation around that, or is that just a random.. I
Karen Smythe 55:35
actually, I actually brought it up with him two, three years ago.
Perry Allen 55:39
Yeah,
Frances Uku 55:39
we can keep bringing it up, something we talk about in Miami. We massively expand our
Perry Allen 55:44
tax base, you know. He did
Karen Smythe 55:46
not, he did not rush me out of the room. So, oh yeah,
Perry Allen 55:49
interesting. So, I don't know how to continue that conversation, but let's do it.
Karen Smythe 55:55
Ultimately, the question, if the process to do that is the people who live there, who vote there, yeah, have to agree,
Perry Allen 56:04
have to do some sort of petition within that municipalities.
Karen Smythe 56:08
We can sort of say we'd like to do this, but it would require, I believe, it's a, it's a mandatory
Frances Uku 56:14
referendum, and their taxes, for sure, their taxes would be different
Melkorka Kjarval 56:17
to see the benefit, yeah, exactly, to
Perry Allen 56:19
provide them that benefit, see what their
Karen Smythe 56:21
water price would go down,
Melkorka Kjarval 56:23
their water price,
Perry Allen 56:23
water price would go down.
Karen Smythe 56:26
If they're on a well, that's a different thing. But I mean, it's not a.. oh, yeah, let's just do that simple. But they could request a speed trailer. Well, if you ask the town supervisor, will tell you that the town paid portion of the speed trailer cost, so in theory they have all right. We can't use that one against them. Okay,
Perry Allen 56:50
that's interesting. We should keep following up on that. I'd just be so much if
Karen Smythe 56:54
you think about the concept of a village is where you create the density, you where you have the streets walkability, you also have the infrastructure to allow for the density, so that the outskirts can stay open and farmland, and all that fits with the Centers for Green Space pattern book. There's another thing that has been affected. Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 57:19
when we put in the Gateway Business District, and those are the things that are on that 199 East.
Frances Uku 57:27
We
Melkorka Kjarval 57:27
and we did the NMU, the Dutchess County Planning gave us pushback on having too big of an urban center. I mean, they'd be different than
Perry Allen 57:39
sprawl in that way,
Melkorka Kjarval 57:41
and that was one of the reasons why the NMU was amended to cut out certain properties, in that doesn't go all the way. Oh,
Perry Allen 57:51
interesting, interesting.
Melkorka Kjarval 57:52
Anyway, but that's not that
Perry Allen 57:53
makes sense.
Karen Smythe 57:55
It's a big, it's sort of a bigger conceptual idea that you know when you get into the details, you run into some issues, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't score, oh, to
Frances Uku 58:06
have further to
Melkorka Kjarval 58:08
consider, but I don't, I don't know that that would necessarily be true, but I mean it's that can always,
Karen Smythe 58:13
but it's also, it's already more developed down that way than it is that way, and so if you focus, yes, and, and do it together, as opposed to, well, the town does their part, and we do our part. It, you know, it starts to make sense to say, well, how would you organize it so that it's to the maximum benefit of the businesses, the community, etc. They've
Melkorka Kjarval 58:36
been waiting for years for water, there years and years and years.
Karen Smythe 58:40
Well, the TMD cheap zone zoning that they did when I was on the town planning board, it was 10 years, so it's got to be 13 plus years now that they put it in, and nobody's been able to achieve what the TND allows for, because they don't have the infrastructure, infrastructure is one of those things that's it's not very sexy, but it's so important to allow all the other things. Some people are
Melkorka Kjarval 59:10
you infrastructure letters about how they're better at things. I don't think it's true, because they can't get a water district where it's needed. Sorry, I always think of the
Frances Uku 59:21
saga of Mighty Donuts, and that's really a shame related to infrastructure specifically. Yeah,
Perry Allen 59:30
interesting.
Karen Smythe 59:31
Yes, but they make good
Perry Allen 59:32
donuts, though. Oh, no doubt, no doubt,
Melkorka Kjarval 59:35
very cute.
Frances Uku 59:36
What now? Yes, but the
Karen Smythe 59:38
rail car didn't - it actually didn't meet the TND district.
Melkorka Kjarval 59:44
Yes,
Frances Uku 59:46
they bought it because it was supposed to have
Karen Smythe 59:47
a second floor,
Melkorka Kjarval 59:49
but they could have designed.. there's just.. yeah. Anyway, we were not eating. I was actually
Karen Smythe 59:54
on the planning board for that to midnight on our meeting, so I was in the BDC
Melkorka Kjarval 59:59
when, when people were grumbling about it,
Karen Smythe 1:00:03
so if I may move on to the next sewer thing, so I've put together, so we have a county grant, which I gave you all a copy, the board at the time accepted the grant back in December, I think it was, and so we, the village, have $500,000 for the sewer expansion, and in that the budget is a portion of it, I believe it's 300,000 for engineering, and 200,000 is for the expanded EQ tank, which we need for the existing plant that we have, and the nice part about the two things going together is the engineers have designed the, they've done enough of the design of the new plant, so that the proposal for the EQ tank will be part of and located in an appropriate location for the expansion, the expansion will have another EQ tank, but this will allow us to install the EQ tank that we need now, and then the second one will go in when we do the whole shoot and match, so, and of course, a county grant is a reimbursable grant, which means we need to pay our bills before we can get paid back for the bills, and so what I am proposing, so we have two, we have effectively two options: one is we can borrow from ourselves, and the other is we can get a cash flow loan from a bank. Those really are our two options, obviously. The sewer sewer fund does not have the funds to pay, so up through May bills we have $119,455 in bills from Delaware Engineering, and so we need to pay those bills so that they can cash the checks, so that we can then apply and the county, the county will take reimbursement requests quarterly, so the next ones are due in August, and so I basically lifted the language from the advance resolution that we did to pay the loan, which was, which was put together by the by the attorney, and just adapted it for this particular use, and so you have a copy of the county agreement, you also have a copy of all the bills, and you have a link to the engineering report, which is what most of these bills are going towards, and so that's that's where we're at on that now. Fran, I assume that the inter the general municipal nine
Speaker 2 1:03:02
a why
Karen Smythe 1:03:03
don't you talk about that.
Frances Uku 1:03:05
This is just that this, this, as you said, this is basically the same ground that we covered in February with this. The only question I had, and the reason why I had this printed out, is is the is number terms number three terms repayment interest, and now I printed out the copy of nine A, only because it does say so, number three as well. So monies advanced pursuant to this section shall be repaid to the fund from which they were advanced as soon as available, but in no event later than the end of the close of the fiscal in which advance was made, all of that is fine if the monies from a fund, which, if raised by taxes, special ad valorem levies or special special assessments would be raised from taxes, is basically data on a different base of properties for which different base of properties than those for which taxes, ad valorem levies, or special assessments would be raised. Basically, this is just saying, if you're going from sewer to general, if you're making the advance from general to sewer, sewer needs to repay, you know. I know that it's just a technicality in the.
Karen Smythe 1:04:17
so I'd very much appreciate you having highlighted that. What I'm wondering is, because it's referencing taxes, etc.
Perry Allen 1:04:27
The
Karen Smythe 1:04:27
taxes is a portion of our total general fund budget, so we have other revenues, so one like cannabis, cannabis revenue, for example, that's just sales tax. We also get sales tax, which is different. What I'm, what I'm, what I'm going to propose is that we add that we add to on the resolution where it says, together with no interest, comma, unless required by law. If that would suffice, because what I'd like to do is to run it by our attorney and C, because we didn't pay interest for the prior advance, and so there must be some justification for not doing that, and so I wanted, I want to confirm if we need to pay the general fund interest, then we should pay it, if we don't need to, if we don't need to, then that's just one less, I mean, I don't imagine it'll be a huge amount of money.
Frances Uku 1:05:23
No, I know it won't be a huge amount of money, but
Karen Smythe 1:05:26
I want to make sure we're doing it
Perry Allen 1:05:27
right,
Karen Smythe 1:05:28
and so that's why I'd like to allow us to pay the bills. So, if you're okay with acknowledging that we may have to pay interest and doing that if we're required, is the
Melkorka Kjarval 1:05:39
interest what would be we get from the night class account?
Karen Smythe 1:05:42
I'm assuming that's the way we would do that. Yeah, certainly, because yeah, otherwise, because otherwise the monies would be in dye class, and that it would be earning that interest.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:05:50
So, be that's my fairly easy calculation, if it were.
Karen Smythe 1:05:54
Yes, I think currently at 3.55% and presumably the county doesn't take that once they've approved your disbursement request,
Frances Uku 1:06:05
it's going, it
Karen Smythe 1:06:06
comes back pretty quick. So, I would expect that we would have it back by September, October at the latest, so it would be, you know, three, four months, I think. So, it's not a huge amount, but if we don't have to. I prefer not to, just because we don't need to put the extra stress on the on the sewer fund, but if we do have to, we absolutely should.
Frances Uku 1:06:27
Yeah, I mean, so as long as you're happy with the amendment to the language about no, are you okay
Karen Smythe 1:06:32
with together with no interest, comma, unless required by law, is that acceptable pursuant to section chapter 24 article two of general municipal law nine, a,
Frances Uku 1:06:49
I mean, it does say repayment, repayment shall include an amount reasonably estimated to be the additional amount, which is something that the, the treasurer, anyone would calculate that, or because I mean the law, if it's just rational that we shouldn't, this is the situation that we're in, that the sewer fund needs to borrow, but in the ideal case we wouldn't be needing interfund advances from the general fund, because that's a completely different tax base than,
Karen Smythe 1:07:15
but this is a situation where we have a grant, and I understand, I don't expect the sewer fund would ever be able to, you know, fund one to $200,000 worth of worth of fronting the cash, is really what it's doing. So, my own, it's just
Frances Uku 1:07:33
technical, it's really, I'm ready to go with this. It's just the language, we should be precise where we can be precise, that's all.
Karen Smythe 1:07:39
And so, well, so I guess I'm asking you, so together with no interest, unless so my proposal is unless required by law. I am more than happy to add the specifics of the law if you'd like, unless required by General Municipal Law nine a.
Frances Uku 1:07:56
What I'm proposing, and this is the reason why I had it printed out. We've made the point several times before that lawyers take time and are expensive for us. This is something that we can read ourselves right now, and it says that it shall be paid. It's not a big amount, as we've said, by the time the county sends it back, it's not a big deal, it's just that it does say the repayment numbers
Karen Smythe 1:08:25
say that we repay
Perry Allen 1:08:27
within interest
Karen Smythe 1:08:28
rather than checking and seeing if there's an interpretation that allows us not to pay interest,
Frances Uku 1:08:34
that's what I would say, because that's what the law says, but well, but but
Karen Smythe 1:08:38
I would just, and this is why one consults with a lawyer, there's caveats in there. Where's
Frances Uku 1:08:46
the caveat?
Karen Smythe 1:08:48
If money from a fund, which, if raised by taxes, special ad valorem levies, or special assessments, would be raised from taxes, ad valorem, or special assessments on a different base of properties, our taxes, the taxes that we receive is 1.4 million. We receive other monies like sales tax, cannabis tax, franchise tax, building
Melkorka Kjarval 1:09:15
fees, right,
Karen Smythe 1:09:16
building fees. So there's other, so that's why, if all, if our all of our revenue in the general fund was only taxes, I would say absolutely. It seems to me that there's a, there's a loophole in here that would allow us to say we don't have to pay to pay interest. I mean, that's my perspective, because again, we're sort of, we're going back and forth, it's just a few months. Yeah.
Perry Allen 1:09:41
No, I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying, in terms of wanting to do it as by the book as possible. And then I also hear the desire of seeing this loophole, in which of not taxes is not having to pay more for the sewer, you know, or not in this way, that like we might be able to save a couple 100 bucks, you know, in that way,
Karen Smythe 1:10:00
which is why, and that's, and that's really all I'm asking for is the opportunity to proceed, and also to confirm that we would, if we need to pay taxes 100% but I also know that you know Kyle's been through this before, so
Frances Uku 1:10:14
not taxes, interest,
Karen Smythe 1:10:16
sorry, interest, yes, correct, sorry,
Frances Uku 1:10:18
and the interest is the only thing that I, and it's not a question of how the taxes were, how the money in the general fund was accumulated. The issue is just, if you're taking from one fund to the other fund, that fund has to pay just the tiny bit of interest. It's just the law just says you have to pay interest back. It's not a lot, it doesn't say for this long or it's, it could be $5 but it's just what the law expects,
Karen Smythe 1:10:44
and, and I would, I guess, my, my caveat is there's enough language in this law that muddies it a bit, which might indicate that we are not required to pay interest. I hear what you're saying is on principle we should pay interest, but I'm suggesting that there may be case law that indicates that we don't have to pay interest in this case. That's all I'm asking is to confirm with our attorney whether or not it's required,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:11:16
leaving the room to have it professionally vetted by someone that yes,
Karen Smythe 1:11:22
so you're You'd like to, I know that you're reading it, and
Melkorka Kjarval 1:11:25
it makes sense to you in that way, the way that, and that
Karen Smythe 1:11:28
could, that could easily be the way it's supposed to be, I guess. What I'm saying is, is that I just like to leave it open to, to have it vetted. If, if the board doesn't want to do that and says we should pay interest, that's what the board can decide.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:11:44
I mean, I like the idea, unless legally, you know, was it legally required by law,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:11:49
unless required by law.
Karen Smythe 1:11:51
There you go,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:11:54
so that I like as
Perry Allen 1:11:55
well, because, yeah, I want to do it, obviously, if it's, if it is required, but if there is a way in which we don't have to, it's almost as we've talked in so many ways about the general fund subsidizing, you know, the sewer. This is not that, obviously, technically on the books, but it is a way of facilitating things like that.
Karen Smythe 1:12:16
So, I'm going to make a motion that we amend the resolution on item number three, terms that, after together with no interest, that we add unless required by law. And I'll ask for a second
Perry Allen 1:12:36
to add that on there. I'll second that. I like that.
Karen Smythe 1:12:39
And so I'll call for a roll, a roll call vote, Greg Fran..
Frances Uku 1:12:47
I'm an I. I just.. I would just like to.. I would like to hear from Kyle, and I'm happy to draft the email, or.. but I'm an.. I, it's very important that we get going, you know, because of everything. We also have, we
Karen Smythe 1:13:02
also have an attorney, an attorney session on july 12. So I will, I will give him the heads up that this will be something that we'll be looking for an answer for. Perry, I'm also an eye. Okay, so we have now amended the resolution. Now we need to approve the resolution, so I will ask for a motion to approve the resolution.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:13:25
So moved.
Karen Smythe 1:13:26
Thank you, Malcorsia. Second, thank you, Craig. I guess we'll, we'll do a roll call. Harry,
Perry Allen 1:13:36
aye.
Karen Smythe 1:13:36
Fran, aye. Craig,
Perry Allen 1:13:38
aye.
Karen Smythe 1:13:38
Corker, and I'm an eye. Okay, great. Thank you. Good stuff. Okay, all right. We did that. We did that. Okay. Spotted public spaces, summer internship contract. Okay, so this okay, this internship agreement is very simple. We got the $4,000 grant. She is not an employee. What she produces belongs to the village, and, and this is really just to sort of cover ourselves, and I just wanted a, we had an initial meeting with Ursula, who's the intern,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:14:30
terrific. What did you think? Very excited. Yeah, we haven't
Perry Allen 1:14:33
had a chance to talk about that. I was very excited.
Frances Uku 1:14:35
So Betsy had me meet her, I don't know, no, when we were first talking about her doing this assignment as a school senior project. Yeah, no, she's, she's impressive. So, I just wanted the, because it's an agreement, I wanted you all to authorize me to sign the agreement contract, whatever you want to call it. I have questions about the so is there. Do we have the contract with the grant terms conditions? I'm glad that we have it, but I
Karen Smythe 1:15:11
this is a beautifully simple grant. We have the money in the bank. We just need to show that we paid an intern. There are very limited terms and conditions on this grant.
Frances Uku 1:15:26
I mean, I like, we usually have, if we have an award, and we just see the letter, or, you know, I have.. I mean, I believe
Karen Smythe 1:15:37
it, but didn't give you the, I got, I gave you the grant letter, didn't I? I will share you the letter. It literally says you've been awarded $4,000 from it's from the anonymous fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley for an intern related to the park. I can, I'm happy to send you, but that's that's literally what we got. There are no specific terms and conditions on contract or anything. I don't know if I sent it beyond that. Let's see, while
Perry Allen 1:16:19
you look that up, since we're talking. I wasn't planning on talking about this. I miss this on the agenda, but since we're talking about Ursula, I can show you the first thing that she produced for us. Just terms, no, no, just what she brought to the meeting. Just,
Frances Uku 1:16:35
yeah, I need some water as well,
Perry Allen 1:16:37
just so you can kind of see how she works as to pass this around. What she's supposed to do for us. These are all just random schematics, but she's just really fantastic.
Frances Uku 1:16:47
I would have loved to have this in the.. I, this was just sort of a
Perry Allen 1:16:51
within-committee public spaces thing that she presented to us to tell us how she was going to work, but I just think that she's a really impressive person you know,
Karen Smythe 1:17:02
so I did. I did find it. Dear Miss Smyth, that Community Foundations is pleased to award a grant of $4,000 from FRNs. Funds provided by the Anonymous Fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley. The enclosed payment is designated for support for summer internship. Publicity or other acknowledgements for this grant should indicate that it is from anonymous fund of the Community Foundations of Latin Valley. Your organization need not provide a tax receipt for this grant. Donor advised funds are established and advised by local donors. We strongly encourage you to direct letters of appreciation for this grant, so we may forward to the donor, give it an address.
Perry Allen 1:17:36
Oh, maybe we could do that as a board or something. Receiving these funds confirm
Karen Smythe 1:17:39
that your agency is currently recognized as tax exempt or equivalent, defined by IRS, and the grant does not constitute payment of pledge or membership, and will not yield tangible benefits to the donor. That's literally all it says. So I'm happy to share the actual, and it's got the copy of the of the check that they sent.
Perry Allen 1:17:58
Thank you.
Karen Smythe 1:17:59
So that's it. This is one of those very unusual grants, that's,
Frances Uku 1:18:03
I mean, I love it. Yeah, I love it. Then just my next question is just about about the process. Ursula, how did you connect with Ursula? How did the committee rather connect with Ursula? Who else did you consider all of this?
Perry Allen 1:18:20
Betsy Brower has been this spearheading champion of Abraham's Park for many years now. I know she's done a lot of networking through various communities, and we had been discussing for many years of trying to collaborate with Bard, and they have a new architecture program. And if I'm not mistaken, that's where it came. I
Karen Smythe 1:18:39
was going to say that, because I think it's slightly before you, yeah, that was like no, it's right before I came back initially. The idea was to have someone do their senior project on the on the park
Frances Uku 1:18:52
rooms,
Karen Smythe 1:18:53
and so Betsy met with the professor, because the professor said, "I know exactly who you should have. So this person came highly recommended from from Bart, specifically related to the this concept of a project. Great,
Craig Rothstein 1:19:05
it
Karen Smythe 1:19:06
ended up not working for her to do it specifically for her senior. Her senior project wasn't sort of exact, wasn't our master plan, if you will, but there was continued conversation about how she was, she would love to do an internship in the summer, and that she was available. Bard, unfortunately, said because she has now graduated, she's no longer eligible for their funding program. And so Betsy then sort of turned and said, could we find a grant that would fund her for the summer? So that's that's how we ended, so she was vetted, sort of prior to side, and this was sort of where we ended up. And it turned out that between Betsy and myself, we were able to discover this opportunity. Great, I know many years
Perry Allen 1:19:56
ago, Jana Mater was part of Public spaces committee, she's a Bard professor who then incorporated Abraham's Park into her class, and I believe Ursula was even part of that class. So, I think the park's been in her brain for years, which is just kind of a.. they did, because I think it was..
Karen Smythe 1:20:14
I think it was Betsy and Ash had.. because you weren't with them,
Perry Allen 1:20:18
that was when I was still there, that was kind of at the tail end of my time before, but they had a class
Karen Smythe 1:20:23
come to the park.
Perry Allen 1:20:24
Oh no, that's right, that was.. I think that was.. I went into class with Betsy right at Bard, but so we've done
Karen Smythe 1:20:29
a couple of class work things at at and for the park, because you remember when the art students came and they presented what they sort of did in days, you know, they
Perry Allen 1:20:42
put it up. Oh, that's right. I heard,
Karen Smythe 1:20:45
and, but they, so Betsy and Clash, I believe, brought a class to the park, and then asked them for what they thought, and what their memories of parks were, and they were the ones who talked about these spots of discovery and be able to sort of find these special places, etc. So it was really that, so there's been a number of
Perry Allen 1:21:04
community student involvement in that way, which is fantastic. So just quickly, I suppose to how she's going to work, the main thing to keep in mind that's most exciting and spread the moves far and wide is that at our August public meeting, August 10, that happens to perfectly coincide with how she and her mentor professor composed her schedule for her final presentation of her work, so she'll come to our public meeting, she'll give us a presentation of what she's put together, which will include three different schematic proposal or ideas, exactly, not necessarily with hyper specific design, but just different configurations that we could then use public engagement, etc. etc. Figure out master plans from there, as well as I'm particularly excited about this, a model of the park, just kind of got too excited when she said that, with as well as a decent amount of research and writing that we'll be able to extract from, so August,
Karen Smythe 1:22:09
I think, I think we're talking this big. Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:22:11
it's a lot of detail to get into. Well, she was excited, particularly having done a
Karen Smythe 1:22:18
model and wanting to get back into it. So it's a wonderful win-win. She was excited, agreed.
Perry Allen 1:22:22
Yeah, I think there's a lot of good energy happening around
Karen Smythe 1:22:26
it. And her, what was the name of the professor, also Betsy? That's right, Betsy Betsy. She mentioned that it was not so big that it couldn't hang on the wall, which I think is very interesting. Yeah,
Perry Allen 1:22:37
yeah, but they said that they would print out everything in a nice public engagement size and set that all up for us. So, august 10, we should expect to see what that, what that will be.
Karen Smythe 1:22:50
Yeah,
Perry Allen 1:22:51
yeah, I'm excited. That's great. She seems very.. just one
Frances Uku 1:22:55
last thing, because this in three purpose and scope, it says the scope of work for the internship is attached. Am I missing a page?
Karen Smythe 1:23:05
Yes. No, it's right here. It's the next. It's the proposal,
Frances Uku 1:23:10
the communications,
Karen Smythe 1:23:22
I think what, what Perry gave you was what it was. I
Perry Allen 1:23:26
can share this with
Karen Smythe 1:23:27
you. Yeah, sorry, I thought I had attached
Perry Allen 1:23:30
it. Let me, let me get a digital copy of this from her, because it's broken down in here, both Betsys, her mentor from Bard, and our committee member deliberated as to all of these final products, as well as the timeline, and that's what's broken down in this proposal she gave us. So it lists here the various things that she'll be producing, and then on the timeline in which she'll be doing so, I would imagine that's what could be considered what
Karen Smythe 1:24:06
I have it here, I sent it to you and Betsy, and I didn't wait, so maybe I thought that was a one, yeah, it's a one page, so proposed scope of work, conceptual develop argumentative perspective on design of park schematic plans, research memorial precedence, synthesis of pre-existing proposals, product sketches, perspective overlays on photos, notes on correlation between text and design proposals. This is obviously before she was thinking three model written summarize committee intentions, context of the Memorial Park, small rural town communities or village intentions behind redesign. Explain research-based design advocations. Plans for continuing the project. End of summer to discuss product. Two to three page piece. Visual. Provide the committee with some visual material for project support, address parking accessibility and memorial relocation within the within found limitations, consideration of age use and mobility diversity product three distinct plans with schematic cohesion refine my early stage sketches as supplemental visuals, o site model, so that page
Melkorka Kjarval 1:25:22
programming wise has she been given like programming that you want her to incorporate, or is it like a lot of that stems from
Perry Allen 1:25:30
Betsy's survey that she had conducted, was how we, if I'm understanding in terms of program like the architectural programming, is that what you mean, that's like new to me, you've learned that, yeah, as
Karen Smythe 1:25:41
opposed to a specific, yeah, like you
Melkorka Kjarval 1:25:44
want to have a seat at sitting space, you want to have it out, yeah, overlook, you want to have, you know, whatever, like that's she has, like a menu to pick from, or does she get to decide what she wants to
Karen Smythe 1:25:53
do? I would say both.
Perry Allen 1:25:54
Okay, agreed, yeah, we provided her all the data from the surveys that were done as to pieces of what we got in terms of what people want from the park, and I think at our last meeting we urged that she start there to know what the community wants, but then we did give her creative license to bring in
Melkorka Kjarval 1:26:14
treaties with something that we didn't even think of,
Perry Allen 1:26:16
yeah, right, and she seems really tuned into making it community specific, so I think she's going to take that data really seriously,
Karen Smythe 1:26:24
and I think the notion is it's not going to be sort of a super precise specific, it's going to be more conceptual. Yeah, yeah,
Perry Allen 1:26:32
that then we can always consider, she seemed very open to depending on how this goes, continuing to work together, you know, maybe in some sort of master plan generation or something, but just a thought. We'll see how it goes this summer.
Karen Smythe 1:26:48
Yeah, so with that, I'd love a motion to authorize me to sign this agreement.
Frances Uku 1:26:57
I'm happy to make that motion. I also have a request, if I may, depending to the motion with the internship agreement, as well as the scope of work as read out. I would also not mind if that were also included in the package. If we made that one big package, and
Karen Smythe 1:27:16
Perry got a copy of that, would you want to just give me that? And I'll do it. Yeah, certainly. Yeah, I don't
Perry Allen 1:27:22
have a digital copy, so do you mind? Nope. All right,
Karen Smythe 1:27:27
great. I will circulate that round and make sure we have that.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:27:31
Beautiful.
Frances Uku 1:27:31
Thank you,
Karen Smythe 1:27:31
everybody. I have a couple notes
Perry Allen 1:27:34
in there, just don't mind the handwritten stuff. That was just
Frances Uku 1:27:37
beautiful. Cameron will protect you from.
Karen Smythe 1:27:39
I need a second.
Craig Rothstein 1:27:41
Second,
Karen Smythe 1:27:42
thank you. All in favor,
Perry Allen 1:27:43
aye.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:27:44
Great public records, that you can't wait it out,
Karen Smythe 1:28:01
Texas public engagement grants. There's nothing. Can you believe survey? There's nothing racy in there. Okay. Sorry, okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Then the other that you all have a copy of is a resolution for non-union village employee wages, and this is, of course, you don't. I will give you one. You're welcome to, I mean, I will also share it with you. Read already after the meeting, so this will go into effect. This would go in, is proposed to be going to effect june 1, and it is 3% increase for everyone, and they're just a couple of exceptions. And just to clarify, Madison Hart at 1550 she is below the state minimum wage, which apparently we're not required to pay, which is seems a little crazy, but the proposal is to go to 17 as an acknowledgement, both of getting her above minimum wage, but also to acknowledge the work that she has been doing. She works about 10 hours a week, and then Bob Benz, Robert Benz, he did not get a, an increase last year, and he is the one who, once a quarter, goes around and takes the meter readings, and so this is, and he's, as, as Jen will tell you, he comes against the stuff, he goes, he does it, he brings it back, he doesn't need, he doesn't need to relearn, he doesn't need Jen to be looking over his shoulder, so he is certainly, and he's, he's, you know, 10 hours once a quarter, maybe. Yeah,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:29:46
it's not as easy as it looks. So, the fact that he has figured out how to do it on his own is amazing.
Speaker 2 1:29:54
Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:29:55
how many meters do we still have that have to be read? Well, they all have to be red.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:30:02
No. no, no, he has to drive the village. Okay, but he has to. In order to do that, you have to use these antennas and a special computer, and they're old technology, and of course, they don't always link the right way. Some of his GPS located, so there's mostly driving, and there's probably less than 10 that he has to get out of the cardboard. Okay,
Karen Smythe 1:30:24
there are so we we are very slowly moving towards cellular, which we can read from here, correct? And that's what you do for those. How many? How many cell service cell ones do we have?
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:30:36
No, no, no, I think we're in the 30s.
Karen Smythe 1:30:40
Oh, wow, out of 870 something, so it's still a small proportion. And
Melkorka Kjarval 1:30:46
eventually, do people's water meters get replaced on like a normal schedule? They have a consumption limit,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:30:55
and they have a time clock limit, and most of them are past the time clock, but the consumption is still
Perry Allen 1:31:00
within limits.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:31:01
Got it.
Karen Smythe 1:31:01
We want of the grants that we're still paying off included replacing the meters, and at that time there were five that didn't want the radio read measures, so you have to actually go and read the meter, yeah, and we're down
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:31:15
to no, not still five, I mean there was more than five,
Karen Smythe 1:31:17
oh, okay, because I knew we had, we had replaced some, but we charge an extra $50 per quarter to read the meter, so some folks have said, "What is this? I bask them
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:31:30
every time, get rid of that $50 bill, we'll change your meter, and they're a lot of no's,
Karen Smythe 1:31:36
but that's, and what's interesting is the guy before Bob might have driven a little too fast, so it didn't pick up everything that he went by. I mean, you can't, you gotta, you gotta sort of be a little slow and steady to make sure you're picking it all up on that cruise. Yeah, so yeah, so call that for
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:31:56
anyway. He's earned it, so he's
Karen Smythe 1:31:59
definitely earned
Melkorka Kjarval 1:32:02
it. We haven't voted yet. I know.
Karen Smythe 1:32:04
While we're waiting for a Fran, perhaps I could get a motion. This would be 28
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:32:10
929
Perry Allen 1:32:11
So moved.
Karen Smythe 1:32:14
Second.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:32:16
I'll second.
Karen Smythe 1:32:21
I'll take, I'll take your go with you. Go around,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:32:24
okay?
Perry Allen 1:32:26
I do. You have to say I could say yes. Yes, you just have to be affirmative. That is my understanding. Vocally affirmative, and
Melkorka Kjarval 1:32:39
you have to
Perry Allen 1:32:39
verbally, and you have to vote, or you
Melkorka Kjarval 1:32:42
have to abstain. Either one, you have to. You can't
Perry Allen 1:32:44
just be quiet.
Karen Smythe 1:32:46
No. Well, I mean, you, I have to special. I have to vote if it's a tie, apparently.
Perry Allen 1:32:51
But otherwise, you don't have to vote, correct?
Karen Smythe 1:32:57
Which is very interesting.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:33:00
She could have a fight every, yeah, just for fun, yeah,
Perry Allen 1:33:04
just to watch a score. What are you
Melkorka Kjarval 1:33:05
guys gonna
Karen Smythe 1:33:10
do?
Melkorka Kjarval 1:33:14
Yeah,
Karen Smythe 1:33:16
so Fran, the motion for the non-union village wages has been motioned and seconded, and
Frances Uku 1:33:26
yes. Thank you.
Karen Smythe 1:33:28
Thank you. All right, the next item on the agenda, oh, is the Pedestrian Safety Committee, which I handed you all a resolution. Apologies for not getting it to you in advance, but the format is the same as the other committees that we've formed, so the key thing is the whereas and the powers and duties, and so just to give you a little bit of background, and my proposal is for Mel Corke to be the liaison, she and I've worked on the idea is behind, as we, as we've got the 25 mile an hour speed speed zone project, we've got the school speed zone project, we've got the speed humps now, and we've had a lot of conversations around the whole notion of pedestrian safety and improving the pedestrian experience in the village, and so thinking that it was a good opportunity to I think we're now ready to create a committee. I first started, I was calling it the Traffic Committee, but of course Mel Crook said, "Well, that's negative, let's do something positive, and so the idea to.. oh, I don't think it changed all the names, but to create to create a committee that would allow for some interested local people to engage in the process, and part of it will be education, because there are lots of thoughts of, well, why can't you just do this or do that, so the opportunity to expand more deeply the education around what's possible and what's not, and also I can unfortunately announce we did not get the Greenway grant, just recently got a letter saying, you know, thanks a lot, but no, so that is very disappointing, so it also made, you know, we were hoping to have professional support in identifying, prioritizing projects, and so this is an opportunity, perhaps, to do it, to do some of that work ourselves. Sure, yeah,
Karen Smythe 1:35:32
because there's also I met with, there's a guy who used to be a regional director of D O T, who is a city council member in Kingston and Sarah Hanna Shrestha's person put me in touch with he had reached out about our 25 mile an hour thing and so we chatted a bit and he said oh I can connect you and I'm like great now take all kinds of connections so I ended up Mel Quirk, wasn't able to come. I ended up meeting with this guy, his name's Bob Dennison, and he talked about traffic. I mean, they have a whole.. they have a traffic engineer in Kingston, they have a traffic committee, and I'm like, of course, you do. Sure, we don't have that. But from his role as regional director of D O t1, of the things he said was, you know, paint a center line and sidelines, and people slow down. Really, it loves paint. Like, okay, so looking at the possibility now that we have our own paint lining machine, we can try some things, even though we can't do some of the bigger things, you know, the sort of structural things. So, long way around to say that the idea behind creating this committee that would help would do deeper dives into all these possibilities and come up with a prioritization and some project ideas to present to the board to look for to move forward with, so to just, and so the final name is Pedestrian Advocacy Committee, and I think there's one spot where I didn't change that under membership. Yeah, sorry, I missed that one, and in the
Melkorka Kjarval 1:37:14
pedestrian safety better. I just
Perry Allen 1:37:16
know I like Pedestrian Advocacy, because yeah, it sounds very
Frances Uku 1:37:20
active, very
Perry Allen 1:37:22
active. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I think this is a great idea. I
Karen Smythe 1:37:27
just also to add, so bicycling is referenced in the warehouses, etc. I didn't want it in the name. Bicycling is difficult in the village, and I'd like our.. I'd like this committee to focus on primarily pedestrian, and where we can to add in bike bike activity, but our roads are so narrow, you know, sort of figuring out how we can encourage people to allow bikes to share the road, etc. It is a, is it, is a conundrum, but I don't want that to be the first thing, so that's kind of that, that was it, was me wanting to include biking in the mix, but not having that be the lead.
Perry Allen 1:38:08
I support that,
Karen Smythe 1:38:10
so that's just sort of talking about, you know, we want, we want to make walking, we want pedestrians to have a good experience in the village, and so the committee advising the village board, educating the community, advocating for opportunities to improve mobility and connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists in the village, identifying prior to prioritizing projects, creating a plan to promote public awareness and education of bicycle of pedestrian and bikes, bicycle safety, advising the village board on matters related to pedestrian and biophysical infrastructure, assisting the village in applying for grant funding to support future plans and projects, create a recommended process and criteria for approving a request for speed humps and placement of the speed trailer, and then assisting the village board with the school speed zone and 25 mile an hour boiler speed limit projects, so that's the, that's the proposal. I'll take a motion.
Frances Uku 1:39:07
I just have language edits only, because for the very reason that you speak about bicycling, I would propose that the language there, rather than walking and bicycling, be walking and rolling, because that also includes a number of modes of transport that aren't necessarily bicycling, in terms of equity, that includes wheelchair persons who use a wheelchair, strollers, people walk behind strollers, scooters, other things that aren't necessarily bicycles, but are also central to the pedestrian, so to speak, experience, so that's and that also covers you, so it can come back to bike to biking, included in that, because it sounds like we are going progressively with this to kind of first focus on on the walking aspect, and then roll, but it's just my suggestion that that would
Karen Smythe 1:39:58
greater opportunity with the walking, I think biking is just harder, that's
Melkorka Kjarval 1:40:04
yeah. So, later we say accessibility of non-motorized transportation, which is sort of like rolling, right? But it's sorry, where do
Frances Uku 1:40:11
you have that?
Melkorka Kjarval 1:40:12
It's in the back. I'm not saying that we shouldn't change it. I'm just saying that
Perry Allen 1:40:16
accessibility is
Melkorka Kjarval 1:40:17
that
Karen Smythe 1:40:18
under a
Frances Uku 1:40:20
identifying
Karen Smythe 1:40:22
end of the top one accessibility of non-motorized transportation, though arguably one can have a motorized wheelchair. Which church you want to have? Yeah, we have at least one. I
Frances Uku 1:40:33
think walking and rolling personally, I think covers you all the way through.
Karen Smythe 1:40:37
Yeah, it's just bicycling as a very different, how about biking, rolling, and walking, rolling, and bicycling? How about that?
Frances Uku 1:40:47
I feel like bicycling is in rolling, but up to an
Craig Rothstein 1:40:52
inline skater. Yes, strange, but true. I think I might like to serve on this. A lot of improvements make for people like me, which is like three of us
Perry Allen 1:41:05
in the
Craig Rothstein 1:41:06
village.
Karen Smythe 1:41:07
So, how about if we do walking, comma, rolling, and bicycling?
Melkorka Kjarval 1:41:11
Yeah, we don't have to do.. I don't mind the.. I mean, it's
Karen Smythe 1:41:16
really.. I mean, it's acknowledging, and so it's sort of not everybody is going to understand that rolling includes bicycling. There are a lot of
Frances Uku 1:41:23
accessibility people that will appreciate having
Perry Allen 1:41:26
ADA. As soon as you said rolling, the
Melkorka Kjarval 1:41:29
bicycling has specific traffic rules. Yes, because they're like a vehicle. Yeah, exactly. Like, no, you're right. I would agree with that.
Craig Rothstein 1:41:38
Biking, I do that too, and that is very different. It is there's also a big blind spot, and I mean it could be something completely separate. It doesn't have to be. It could be committee could deal with it on its own, but like the issue of e scooters and e bikes. I was gonna touch on that,
Karen Smythe 1:41:58
and I stay away from
Craig Rothstein 1:42:00
that, because I have a 13 year old son whose friends' parents see what I have done on social media, and it has come back on him, so I try to avoid it, even here, because I don't want to mess with his life, but I'm not an issue,
Karen Smythe 1:42:17
I'm gonna come back to that in just a sec, because I know it's an issue, so any other, so I'm just going to put rolling where it says pedestrians and bicyclists,
Speaker 2 1:42:29
so pedestrians,
Karen Smythe 1:42:32
bicyclists, what is what is the noun for someone who's rolling? Sorry, so where
Frances Uku 1:42:42
is that? Because I think then you just go back to use, you know, the modes, I think for pedestrians, rollers, right, alternative
Melkorka Kjarval 1:42:53
modes,
Karen Smythe 1:42:54
yeah, last line on the first page, so it's I actually was
Frances Uku 1:43:06
referring to earlier in the recitals in the whereas is, but okay, okay, oh, because specifically that one says pedestrians, bicyclists, is that you were like adjusting and rollers, I guess
Melkorka Kjarval 1:43:21
it does talk about non-motorized accessibility of non-motorized transportation, which we can change to non-motorized to, yeah, you
Frances Uku 1:43:32
can even this sentence, because you're going in, in, you know, in these operator A to F to say what it is, so maybe it's just advising the village board, educating the community, advocating for opportunities to improve mobility and connectivity, and you don't have to go into village of red. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it'll
Perry Allen 1:43:58
get people smile. Then we can, yeah, I Everybody
Karen Smythe 1:44:01
okay, so with that I take a motion to approve this resolution with adding ruling.
Craig Rothstein 1:44:10
So moved.
Karen Smythe 1:44:11
Thank you, Craig. Second.
Perry Allen 1:44:14
Second. Did
Craig Rothstein 1:44:16
we have a skate like skate night like Manhattan does summer? They, you know,
Karen Smythe 1:44:22
block party could have a lot, a rolling block party, nine or 30, have you done the rail trail?
Craig Rothstein 1:44:36
See, I've never found the rail trail, it's like a myth to me,
Karen Smythe 1:44:41
I did. I did La Grange down to Copeville Junction.
Craig Rothstein 1:44:46
Oh,
Karen Smythe 1:44:47
and back, not on
Craig Rothstein 1:44:48
skates,
Karen Smythe 1:44:49
on roller blades. Really? Yes, really.
Craig Rothstein 1:44:52
Very impressed.
Karen Smythe 1:44:58
Okay. All in favor. Okay. and I'm appointing Mel Quirke as the liaison for that e bikes, because I knew this would come up, because I know that it has been an issue, and I actually had a conversation with Lieutenant Hilde-Brand today about it. So, there are very specific state laws associated with e-bikes, if you are der Dirt e bikes are not allowed on the road, they have to be they are not allowed to be registered and in order to be on the road they have to be registered. So one of the issues is the e bike, the e dirt bikes are particularly cool because they're the ones that allow you to do wheelies without looking all backwards, but they're not allowed on the road, and so that is a problem. The the approach that the Red Hook Police Department has been taking is a warning. The first time is to say, here are the rules, here's what's okay, here's what's not okay, and but this is a warning now, if it's an e dirt bike, they say you're not riding this home, you need to have, you know, you're they have them call their parent on the phone, explains to the parent what the deal is, and they have to come pick up the bike, and they are now getting so that they've actually sort of made the rounds, they will be starting to give tickets and impound bikes. If you are under 16, the ticket goes to the parent. If you are 16 or over, the ticket goes to the individual
Craig Rothstein 1:46:32
for the dirt e-bike.
Karen Smythe 1:46:34
Any, any e-bike violation, so if you are, you are required to wear a helmet. If you are under 16, I get it wrong. So, anyway, you have to, it's got to be pedal assist. You're not supposed to go above 25 miles an hour. There's a whole series of rules. What in the end of our conversation, and to your point, there are residents who say this is or people just driving around saying, wait, there's somebody doing a wheelie in the middle of the road, they're not getting out, this is dangerous, you know, this needs to stop. And then there are other parents who are saying, gee, what's the problem, let them have fun, you know, what's the big laugh of the bite, what's the big deal? I didn't, I'm just so what I talked to, what I talked to Lieutenant Hildebrand about, was to do a public meeting, and so he's going to, he's going to get with Sergeant Starrett. They're going to find a date, and they're going to have a public meeting where they invite everybody, so that they can explain what the laws are. And these are because we could talk about local laws, but our local laws could be tighter than the state, they can't be looser than the state. So, if you understand that it's this is a state law, we don't have that flexibility, so it's helpful, I think, more broadly. And then the other opportunity is our local media can then get that information and and help share that, because I know Lieutenant Hildebrand mentioned that he's posted on Facebook, and he's, you know, he's put out a press release, so it's out there, but you know, be honest, I haven't seen it, but I also haven't been driving behind
Melkorka Kjarval 1:48:14
dirt bike versus non would like
Karen Smythe 1:48:18
save that question, because Lieutenant Hildebrand will tell you, he seems to know immediately. They, it's
Craig Rothstein 1:48:23
pretty obvious, and I have to say they're very like cool. From my 13 year old son's point of view, they just need to be, but the dirt bikes look like little motorcycles. Yeah, and I actually saw a young man, he must have been, he was tiny, he had to be like 10, and at the 55 mile an hour portion of Route Nine, where they, they were the Reclamation, the Reclaimed Motel.
Karen Smythe 1:48:50
Oh yeah, which
Craig Rothstein 1:48:51
I always had an in, should it be called the Reclamation Inn? This is my alliteration, but that little road past it, he was coming out from there, and I'm like, this is 55 and you're like nine, like I wouldn't even let you do that as a parent on a bike, much less you're on a little motorcycle, but it's a rural area, and I do know that their kids struggle, and again, this is neither here nor there, because it can't really go anywhere here, but I know that, like, the kids struggle to keep up with each other, and it's unfortunate that some parents are very happy for their kids to have these things, and other parents are not, and then the kids were not. They feel left out, and it's hard. And then you
Karen Smythe 1:49:27
have the basis of the law. Yeah, there are 16, which, when I was
Craig Rothstein 1:49:32
a kid, my friend got a moped at 16, he had to get a license to drive it, and it's weird that the fact that we plug them in, people have just been like, well, you don't need a license because you plug it in Tesla, like
Melkorka Kjarval 1:49:45
a lot of really horrible injuries for young people. It's a really, so, and
Karen Smythe 1:49:50
you know, summertime is here, it's not going to get less. Also, just, just so you know, one of the other approaches take is if, if a kid takes off half the time, they know who it is. They don't chase them, because it's only two surgery. Yeah, they just circle around again, you know? They find them, they know who they are, so they, they figure it out, and they don't want to create an accident by following, yeah, right. So I know the kids
Craig Rothstein 1:50:19
are out there, they're good kids, and again, that's part of
Karen Smythe 1:50:23
the idea of the public information is to say let's let everybody know what the rules are, and and invite the parents, invite the residents, invite the kids, you know, so that everybody's on the same page, and have you know our authorities, being our police department, say these are rules. This is how we approach it, you know. And the approach for the warning is, okay, we'll give you the chance to say you don't know. So, here are the rules.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:50:50
Third bikes allowed in the town trails park.
Perry Allen 1:50:55
No motorized isn't it?
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:50:58
Pedal assist, I don't remember how they, but you can't have, you can't have bikes on those trails, and can have bikes.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:51:05
I'm just saying, if we could send them there, I have
Craig Rothstein 1:51:09
actually looked up, like, where can I take my son to go, where he can actually ride something, because I do trust his athleticism, and, like, where can he go? And you have to go for a dedicated place, you have to travel a few hours, which is wild to me, because there's a lot of space there ought to be space, and then there is private space that let people let people can do it, but like it would be great, like the not that I want to volunteer it, but hypothetically, like the Rec Park West has all those trails, they're not well trafficked,
Karen Smythe 1:51:41
right? If
Craig Rothstein 1:51:42
it's because, if it
Karen Smythe 1:51:44
becomes a place for bikes, then nobody's walking there, that's that's
Craig Rothstein 1:51:51
the problem.
Karen Smythe 1:51:52
So, anyway, I believe the goal is to have this public session. Yes. Okay. The next item is something that came up at our last meeting, and the notion was that was it was indicated that we could talk about it at a at a workshop, and this was related to agenda setting and procedures, and sort of the brief conversation, and what we had sort of set up several months ago was we would put out an agenda by Friday morning, and then any changes after that would be something we would just.. that's why we have an acceptance of the agenda. If there are.. I don't know if there's anything further.. I mean, that's sort of the.. the idea, leaving it flexible so that things can be added or taken away, I think is good, and and then just sort of having the discipline of saying okay, as a Friday morning, as someone, something might move from here to there, or there might be a slight change in the name, but I think otherwise, you know, a fully new topic would just be introduced at the beginning of the meeting and approved by the board. The
Melkorka Kjarval 1:52:56
other thing is that sometimes these are links and sometimes they're not, so I think what was raised was that I had a bunch of things that I didn't have, I was working on the weekend to get them ready for presentation, so they were on the agenda, but not titled in the same way the files were, so when Jen put them on, it looked like new items, but they were the ones, you know, they're just because they're linked to the,
Karen Smythe 1:53:20
and those were presentations. It wasn't something there was no vote associated with that, so that was really just sort of giving information,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:53:28
yeah, and allowing people to link to it through their own computer. But
Karen Smythe 1:53:32
yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:53:33
just
Karen Smythe 1:53:34
any other comments or thoughts you want to make.
Frances Uku 1:53:37
My thing was kind of, I mean, related to that, it's just so that yours were presentations, as you say, that wasn't really so much. It is only when things appear, you know, resolutions, especially fiscal resolutions, that I haven't had a chance to look at. Just me personally, I like to have had those prior to the meeting, get you know, for Monday, when the agenda is first published, but that you know that I know we're all very busy, and we can only get things, you know, sometimes it's just the case that some weeks we may have, or some months we may have lots of availability, and some less, so you know that that was one meeting, and I'm sure we're all just generally being considerate of everyone else, so that wasn't really my, my inputting this on the agenda, that was as of the time of the meeting, that's kind of where I was thinking, but also just in terms of the presentation of the of the agenda, and I think when we had our adoption of the meeting procedures, and all of this, we had discussed having the, for me, what I, what, what I had envisioned was that for resolution specifically, that they have the drafter of the resolution not on the agenda, but like at the top of the resolution itself. For me, harmony wise, I think the agenda looks better, and this is how we've had it in the past, where we don't have names on the general business items. We, I mean, obviously, when we discuss the agenda item, someone can volunteer that they put this there, or they, but I feel it's more if you'll allow unifying, if we sort of don't have the, we don't have the teasing out on the agenda itself, so that's something I was going to float to you all, like I don't need to have my name after, like, an agenda item. If you click on, like, an EFC narrative, there you'll see my name in there. If it's a resolution that I'm proposing a draft, you'll see my name in there. That's that's just kind of where I was thinking of going with that, but that's that's up to everyone else.
Karen Smythe 1:56:04
I mean, I will say, from my standpoint, I actually appreciate knowing where they, where the things come from. Certainly, for several years, there was lots of separate, you know, one on one meetings prior to, and sort of, it was, it was more of a joint effort. Now, there's, there's a lot of, you know, sort of, here are my things for the agenda at the last minute. So, from my standpoint, I actually like knowing where they come from. I think that's helpful.
Frances Uku 1:56:28
Yeah, I mean, just, but there are things that don't have that, so like, don't have the where this came from.
Karen Smythe 1:56:39
That's true. We can, so how do we..
Frances Uku 1:56:44
my view was that just in terms of it's easier to read, we can always get into who an agenda item belongs to, but as we've just tonight, even there's something someone presents and then it opens a conversation, so it's not technically someone's agenda item, if you see what I mean, someone may have put it there, but I think, for me personally, I just think it's, I think it's more harmonious thing if you have to be here, sort of, if you want to know, like, what the discussion was, or who put it there, that's the kind of thing you need to come to the meeting and observe, or watch later, if it happens to be one of the panda ones, but ultimately it's not a big deal. This is just something that I thought,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:57:26
because we just had, I came and in my mailbox there was this, right?
Frances Uku 1:57:30
What is that? Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:57:31
and I had to ask who put it there, and because I didn't know it came from you, and so I was like, oh, who was this from, you know, and I do like that, it's sort of like you can kind of know who's proposing it, so you sort of know,
Frances Uku 1:57:44
but I, that wasn't even one that I was proposing that was attached to the fact that we had a GMO nine dash eight,
Melkorka Kjarval 1:57:50
because it, it wasn't, I didn't know, because it was, it doesn't have your name on it, does that make sense? I know it's a law, I'm just saying that it didn't, I do find it helpful knowing where things are coming from and whose proposal it is, and I do find it helpful.
Frances Uku 1:58:05
No, absolutely, but I was just saying your example right there, there would have been nowhere for me to put this on the, like, there's no item where it would have been me. You see what I mean. This is only because I'd asked Jen, like, what I could do in the future is if there's something I can put something at the top, or, or ask Jen to write, I mean, I don't know, like that was just something I asked Jen to kindly print, and she did, but it's not as you said, it's a law, so there would have been no way for me to put that at the top of mine before it appears, but
Melkorka Kjarval 1:58:38
it
Frances Uku 1:58:40
wasn't my agenda item, so to speak.
Melkorka Kjarval 1:58:44
Okay, but it was a, it was a material for discussion for an agenda, right? That you, you asked to be printed out.
Frances Uku 1:58:53
I asked to be printed out because we have a resolution, no, not for discussion, just to reference when we were talking about the GML nine dash A for the general to sewer, that's that. So it was the interest specifically I had it there, so that when I said I would prefer that the resolution match the language of the law, that's the only reason that that's there. That's not something new I was proposing, that's not quote unquote
Melkorka Kjarval 1:59:16
new. I'm saying that I didn't know who had asked for it to be in a packet, that's all. I didn't know, and I like when it's a link and I know who it's from, so then I'm reading it. I just, it just gives me a little bit of a better idea of what what I'm looking at, just a little more information.
Frances Uku 1:59:34
I agree. I was just saying, in this specific example, there would have been no way for me to do that. Any other
Karen Smythe 1:59:40
comments on this, because I just like to move us on as well. Sorry, I mean, I think you know, I think the agenda we can adapt over time and see how it goes, etc. Just since Jen needs to, yeah,
Perry Allen 1:59:52
please,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 1:59:53
I, you go, no, you go, and then I, at the end, I will just ask for clarity.
Frances Uku 1:59:57
Yeah, that's that's
Perry Allen 1:59:59
all I was gonna say is that I have, I feel like I haven't been here long enough to know which way is up regarding that, you know, I haven't operated without the names, I've operated in this way, and it's worked for me thus far, is all I can say. So, but I hear what you're saying, I could see why that there's a legitimacy, but I don't have a feeling either way, because I feel like I'm still too new,
Frances Uku 2:00:21
but to Jen's point,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:00:24
I just need to know, do you want the names on the agenda and on the documents? Do you want no names on the agenda, names on the document?
Melkorka Kjarval 2:00:33
I like the names on the document, because I like to know who it's from, but it is there are a lot of documents that you prepare that are a bunch of people working on them, exactly, engineers and lawyers, sort of stuff, but that's not necessarily the same thing as the things that we do, because we don't always have the same vetting that she has, you know, it does, it just doesn't occur to me, yeah,
Craig Rothstein 2:00:55
I'm, I wonder organizationally for these meetings, yeah, I think Jen has to deal with a lot of the logistics. You have a preference, because that would matter, that would hold more weight. That's good. Yeah, it's not if it helps you, great. If it doesn't help you,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:01:15
neither here nor there, because if you're, if you're gonna ask, if the consensus is to put the doc, the names on the documents. I'm going to ask you all to put your names on your documents, and it just matters whether I put a name on an agenda or not. I
Melkorka Kjarval 2:01:31
don't. My vote is named on the agenda for things that are added that we might not be aware of. I like it.
Frances Uku 2:01:40
Yeah, maybe you go around and vote that way, you know, it keeps it. I don't need, I don't need names on the on the items myself, but I agree on the
Karen Smythe 2:01:49
agenda, or no,
Frances Uku 2:01:50
on the documents, yes, but not the agenda itself.
Craig Rothstein 2:01:57
I don't care,
Perry Allen 2:02:00
I'm understanding. I hadn't thought about this enough,
Karen Smythe 2:02:07
as we have been. And then we can, we can, we can look at it in a few months as it goes forward. Okay. Next item. This comes from mr. Allen. Oh, sure. Communication intern.
Perry Allen 2:02:22
Thank you. This is.. there's no resolution associated with this. Is not something that I'm.. this is just an idea I wanted to throw out there to consider. If anyone wants to follow up on this as an idea regarding some of the communication strategies that we've talked about with perhaps bringing on another intern, I'm really interested in working with youth, just as a former teacher, and engaging them in civic activity. So, I just threw this little proposal together for bringing in a high school or college-aged intern, one semester is long, perhaps ending around the winter's holidays. Their primary expectations could be doing a series of video campaigns that was loosely brought up at our last meeting of just kind of various public works videos or other public service announcements that we want to put out there as a board ways of communicating and I know this position already existed in the past of tech support during some of the public meetings, helping, then there are some secondary expectations down here as well. If we wanted to explore social media or expanding the newsletter, like we've talked about, was it just an idea wanted to throw out there? I'm not attached to it, but I love the idea of bringing in more people, and this might be a way of, you know, getting a youthful person who's video tech savvy to get some of the legwork done on stuff that we don't necessarily have bandwidth.
Frances Uku 2:03:51
How do you envision engaging this person or people?
Perry Allen 2:03:55
That's a great question. I, from my perspective, I think it would be great to have a high school student, and so thus I would just imagine starting with conversation if there is a certain civic engagement group on campus or an IB program or something of that sort. Just starting might have a Model UN program with interested students, very easy application process, or even just a conversation with a teacher, and get recommendations, a la the public spaces intern would be, I guess, my initial thought as to how to move forward with that.
Frances Uku 2:04:36
I like it,
Craig Rothstein 2:04:37
so as the step parent to a young lady who is now at NYU, and has devoted, since her father bought her phone earlier than we would have, her life to social media, and now she's in a journalism hybrid program at NYU. I think that we are potentially a valuable place for both high school and college in terms of kids who want to get into media, and there is a civic engagement proposition attached there. There's also a journalism value proposition attached there, because as we've seen the journalism landscape change radically since I was in journalism school in 2008 very much towards social media, so it obviously have us considering, you know, if the village had a social media channel, and this would have to be, I know that there's a lot of, you know, hoops concerned with that, but if we did have a small targeted, you know, very narrow channel that just pushed out approved things, that would be a really, I think, that would be appealing, because that's the kind of thing that goes on a 21 year old's resume when they're applying for internships in college, or when they're applying to colleges from high school, and I'm sure I imagine there are at least, there's got to be at least one journalism class at the high school, or communications, or something, civic engagement,
Craig Rothstein 2:06:14
maybe civic engagement, but I mean, I feel like this
Melkorka Kjarval 2:06:17
is,
Craig Rothstein 2:06:17
you know, this would be, this is like, to me it sounds like an exciting opportunity, like my stepdaughter would have probably jumped at the opportunity to do something like this if she had been future-oriented in 11th grade, but and who is really not me, but but I don't know, I know that social media is problematic, and I know that you have to vouch for every word, and it has to be all, but there's, I think, it's very that generation is very tuned into communications through 45 second videos and hashtags, and that's something that, as much as I try to do it for our business, and as much as I was supposed to be educated in Columbia, which they did a terrible job. This is this generation's, this is their bailiwick. So, I don't know. I love to see an intern, you know, like on Hard Scrabble Day, to have somebody put together a few videos and say this is what the village did, or what happened the other day. I was walking my dog, I had no idea. I think Lieutenant Hildebrand thought I was there intentionally. I was on the corner and the fire trucks are rolling by, and he pulls up and he gives me a good shake, or anything. He's like, 'We're so excited to do this for the high school students, and I'm like, 'What are you talking about? And it was the little parade for, because they got screwed out of their last couple of weeks to high school because of the unfortunate and you know that poor kid who went through his own stuff, so you know it's like that wouldn't that have been great to have that good, like that's great PR for the village, it looks great, it's it's real, it's what people are doing. I thought Hildebrand deserved kind of a shout out for that, because it's a real great thing to do, so like just the thought that it's a great idea if it does not, if it's not onerous in terms of the hoops we have to jump through with putting out media, it's a great thing.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:08:14
So, two things I'm gonna say is one, have either of you guys managed an intern before? Yes.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:08:20
Okay, I've never managed an
Perry Allen 2:08:21
intern. Yeah, it feels.. I felt like it was some somehow related to teaching in that way, but I've never.. now I can't say I manage an intern,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:08:30
because sometimes you get someone that's really great, and then sometimes you get someone that's not as engaged with the process, and they're great people, very. you know, but you. they're kids,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:08:42
yeah, this, and as someone that has made content as a living, it's not as easy as just your talent, it's like actually people get paid for this, so I find it a little ambitious to ask a student to do this amount of stuff without being it being a paid position, and it, you know, yeah, not that it wouldn't be a great opportunity, and not that it's just it seems ambitious to me to,
Karen Smythe 2:09:12
well, again, also three to five hours a week for someone who really doesn't have the experience or knowledge to do that, it's not a lot of time to, I mean, I, so I had, I've had several three Bard interns related to my newsletter, and the reality is I'm creating the content, they're just putting it in places, and then afterwards I move it around, because I don't like the way it is, so you know, the to do something on the compost program, the intern ultimately is going to take, they're going to be taking videos of someone else who's already determined what it should say and where it should go, and what have you, because they're not going to have the knowledge, they're going to have to, you know, so it's going to have to be organized. What's it going to be? Social media, honestly, would be wonderful to do. The problem is, we don't have, I mean, ideally, and Mel Cork has been pushing this for a little while, is we ought to have - we probably ought to have that as part of somebody, somebody's job is to do, you know, if we were going to have social media, we have to save all of it, because it comes part of the public record that we have to hold on to, we have to be mindful of what it is that we're putting out. We then have to decide, do we allow comments or don't we? If we don't allow comments, that'll create some frustration. If you do allow comments, we then have to have somebody has to monitor them all the time, and it's a time commitment that we don't currently have capacity for. So, if we had, if we had a communicate, sorry, a communications person having an intern that sort of worked with them, sort of did some things that they could sort of throw at them in concert with their already job. Absolutely, the what I worry about here is, is, you know, yes, they can certainly assist with setting up and monitor the Zoom, but you know, in terms of having them do something a little bit more substantive than that, somebody's got to create that for them, someone's got to oversee that, someone's got to sort of help them do that, and that's not something that the village personnel have the capacity for, and so that's where it begins to be trickier, because it does take time. I mean, even if you just pick one of these things, let's say you picked what's going on at Abraham's Park, and you had somebody who, let's say, you had a high school student who you you know, let's say I don't know if you've mentioned the signs that have been brought it
Perry Allen 2:11:50
up at the last meeting, perhaps putting up signs around Abraham's Park with prompts to inspire public engagement as you walk through, so if
Karen Smythe 2:12:01
you take some pictures of that, and then maybe a high school intern takes that, and maybe walks around, maybe comes to a meeting, maybe you know they sort of put something together, but then it has to be looked at, and then put that out, that could be like, here's, here's a thing, you know, here's a curated thing that they can have part of being a part of that, I mean, I'm a huge fan of interns, I'm a huge fan of helping, of encouraging as many people as possible to get engaged in some way with local government, because most people have no idea what happens and what can be done and what is happening, as much as we try to make it, you know, as, as public is out there as possible, so I, you know, I'm a big fan. I just were.. I have.. I had a, an intern thrust on me at one point in my, in my working career, and then it turned out it was the grandson of the longtime secretary of the parent companies, the parent companies, the guy who ran the whole thing, which was the fifth largest food company in the world, it's like I can't just put him in a corner. He turned out to be amazing, and so it was a fabulous, but I dreaded it for the entire month before he.. I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna be awful, because to do a meaningful internship, it actually takes work to prepare for that, particularly when you've got someone who has less skill, and even the bar students. I mean, again, we had, because we had the two initial ones, the one I got was really engaged, and the other one not so much.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:13:33
So great,
Karen Smythe 2:13:34
very sweet, and really, the best part was she discovered that studying and taste buds was great, but that's, but I also think the rules are high school. I'm not sure, but the rules are either they're getting class credit or we're paying them, or Bart pays them. And so that's the other, is you know how that works. So I would love to suggest that this idea, because it's, you know, Bart is always asking for internship opportunities always for every semester, and they do have their program where they will fund, so I'd love to see this honed down a little bit, you know, to maybe focus on a priority and say what you know, maybe get a little bit more specific about what that might look like. I think social media, I really think that before we get into social media, we should seriously consider having a staff person who's responsible. Responsible, I'd be
Craig Rothstein 2:14:27
curious to see if there are other examples of municipalities doing that. I also wonder if there's some kind of partnership with some media organization that might be local that might be interested in having an intern who was local government focused.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:14:41
So, what I was going to just say is that I think when I was saying that this is ambitious, I think things will be multiple type of things, like maybe you can pick like one section, and that said something to go after. The other thing is, Panda did have a hook up with the woman who is the director, her husband does some sort of media thing, and they did want to do videos, find people to do videos that was during that class, I'm guessing, guessing the semester's over now, but that's a possible hookup to get, you know, people that are looking for video content, because he was actually looking for like partners to do video clip stuff, that's like a possible thing for that video,
Karen Smythe 2:15:20
and, and also I believe the library has some, I think they have some video equipment. I know they've got a space where you can do podcasts, and so there may be a link there too somehow, but I think this is an idea that that can germinate, flushing it
Perry Allen 2:15:36
out a little bit. Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:15:38
great.
Perry Allen 2:15:39
Thank you.
Karen Smythe 2:15:39
All right, moving, moving us on, so it's 9o'clock and what we had said was that we would sort of reassess the one thing that we absolutely have to get to before the end of this meeting is the budget adjustments. So, I don't know if you all want to move that up to talk about now, so we get that done. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, so if you flip, so you got a, you got a revised copy, everything shaded in gray is what changed, and I'll wait till you find the
Melkorka Kjarval 2:16:19
revisit
Craig Rothstein 2:16:24
I
Speaker 2 2:16:31
reviewed six, but I somehow.. oh, I do have it. Oh, lucky me.
Karen Smythe 2:16:37
So, this first page, this is all revenue, and so just for the first item, we received a 25,025 and change $1,000 check for cannabis sales tax. So we have currently in receipt just shy of $62,000 and we don't have April and May yet, which I did, I didn't want to over project, but it's looking about 11,000 a month, so we have the potential for even more, which is mind blowing to me. It's a good
Perry Allen 2:17:08
business. We
Karen Smythe 2:17:08
put in the budget for next year 60,000 the town put in 80. Anyway, so I just wanted to adjust it to what we've actually received with, I don't know why it's oh, because well, no, anyway, so that is just slightly above what we've, or what we've actually received, and so most of the changes just reflect actual information, so it's sort of the final bill came in, or the final check came in, or something like that, none of the, aside from that one, the rest of the changes are not, are not particularly substantive. The one other thing that I will point out is under the water fund insurance recoveries, that is actually the estimated cost of a new fire hydrant with all the blue gas and gasket, put in the brain, and, and so that was a payment that came in for the specifically for the fireplace that was run over. It did break. This, and I'm like, oh, let me look, and I looked, and that was the, that was the estimate we gave, so there it is.
Perry Allen 2:18:24
Could I ask you a question?
Karen Smythe 2:18:25
Of course.
Perry Allen 2:18:25
Here on the second page, I had noticed that adult recreation and the public art space had $1,000 that is being taken away each. Is that just to reflect what happened in last year's budget, or is that some.. okay, yeah, so keep that money from public art and fight for that, and we can't carry
Karen Smythe 2:18:46
it over, gotcha, the carryover ultimately is in the fund balance, if you will,
Perry Allen 2:18:51
if
Karen Smythe 2:18:51
there's carry over, it's so there was no proposal from public art space that ultimately was approved to be used, and then the senior adult recreation. So, in the past, we have given $1,000 to the Red Hook Seniors, which is a membership club. You have to pay to be a member, and mostly what they do is organize trips that you then pay for to go on, and so it. we've had limited discussions around what could we and should we be doing with public dollars, and it started to feel like maybe that organization wasn't the best use of public dollars, and so it just sort of never came up. I probably got a letter somewhere, but I don't recall, and so it kind of felt by the wayside, but I do think it's something that we should have a more active discussion about. We have also, and we did make a contribution to
Melkorka Kjarval 2:19:58
Community Action, Community
Karen Smythe 2:19:59
Action Partnership. Thank you. We also, as a village, supported Red Hook Response during COVID, which to me, I mean, again, I, I joined in, joined the board as, as COVID, I thought it was leaving us faster than it did, but that made a whole lot of sense, because there was an emergency situation, and it was an organization that sort of popped up and was basically feeding our community, Community Action Partnership does have an office here, they do have hours here, they effectively are helping people get services, and so that feels a little bit more logical for us to be supporting, do they still, yes, they're renting,
Perry Allen 2:20:40
okay, so
Karen Smythe 2:20:40
they sold the building that they're renting out of the same building. Okay, so anyway, that's gotcha. So this is merely reflecting that we didn't use that money.
Perry Allen 2:20:50
Gotcha. Thank you.
Karen Smythe 2:20:52
Any other questions?
Frances Uku 2:20:54
Yes, I have. So this is one of the ones where I would need to hear from Kyle on, and I took the village paid for me to take an OSC introduction to governmental accounting, and as far as I am aware, and this is something Kyle can confirm, this fiscal has closed, so there is no way for us to retroactively make adjustments for a fiscal year that is now closed, so what
Karen Smythe 2:21:24
can why wouldn't we able be able to make adjustments?
Frances Uku 2:21:27
Because that's the point of a budget, is you say that this is what I'm going to be spending in this year, and so once that year is over, you cannot go back and say actually what I was going to spend is different.
Karen Smythe 2:21:39
This is merely reconciling,
Frances Uku 2:21:40
aha, so it's a reconciliation that's not to do with us. Then that's a treasurer or comptroller that addresses that, that's not board, because the board authority, and I won't give you numbers and all of that, because maybe that makes people nervous, but I would just like to hear from council that this is something that we do as a, as a, that this is valid to be done for a year to make budget adjustments for a year that has a fiscal year that has ended.
Karen Smythe 2:22:12
I guess it is the board's responsibility to be involved and engaged in the fiscal piece, this is making the budget match what's what's spending. It's something that's been been done for the last at least 1015 years. So I, we, we send our information and have, and have I can certainly ask. I'm not sure it's necessarily a legal question. It's more of an a comptroller question.
Frances Uku 2:22:48
No, if you prefer, also I can. If people are eager to vote, that's fine. I will take it upon myself to write the email to council just to confirm that this is something that we can legally do. I'm
Karen Smythe 2:23:02
just.. I'll just say, from my perspective,
Frances Uku 2:23:04
I understand.
Karen Smythe 2:23:05
I'm.. I'm.. I'm really pretty disappointed that two weeks later you're bringing this up now. I would have loved you have to have after we put this on hold, and you said I would like to look at it. Yes, that you had indicated prior to that this was something that you were, that you were thinking we didn't have to do at all. I
Frances Uku 2:23:23
literally, this is literally just did this today. And also, we have worked on so many things. I've done my best to be present for everything that we do. It's not the fact that I knew this and was hiding it. I brought it because I just learned that this is not something that I went through my notes, and this is just one thing, and we can pass it without me. I'm just saying that one clarification from council is what I would like to receive to be able to vote on it, because I would like to, but this is not something per my reading that I just found today. I'm not trying to spring anything on anyone, I'm not dismissing work that's been done, I'm just saying that this is something for myself to understand, like what I have read, what I've taken classes on, whatever it's.. it's yes,
Karen Smythe 2:24:13
no, I, and I appreciate the fact that you have interpreted what you've read as you have. What I know is that this has been standard practice in the village of Red Hook, and it's not unique to the Village of Red Hook. So, I guess it comes as a surprise to me that there would be a question as to whether or not this is valid. So, I guess that's the, you know, to me this, this feels.. it's just surprising, I guess, to me. And so, from my standpoint, I guess I didn't think this was controversial. I would request, if you all are willing, if there would be a motion, a motion to approve this resolution. So moved. Thank you, Mad Corke. Second.
Craig Rothstein 2:24:55
Second.
Karen Smythe 2:24:56
Any further discussion? Then I'll do a local vote. Aye, Craig.
Perry Allen 2:25:05
Aye,
Karen Smythe 2:25:06
Fran no, Perry.
Perry Allen 2:25:11
Hi.
Karen Smythe 2:25:12
Okay. Thank you. All right, so that's done. That
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:25:19
is number 3131
Karen Smythe 2:25:20
Thank you. Okay, okay. So, yeah, workshops and web access.
Perry Allen 2:25:33
I also don't want to keep the conversation going for too long. I just wanted to keep going, because I know we were in the middle of an ongoing conversation regarding our workshops and the web access, and I was just thinking about it more, and wanted to put my thoughts down officially and share them out. If we don't have time for conversation, we can table it for the next time, but you can just meditate on my thoughts. At least, I suppose that it felt as though we were just having two separate matters. There's what's going on in the workshops in its own matter versus public access in its own matter, and it just felt to me that if the workshops function the same as a public session in which everything can happen that can happen in either way, that they should function or that the public should have the same access, so that thus it fell on I was feeling though I wanted to respect that I don't enjoy having a computer in front of me, and I like this, and I also don't want to do excessive amounts of work, so if there would be a way in which to just have a single computer captures the room, et cetera, but it felt I just sort of had that epiphany as I was thinking about it, that's it, that's all I wanted to say. Yes, please.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:26:40
So, do you.. there's with two solutions.
Perry Allen 2:26:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah, one or the other. Yeah. And do you
Melkorka Kjarval 2:26:48
have a feeling either way of a proposal? You don't care either way. Not
Perry Allen 2:26:52
personally, you know. I could see a benefit either way. I could see the benefit of having.. I've enjoyed being able to just keep work flowing, and so in the workshops it's been nice to continue voting on things, because it's felt like we've been able to keep things moving. So, I like that. So, maybe I'd personally lean toward just getting web access to the workshop meetings, but if that's also cumbersome, I can all see the benefit of having a set time in which we and the public know we can't pass anything, it's just a discuss. So I could see others.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:27:24
Do I was going to ask, would it would having Panda record a workshop, would that meet the the idea like of it being recorded in the same way? Or did you want it to
Perry Allen 2:27:36
be? I think for me, yes, at least with my intention of trying to get this out there, I think I would feel comfortable with that. Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:27:44
would it make sense for us to look into how much that would cost? No. So I actually was just going to say I actually emailed
Perry Allen 2:27:50
Panda, I think I emailed them Friday, and asked what would it take to have you.
Karen Smythe 2:27:56
It's not necessarily a cost. So the way Panda works is they have an annual budget, and that budget is split by the five municipalities that that support them, and it's split by by population, and so I don't know if they would say, well, we have to pay somebody to come, and so it would be x hours, I believe that they, I believe they record both of the town meetings, and they do extra meetings, and they're often looking for more content, so I don't know if it would be just they would come because it's content they could have, or whether or not they would think it's an extra cost to them that we would have to look to fund, because the idea that behind Panda is that they have an annual budget and we split it up by population,
Perry Allen 2:28:40
but that's interesting to, okay, yeah, because that would be an easy way of moving forward, and then the public could have access, you know, or at least, you know, to the reporting, because
Karen Smythe 2:28:50
there's there's something nice about sitting at this table.
Perry Allen 2:28:52
Agreed, yeah, and I wouldn't want to mess with the formal,
Karen Smythe 2:28:55
but it's nice to have the, and I think it's probably, I know that I have looked at, you know, things do come up at the last minute, which is also sometimes why things aren't on on an agenda in advance. Sometimes, and so, because we have the workshop, it's an opportunity to do business, but I think it's also when there's something that's of a certain weight that we should seriously consider making sure that it's, and I often think about that, but to make sure that it's, you know, it's recorded on Panda at that meeting. The opportunity to at least find out what what Panda says by asking.
Perry Allen 2:29:38
Yeah, thanks for inquiring about that. I'll be interested to find out
Karen Smythe 2:29:41
any other thoughts on that.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:29:42
When we used to have, so now I've been on the board for five years, not a tremendous amount of time, but it is like there's different board makeups. We used to meet up in the conference room, and the workshops were helpful for when we were tackling like a complicated law, you know, we would be sitting in, so like the goat law, for example, the animal husbandry law. There was like a lot of conversations back and forth about weights of animals, and and it was this sort of thing where, like, because obviously Victoria had written it up, it was with you, and you and Steve had done the most of the work on it, so you were presenting it to us, and then we kind of like, pick apart. There is something nice about not sitting up on the podium while you're talking about that stuff. It kind of can feel a little.. it will change things to have like a recording. There is a different way that you.. when you feel like you're being.. you know, I won't joke as much. That's okay. It's not a bad thing, I mean, they're not great jokes, but it's just it will change how it feels. It's not a bad thing. Like, I remember once going to a library board meeting, and they had out snacks, and I was like, that's inappropriate. Like, it should never be a club, right? We should never be so chummy that we're not remembering that we're dealing with tax dollars. So, anyway, that's to say that it might change the way that workshops have functioned. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's something to consider.
Perry Allen 2:31:10
Sure,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:31:12
I'm open to Jake.
Perry Allen 2:31:13
Yeah,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:31:15
Craig looks like he's done.
Craig Rothstein 2:31:16
No, no, I was gonna, I was gonna make a joke and say, when did you tell a joke? But well no, I think that you know this is more productive to me than sitting up on the dais, or whatever we want to call it, and you know, and not looking at each other. I think, is really important. This is seminar style. It's a very productive, and whether or not the camera, you know, obviously, you know, Heisenberg's uncertain principle, you know, you observe things, the observation changes the thing. So, you know, I think we have to do as a board, we have to work as a body and produce things, and board meetings tend to be far. I think they're very healthy, but in terms of raw production, I feel this is more generative. So, you know, when we're you're living under something like the Open Meetings Law, you know, you're construct, I find it to be, and I never thought about it before. It is constrictive in terms of what you're actually able to accomplish, because there are times when you might be productive that you're not productive specifically because you don't want to trigger a law that requires a certain kind of criteria be met. So this is a very productive format, and I don't know that I - I'm all for complete transparency. Everybody in our constituency should know exactly what we're doing when we are on their dime. At the same time, as somebody who is a member of a broader constituency, say the town or the county or the federal government, for all that's become there is a time where I'm like, go sit and do your job, and just let me know, and just get it done, and so you know, I think there's a balancing act. I'm happy with these meetings, I look, I like these more than the board meetings, and I think that they're productive, and I don't want to mess with that. So, I don't know how to balance it. I think it's a conversation worth keeping having, so that you know we know, and people know that it's not lost to us that there needs to be transparency, but the way to do transparency and not have that overtake the primary responsibilities of government, that's also, you know, critical. So, running on a treadmill,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:33:40
that was well said, though. Even if it was a me joke,
Perry Allen 2:33:46
cool. Thanks for at least having the continuing the conversation.
Karen Smythe 2:33:53
Okay, so we're down to other items for discussion. I have something, and I know you had wanted to talk something about events, I think.
Perry Allen 2:34:02
Oh, it just.. it had come up at the last meeting, and I just had a question about it. When we were going to establish the Hetland Committee, Fran Trustee, who you had brought up, that the events committee didn't function in that way, as an example, as we were just.. and I just had questions as to how it functioned, or in which way it wasn't functioning, that was different. But we, if we don't have time, we also can talk about that,
Karen Smythe 2:34:27
so I can, I can answer, you know, sort of quickly, and then, you know, we can certainly have a broader conversation. The the events committee is different by, by sort of purpose, because the idea behind the events committee, and several years ago, when we started looking at events and saying, how can we, as a village, support events and not be the ones doing them. Doing events is a lot of work. My first year it was Mel Corco, Amy, Jeff, me, Dan Fucci was in that mix, who basically did hardscrabble, brought it back from remote, and there was a parade. There were activities in the morning, there were activities in the afternoon, there was the evening, there was stuff, there was stuff, you know, we tried to get people to go up north,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:35:21
history display in here, and, and, and
Karen Smythe 2:35:24
there, you know, a couple of folks met with old business owners to try and connect, and that just, it, it was an enormous amount of work, and so, yes, there was, there was some intense exhaustion at the end cry, I did not, I had a beer, and so that was sort of the beginning of wait. How do other people do it? And basically, other nonprofits or other organizations do the work, and the village supports it and funds it. I mean, we, you know, we invest in if someone's going to do it in the public space, so that led to a whole discussion around creating an events law, and we still need to create that events law. We have an application, and so the events committee has really turned into when someone says, I want to do an event, a there's another event that day, you know, no, but if they do, then there's the bigger application to fill out, but then it's a meeting with someone in the events committee. Right now, that events committee is me and Amy. I think it's
Melkorka Kjarval 2:36:27
more commission than committee. I always thought committee was the wrong, and maybe we should
Karen Smythe 2:36:30
change the names.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:36:31
It's not like they're not bringing ideas to the board, they're bringing proposals that have been gone through the process, so they're ready for the board to review. Sorry to cut you off. No, yeah, but I think it's like
Perry Allen 2:36:42
structurally a different, it's structurally a different, different thing. They're not generating
Melkorka Kjarval 2:36:46
stuff, and they're not suggesting, they're just responding to helping communicate between a third party in the village and connecting with the different departments and make sure all
Karen Smythe 2:36:55
the pieces have been thought through. So maybe the opportunity to look at the structure of the events committee, and maybe call it a commission, is so over the next two months. I would like to bring forth an events committee law, an events law, and so at that point there might be a logic to make some adjustments at that point. Well,
Perry Allen 2:37:12
thank you. I was just curious that
Melkorka Kjarval 2:37:16
it's not the same. It used to be a thing that was like throwing the neighbors' nights and doing a lot of like of the of the actual events, but now it's more of a just trying to facilitate third parties to be able to do it and go through the process, because it is really like annoyingly so many back and forth emails and coordination, and it's a lot sure,
Karen Smythe 2:37:37
so the one thing that I wanted to bring up was we as a board passed the land use study in March. I believe was when we passed our planning consultant has taken the time to take a look at the proposed zoning amendment that she had done, looking at the adjustments that we made to the, you know, sort of the final land use study that we passed, and to make any adjustments there, and so I, and part of what came out of that, because we did have some discussion in the zoning amendment, it includes uses, and there was there was a variety of discussions around the zoning amendment law, proposed law, and so there's now Bonnie has put together, Bonnie, who's our planning consultant, has put together a series of questions of things that have come up and also has made some adjustments to the zoning amendment itself, so I am only telling you that to get excited, because this is the next step, to, I mean, ultimately the reason, no, the opportunity that we have, we recognize that we have an opportunity to expand our housing without changing the character of the village, there are actually a surprising number of places where we could put a housing, and it could feel still, still feel like the village. It might even feel like we've enhanced the village, because we've added the village feel to some other areas, and so that, and so making it be the northeast quadrant. Part of the reason why it came up was because we have this affordable housing project that the way our zoning is now it's zoned for residential, but it's not really taking into account the future prospect of having municipal sewer, and it really, the mindset at the time was more single family homes, and we really want to encourage the opportunities for denser housing, etc. So that was sort of, and there's an amazing, there's a surprising amount of space behind Route Nine. You've got those buildings in the front, but there's actually quite a bit of space back there that, with the proper encouragements, could actually create a variety of interesting housing back there, so that's sort of the background, and so with the land use study, if you haven't read it, I highly encourage reading it. If you haven't looked, there's there were two info sessions that were done with Bonnie, two or three, two with Bonnie and Bonnie, who's our planning consultant, and Victoria, who's our land use attorney, that gives a nice background of sort of the general idea, but I would encourage you to take a look at the land use study and the zoning amendment is what flows out of an amendment to your comp plan of this would be a change in zoning, so two things, one is I have documents that I will organize and share with all of you, and what I, what I would like for a process is to have public meetings just with this as a topic, and and I'd like to, and this is obviously an opportunity to talk to Panda and see if they can record them all as well. In talking to and Bonnie and Victoria, I think it's important for both of them to be there at our meetings, because there's going to be a lot of questions and a lot of, well, maybe what if, and they are in the best position to answer the what ifs. They've either done it before, they have experience in different communities. There's a reason why things are written a certain way, that sort of thing. Some of the things in the zoning amendment are specifically for the Northeast quadrant, and some are to apply to the whole village. So, the workforce housing, for example, that's intended to apply to the whole village. So, I'll encourage you to take a look, and that's kind of long, because anyway, it's kind of long, because there's lots of process in there. What I would like to propose, what's going to work easiest, because Bonnie has - she goes to a variety of meetings in the evenings, as does Victoria.
Karen Smythe 2:41:56
They had indicated, and I was thinking that Mondays might be a good day, and I was, and what works for them, and I'm hoping that work for us is a month, as Monday afternoon, like one to three on a Monday, because, and that was sort of, and so my point in bringing it up is, what I'd like to do is schedule our July meeting, so that we can kick it off, so the Mondays that I know that Victoria and Bonnie are available are the last three Mondays in July, so the 13th, 20th, and 27th Fran, you're yeah,
Frances Uku 2:42:31
only I don't want to bring down the mood, but July last year is when my sister died, and and I have, I have July is going to be a was already going to be a tricky month for me in terms of village schedule, so additional, I mean, I can, I can make it work if, since it will be public meetings, and if the time difference, but if there's a way for me to attend remotely, because I, it's so very important, and especially with the EFC, the prospect of EFCNR moving forward positively. This is the time to return to the zoning law, but yeah, that's just a personal,
Karen Smythe 2:43:19
and a very, and a very important and appropriate personal commentary, and I'm honestly, I apologize for not even thinking about, oh no,
Frances Uku 2:43:28
no, my question,
Karen Smythe 2:43:30
and wanting to accommodate is, so the all of, all of sort of the latter half of July is, you'll be away, it's not easy to zoom in, especially when you're in a very different
Frances Uku 2:43:42
time zone.
Karen Smythe 2:43:43
Are you back in August? Would the first Monday in August work?
Frances Uku 2:43:47
I'm not even.. it's not even so much that I'm away the whole time. My mother's here. I, to be honest, it's in flux. I have one ticket booked, but I don't know how I. it's complicated. I'll put it that way. It's complicated. So, is that what we're thinking right now, that it would be one to three on the last three on the Monday when we have a public meeting scheduled? So
Karen Smythe 2:44:15
that's that's what I'm, that's what I.. so I discussed this all with Bonnie and Victoria last week.
Frances Uku 2:44:21
Yes,
Karen Smythe 2:44:21
and I said, what works for you? Because it's trying to think of an evening that would work. Yes, this group I thought that, because I know the latter part of the week is harder for you. Yeah, actually,
Craig Rothstein 2:44:35
Mondays have become good,
Karen Smythe 2:44:36
and that's what I was remembering. And so I was thinking, well, maybe we could do a Monday afternoon, because you know, yes, it's summer, and this child care things, and all that, but I was just wanting to propose that as a notion could easily be the same day as our meeting in July, so that is the 13th, the 13th, and the 27th
Perry Allen 2:45:01
if we're keeping it in July, those are the two that do work for me. Otherwise, I'll be gone, and I could, I could, in theory, zoom in.
Karen Smythe 2:45:10
It's better for, I mean, again, there's no reason why it can't be the 13th or the 27th And so, I guess, I guess what I might suggest is, is there a better one of so let's focus on the 13th of the 27th Is there a better one without any commitment? Is there one that would have risks to be slightly better than the other?
Frances Uku 2:45:30
No, no, same.
Karen Smythe 2:45:33
And then what I might suggest is that we hold this meeting anyway, because you two haven't engaged yet in this process, so it might be an opportunity for you all to dig more deeply. You had put, you know, you had, you had prepared a document, and what I talked to Bonnie and Victoria about, and I'll talk to you about as well.
Frances Uku 2:45:55
You mean the resolution? No, you had,
Karen Smythe 2:45:57
you had, you had done, because you were talking the table form based code, and oh, that,
Frances Uku 2:46:04
that, sorry, yeah,
Karen Smythe 2:46:06
and what I, what I wanted to, so here's, here's what I think is the best process for us. One is we take Bonnie's document, that's the document that we work with, but in your document you had their ideas in there, their proposals in there, questions in there, and so that was what I was asking both Bonnie and Victoria, is pull those out. Let's talk about the idea. Let's talk about rather than talk about, you know, sort of this language, it's what's the idea behind it. Yeah, and if in discussion with the board, what, what does that, you know, where do we end? There's some decisions that we have to make,
Frances Uku 2:46:42
and to be clear, that was all that was ever intended to be great,
Karen Smythe 2:46:46
and I, and that's part of what I, you know, I get a formal, very professional-looking document, and I think this is, you know, sort of very finished. What I'm learning is that it's your way of presenting your ideas, so I appreciate that. So I'm glad that I've understood that correctly, because I think there are a lot of really interesting ideas in there that we should discuss, and there's some, and the other is this isn't the last zoning we'll ever do. Clearly, we need to do a comprehensive plan. We don't have time to do that right now, and I think we have an opportunity to do the best we can. It will not be perfect. There'll be things that we're like, I wish we could do this or that. I would like to get it going and get to resolution for this project, so that we can then do the next projects, i.e. comprehensive plan. We're going to need to apply for a grant for that, so you know, and there's only so much capacity in our, that's a little hitting all the buttons here, so, so I'm, I'm gonna say, so for you, there's no one that's better than
Frances Uku 2:47:55
no schedule away, and I'll make
Karen Smythe 2:47:57
for you guys, is there is the 13th better, because you said the 20th is bad for you.
Perry Allen 2:48:02
20 says is bad, so yeah. Either, oh, I see. Because we have 27th we have
Frances Uku 2:48:07
three in there. We have
Karen Smythe 2:48:09
meetings there. So, do you care?
Craig Rothstein 2:48:11
The 13th might be more, really better. We're, we may go away, but we haven't planned it yet. Okay, that's usually the end of drill.
Perry Allen 2:48:19
That works for me. 13th,
Karen Smythe 2:48:21
and two, but otherwise
Melkorka Kjarval 2:48:25
the 13th is not good for me, but I'm just realizing it's not good for me, and I'm gonna have to figure that out. I can't guarantee that the 13th is great.
Frances Uku 2:48:35
We
Craig Rothstein 2:48:35
haven't planned
Frances Uku 2:48:38
it right now, everything seems very heavy, because I'm so low at the moment, but I, I'm so, I'm so low at some point every month, so it just, I, yeah, yeah, figure it all out,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:48:57
please let me know, or the mayor know, as both of us know, if you are not going to be around for meeting nights, because I don't want to show up to a meeting and not have
Frances Uku 2:49:07
quorum at whatever
Karen Smythe 2:49:11
point you know that you won't be here. If you can avoid, if you have a choice, if you can avoid being away for a meeting, that would be great. I think this is a very locked-in board.
Craig Rothstein 2:49:20
I think, Harry comes home from camp the night before, so that means we wouldn't be young anymore. So, I think I'll let you know, the 13th seems more stable for me.
Karen Smythe 2:49:33
Okay, and the 13th is not stable for you.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:49:35
I, so, yeah, I dropped my kid, my older two, at sleep-away camp in Delhi, and my husband's gonna be out of the country, but I don't know exactly when he's leaving. I don't know the draft office, so I'll find out. I'll make that work. I can also
Perry Allen 2:49:47
zoom in on the 20th if that works. We're just taking a road trip, so I'll be..
Melkorka Kjarval 2:49:52
I think it's more important for you and Craig to be here in person to talk about it, with the, you know, with the consultants, because you guys will be orienting yourself with it, so I appreciate that.
Karen Smythe 2:50:03
So, why don't we? Why don't, given that, why don't we fix the 13th? Because this is truly not, this is not the meeting, this is the beginning of meetings. What I would like to plan is at a minimum of one meeting a month until we're done, and I'm hoping it doesn't take forever, but, but again, that's so we all have our homework to do before we get there. I encourage you to read the land use something, zoning study. Thank you, and I encourage you to, I will be sending out, probably tomorrow, all the documents, along with the list of things that we will be discussing, in terms of what do we think, because we did get some comments initially. I will also encourage you, when you get there, to remember that there are definitions to words that are in the zoning amendment that are at the end. So, for example, there's fast food - you might think that that's just McDonald's and Burger King. It's not. It's, it's basically
Melkorka Kjarval 2:51:02
the
Karen Smythe 2:51:03
corner counter. Oh yeah, it's bubbies. It's basically takeout food, if you will, the way we have defined it
Melkorka Kjarval 2:51:10
on a counter. It's fast food, yeah,
Karen Smythe 2:51:12
yeah. So be careful, don't assume, but then
Perry Allen 2:51:14
are there ways of avoiding, say,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:51:17
yes,
Perry Allen 2:51:17
other
Melkorka Kjarval 2:51:18
chains referred
Karen Smythe 2:51:20
to as formula businesses, and we have put no drive-throughs, so that, so anyway, so I'm just encouraging you, because I know when I first read it, I'm like, what, what we don't want fast food, but then reading the actual definition, which is way at the end, so just if there's a question about, well, what does this mean, take a look at the end, because there are definitions back there.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:51:43
Definitions first, I thought of that. Maybe
Karen Smythe 2:51:46
I have the document, so I don't want to redo it, because it came from Bonnie, but it might end up making sense. Teacher, I would always start with
Melkorka Kjarval 2:52:00
it's not like an agenda thing. It's just before you go there.
Karen Smythe 2:52:03
I just want to clarify, so I've just sort of relatively randomly said one to three. The only thing is both of them need to get to other meetings for the evening, so it could be 12 to, and I'm assuming two hours, just because it's a lot. It could be 12 to two, it could be two to four, probably not a whole lot later than that. Do you care?
Perry Allen 2:52:22
No, especially not over the summer.
Karen Smythe 2:52:24
Okay, so school
Perry Allen 2:52:25
time I might have to be done by three. If you don't care, we'll leave
Karen Smythe 2:52:29
it with one to one to three. I need a
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:52:31
motion to set a public meeting because I have to public notice and everything. So,
Karen Smythe 2:52:35
so let's do that. May I have a motion to set a public meeting on July 13 from one to three to discuss the proposed zoning amendment law.
Craig Rothstein 2:52:44
So moved.
Karen Smythe 2:52:44
Thank you, Craig. Seconded. Thank you, Perry. All in favor, aye. Great, thank you.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:52:51
So my last little thing was, you're having a coffee hour this week, right? Yes,
Perry Allen 2:52:55
on Wednesday.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:52:56
Is anyone else going to it? Because when I popped in, it was very useful to like meet people. I recommend, if anyone else, we shouldn't overlap, obviously. Thanks for bringing that up. I meant to, I meant to bring
Perry Allen 2:53:05
it up 12 to
Craig Rothstein 2:53:09
one Wednesday. It's
Karen Smythe 2:53:11
not 11, it's
Perry Allen 2:53:11
1112 Thank you. I was just saying that, because I did it last time wrong, and I did it from 10 to 11, and then forgetting that we weren't actually open, so this time we are actually open from 11 to noon.
Craig Rothstein 2:53:22
I'd probably be in
Perry Allen 2:53:23
here.
Craig Rothstein 2:53:24
It was
Perry Allen 2:53:25
really great, you know. Five people showed up. We just had really fluid conversation about everything from the sewer to..
Craig Rothstein 2:53:33
I'd be interested to pop.
Perry Allen 2:53:34
Okay,
Melkorka Kjarval 2:53:35
so if you're gonna pop, nobody else pop, because then we got.. or we, yeah, or we do a schedule, but I don't think there's enough time. I think it's good you do it.
Speaker 1 2:53:42
Sure, you can maybe
Melkorka Kjarval 2:53:43
like have a
Perry Allen 2:53:44
yeah, yeah, that sounds great. I'm hoping to do it once a month, so every month we can switch it up. Beautiful.
Karen Smythe 2:53:51
And the reality is, you can physically be in the same room without having a public, a noticed public meeting. It's just you shouldn't be discussing decisions and business, which is a little tricky, because people have come in to talk business. So, yeah, but if you stop by and one other of you is there, don't go, you know, say hello. You can introduce yourself to the people, you can have a conversation, but you just can't have a sort of broad discussion about business. Sure, items,
Perry Allen 2:54:21
okay? Good time. Thank you. Okay, bring that up.
Karen Smythe 2:54:24
All right, so the last thing I have, which I forgot to get the numbers, so I'm going to read them out from the reports, is I need a motion to approve vouchers as per the 622 treasurer's report.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:54:39
Did you have any payments? Before,
Karen Smythe 2:54:41
no, the general fund amount is 60,003 17 and four cents. The water fund is $7,519.89 Bless you. And the sewer fund is $5,948.99 so May I have a motion to approve these vouchers?
Frances Uku 2:55:26
So moved.
Karen Smythe 2:55:28
Okay. No, let's keep going.
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:55:30
No, we're good. Yes.
Karen Smythe 2:55:33
Yes. Never mind. I'll explain. Did I get a motion?
Perry Allen 2:55:38
Yes.
Karen Smythe 2:55:39
And did I get a second?
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:55:40
No,
Karen Smythe 2:55:41
I need a second. Pick one. All in favor. Okay. What I.. why is it very exciting? Well, it's not that exciting, except that I did a resolution, and I realize it's not on the agenda, so my apologies, but it's not 10 o'clock yet. Is to confirm some members for the wetland rehabilitation and vitalization. Oh,
Perry Allen 2:56:00
that's right. I challenge you
Karen Smythe 2:56:01
to say that name.
Perry Allen 2:56:07
Oh, yeah,
Karen Smythe 2:56:09
A V C, W R
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:56:17
V C sounds like another radio station. W R V C,
Perry Allen 2:56:21
tuning in, WRBC.
Karen Smythe 2:56:24
So, the proposed people, I literally just put them in alphabetical order. So, we have Zoe Evans, who's a town resident. We have Michelle Gluck, who is a village resident, and Michelle, I believe we've all.. we all.. I mean, I don't know if you were there, but we.. she's involved with Climate Smart, etc. and a village resident, we have Nicholas Hamilton, who's a village resident who lives on Smith Street, I believe, thus his interest in this, Amanda Sandor, who's a town resident, she works for Ulster Soil and Water, and is a member and actually a co-chair now of the Sawkill Watershed Community, she will be an excellent asset. We have Kelsa Shanley, who's a village resident. She is a Smith Street resident, and has she.. she has been particularly focused, and has has called in many times with odor complaints, etc. And so I think it's a great opportunity for her to just get more information, and and then Kat Viego, who's a village resident, who's also been very involved with the what I refer to as the Benner Road Coalition, I think they call themselves Saw Kills, that feels that feels a little too far away, because we're a tributary of a tributary of a Sakill, but anyway, that's to the side, so those are five members: 123456, members. Sorry, to our town, for our village, so it meets the criteria. Just to let you know, I've reached out to Karen Schneller McDonald, who was the former chair of the Sawkaya Watershed Community. Her response was she'd love to be a resource, but not necessarily on the committee. I've also reached out to Chris Solomon, who's thinking about it, because he would - he is - he is a true professional as it relates to aquatic wetlands and aquatic restorations, and the like. Did I describe that
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:58:17
more into fisheries? But go ahead,
Karen Smythe 2:58:20
if he says he knows he's a, he
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:58:22
knows this stuff, he knows, he knows this stuff. Yes,
Speaker 2 2:58:26
he would be very until he shatters him, until he shocks what the wildlife,
Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk 2:58:31
and he shocks fish. Does fish count? They mean nobody does.
Melkorka Kjarval 2:58:36
Yeah, they float up, and then he counts them when they wake up,
Craig Rothstein 2:58:39
they feel mentally healthy,
Karen Smythe 2:58:45
so I put this together. I apologize that I didn't put it on the agenda. If you all are okay, I would love to have you all, as I say, we can always add members, but I'd love to give these guys an opportunity to get started. Perry and I talked a little bit about, I think, the beginning part is a lot of education. I think it's a lot of understanding. There's a lot of history around this. It's connecting with even if Karen Schnell or McDonald comes in and talks about what a wetland restoration plan might look like, having a tour of the wastewater treatment plant, but also of the wetland back there, starting to understand where the inputs are, because it's, it's storm water from Route Nine, it's storm water from Red Hook Estates, as well as, as well as the discharge from the wastewater treatment plant, etc. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for education, which then will lead to sort of then beginning to say, what can we do to enhance the health of the wetland, we also need to be in touch with DEC, because they have an easement on the property, etc. So, anyway, other
Melkorka Kjarval 2:59:50
terms,
Karen Smythe 2:59:50
yes, two years. Okay, and actually, because we're, because we're off kilter, so normally this would be done at the reorg meeting that we do in early April. So, the way I've set up the resolution has everybody's term ends april 3, 2028 so it's slightly less than two years, so probably maybe next year we make some adjustments, so not everybody goes off his term is up at the same time, but this feels like just rather, I mean, a year from next April we can see who's really engaged and who might not be as interested, and what have you. So, yes,
Perry Allen 3:00:26
I think some of the individuals on here have been some of the most vocal antagonists of the wastewater treatment plant activists that you was just trying to think of the right word. Thank you. Thank you. Protect, I was like, I just couldn't come up with the right word, but I mean it very lovingly. Advocates, yes, and I think just a wonderful opportunity to bring them in, and I think that will really help in terms of like the public perception once they are part of the team as well, because I
Karen Smythe 3:00:52
think from an education standpoint, I think you know initially it was everything that's wrong with that whole area is must be because of the wastewater treatment plant, and sort of, as we started to pull the pieces apart, it, the other person, so the soft hill watershed community, in concert with Bard, Bard put together this whole database of data of of water testing data. Well, there's water testing data that goes back to the 70s in that area, and so having him come and present that data to this group, I think, would be great, because again it goes to show there's been issues in that area, that was there was data because they were concerned about the what was being dumped in there from the meat packing plant at the time, so it's a whole sort of opportunity, but I think the knowledge base is going to be important as well, so if you guys are okay with that, take a motion to approve this resolution.
Frances Uku 3:01:49
So moved.
Karen Smythe 3:01:50
All right, thanks, Fran. Second,
Craig Rothstein 3:01:53
second.
Karen Smythe 3:01:54
Thanks. All in favor, aye. Great, I, we did the voucher approval
Melkorka Kjarval 3:02:01
activists into the man, it's my favorite, turning activists into the man. Yeah,
Karen Smythe 3:02:10
that's awesome. We got a lot of good stuff done, a lot of good conversation and discussions, and obviously lots more to go most. motion to adjourn. Oh, yeah. So moved. Second.
Perry Allen 3:02:25
Second.
Karen Smythe 3:02:26
All in favor. Awesome. Thank
Unknown Speaker 3:02:30
you.
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