Following the CDBG Public hearing held last night at the Village Office the Village Board of Trustees dived directly into their regular meeting. Mayor Dave Truax presided while Mel Thorpe stood in as record keeper as Village Clerk Maria Gaylord was absent and much missed.
The meeting had two public participants and SURPRISE one was Catherine Rees to further discuss the CDBG application and urge the board to submit the application and authorize Mayor Truax to sign it. They did approve the signing of the application after Trustee Samantha Gavin made sure they actually read the documents, but there was some hold up about the word "attesting" on some form so they had to hold off until someone who could properly attest to the attestation can look at it.
The second public participant was Mike Stone, which is a great name, but mysteriously he had no entrance music. Mike wanted to know if he could use the Village Office meeting space to host a computer security course free to the community since he's a computer wizard and new to the community. He's been here a couple of years so he's not like NEW new, he just doesn't have cousins on every corner like the rest of us. The board of trustees approved his request. The class date is TBD, but we'll keep you posted so you can send your mom to make sure she doesn't get catfished.
There was some third guy who snuck in late and wasn't on the agenda so I'm not sure who he was. He wanted to know if you could trap and release skunks in the village and the answer to that is NO. You need a permit to trap and release wild animals. Also, trapping a skunk sounds like a bad time to me.
The board then got right down to business and passed a new Code Enforcement Fee Schedule so get ready to pay more to build commercially in Andover. They also approved a delegate for an MEUA conference. The board of trustees unanimously voted down a motion to install temporary speed bumps on Dyke St and East Greenwood since they felt that it would lead to complaints from the community. Dave Truax said that he gets numerous complaints about speeding on those roads and that if the board didn't want to do anything about it he would start handing out the board members personal phone numbers for those complaints. If you'd like those numbers, do get in touch with Dave. He seemed serious about it.
After all that fun they had reports from Chuck at Code Enforcement who had some strong feelings about issuing a section 12.03 to someone and following up with fines, and jail time. Sounded serious. There was also some commentary on appropriate grass length. Chuck will also be ticketing for burning leaves or trash. It's illegal to burn leaves or trash anytime of year. You can only burn sticks, branches, or wood that is not treated with glues. It's a NY State law. He didn't make the law, he just enforces it.
The CleanChoice solar farm folks showed up at this point to regale the board with details of the McCormick solar farm project. They're calling it the Shoemaker Solar Farm due to the history of Andover, which was cute. They presented the board with a scrap book of all the correspondence on the solar farm so that they can remember all their great times together fondly. The board then voted to sign the paperwork presented. The CleanChoice guys did also say they had firmed up a landscaping plan, but did not go into detail. I'll believe it when I see the landscaping.
Matt Zengerle gave the public works report and man are those guys busy. They are going to be sending certified shut off notices this week for electric bills that are way overdue. If you're struggling with paying your electric you can come to the village office and self-certify to get a 180 day extension and see if you qualify for utility assistance to avoid having your electric shut off. They also talked about having homeowners ticketed for mowing grass clippings into the street as it is not only a safety issue for motorcyclists it is also clogging village drains leading to flooding issues. You may have seen the village crew digging out storm drains all over town the last couple of weeks, so don't add to the problem.
Officer Jim Rumfeld closed out with the Police and Justice reports. I've included a picture of the June police dept report below. Turns out the wheels of justice are just starting to move following the Covid-19 shut down, but that progress is being hampered by the local ADA not showing up to court. The ADA playing hooky has lead to some cases being pushed back to the fall. There was some talk about if there was a new ADA or what was going on with the situation, but I have no idea.
Overall the Village Board of Trustees meeting was a 8/10*. The village office was still too cold, but Mayor Truax did turn off the overhead fans. They covered the entire agenda and then some and finished up before 8pm. There was a lot of really great ground covered. I left out some stuff because this all seems dangerously close to real news, which I was trying to avoid covering. Did you know that all board meetings aside from executive sessions are open to the public? So you can come see the news happen in real time.
*would have been an 8/10 had it not run over an hour. All meetings over an hour are an automatic 0/10. My apologies for the oversight.
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