Village Board Meeting 4/14/08

Here's a link to the AUDIO

(see post below from 3/5/08 for technical info on how best to listen to the audio file)

Present at this meeting, in addition to the trustees, clerk, treasurer, and mayor who were all present were,
Robert Brown
David and Susan Means
Allen Carstensen
Liz Thomas
Geoffrey Hart
Vanessa Willard
Amy Drake
Jerry VanOrden

The first few minutes is just chatter.

6m40s call to order

7m15s first public comment period. This is where I, Allen Carstensen, read my monthly comment on the continuing insanity in Iraq, and the illegality of the Bush administration. I reassert that we want the Board to pass our resolution, and I ask for an update on the thinking of the Board members. I am ignored. They move on to more pressing issues, such as wether or not we should have a fire whistle. I will post the text of my comment over at trumansburgimpeachment.blogspot.com

10m31s Robert Brown's questions about fire whistles and blue-stones

17m20s organizational affairs - this is the first meeting after the election.
Hrubos - commissioner of water, sewer, dpw, and he is the deputy mayor
Hart - police commissioner
Thomas - fire, ambulance, ems commissioner
Nottke - this is her first meeting. She replaces Filiberto who was the youth commissioner. Mayor Petrovic has greatly expanded this commission, to include not only youth, but chamber of commerce, library, historical society, farmers market, winter festival, and senior organizations. She's going to have to go to a lot of meetings.

22m20s official designations, meeting dates and times, voting, minutes, etc.

36m5s slate of officers

41m51s general budgetary public comment period

49m30s water and sewer budget. there is some discussion here about the income from our water system. When the village annexed the Auble trailer park, we stopped charging 1.5x the normal rate. I asked what other 1.5x customers we have, and Hrubos answered - several residences, the gulf course, ShurSave, the fairgrounds, the American Legion etc. Amy Drake was at this meeting and wrote about it in the Free Press. She gives the impression that we lost all of our outside income. It's a little confusing - I don't know what percentage we lost when we annexed the Auble property.
The water rates will go up as of the August billing from 29.75/first 1000gals to 31.50/first 1000gals - for village residents (1.5x for outside customers)

56m20s sewer budget, stream watchers, discussion of sewer problems. Hrubos points out that our sewer system is dumping to much e coli into the river at times of heavy rainfall. This is likely because a lot of people plumb their sump pump discharge into the sewer instead of the storm sewer, or out onto the ground. This sends far too much water to the Lake Street Sewage Treatment Plant, and it is overwhelmed and can not properly treat the increased volume. If you, dear reader, know anyone that has a sump pump that is plumbed this way, and or has gutters plumbed this way - please alert them to the fact that they are responsible for polluting Cayuga Lake. (They are also in violation of the sanitary code) Jerry VanOrden, from Stream Watchers - affiliated with The Community Science Institute - was at this meeting and he reported that when they tested the discharge from the plant in January and February, the bacteria count was way too high.

1h5m20s water infrastructure improvements. Amy Drake did a good job on reporting this aspect of the meeting in the Free Press, but the editor titled her report "Village to Begin Water Infrastructure Work" . Odd. She reported on the whole meeting. I almost didn't bother to read it because the title is boring. Bill does this a lot. Maybe he ought to let his reporters write their own headlines. Anyhow, work will soon begin to replace some old water main on RT96, and Hunt Engineers is supposed to re-coat a tank on RT89, and replace some booster pumps.

1h11m0s passed the budget unanimously.

1h15m50s the village is probably going to soon sell 4 parcels of land that it owns. There will probably be somewhere around $50,000 income. There was some discussion here about what to do with this money. Chris Thomas mentioned Main St. Project completion. Hrubos mentioned buying a tiny little house on Salo Dr. adjacent to the DPW, for a youth facility. I would prefer that the village purchase the small lot next to the waterfall on the creek in back of the NAPA parking lot. This is on the market for $40,000. It would make a lovely little park. It is adjacent to the Carver's house on Congress. Frank Carver died early this year. He worked for peace his whole life. How about "The Frank Carver Memorial Peace Park" ? There is plenty of room for some picnic tables and benches here. The village owns the driveway down to the Carver's house, so a path could branch off of it down to the park. The creek is an underutilized asset to the village. If anyone agrees with me, I think now is a good time to make your opinion known.

1h23m47s much discussion about parking in front of the Town Hall.

1h30m50s pay some bills

1h37m30s Bill Chaisson has volunteered to write a grant application for street trees.

1h39m20s Gimme Coffee orange cone debacle

1h41m35s Safe Routes to School grant application. Chris Thomas says that chances don't look good. Maybe next year.

1h44m4s Public comment period 2. David Means on selling village property. Yours truly on the Frank Carver Memorial Peace Park.

1h50m50s Robert Brown asks what the new tax rate is - it's going from 5.28/1000 to 6.25/1000

1h52m40s Liz Thomas town update. Yours truly complains about the town's hiring a dog control officer other than the SPCA. Our SPCA does a lot of good work. More than just dog control (for which they are probably better trained and better insured and more likely available at any time) They also have an animal cruelty investigator for which they do not charge. I think it is a mistake to withdraw our support. This will come up again at the end of the year, and we could pressure the town to sign up with the SPCA again.

1h58m50s They decide to have a second meeting this month Tuesday 4/29 at 7pm.

2h1m30s Hrubos on the water main extension moratorium. He mentions that the City of Ithaca is also in violation, yet they are not under a moratorium. Odd.