Busy meeting for Board
The Town Board dealt with a handful of important topics at its meeting on Monday. The board has a busy summer ahead, because most of the issue remain unresolved as the board awaits more information before acting.
On the agenda were:
LED Lights
The board has sat through several presentations on the possibility of changing over streetlights in Fort Montgomery to LED lights. On Monday, Fort Montgomery’s Deborah Kopald presented the board members with a 22 page report, urging them to not just go ahead with an LED lighting project because it will cost less.
“Money should not be the overwhelming factor,” she said as she handed them a compilation of reports lamenting the “obnoxious blue lights”. She noted that Fort Montgomery is “nestled in a state park” and LED lights would change the natural lighting the community now enjoys.
“It’s us, it’s the animals. We would all like a good night’s sleep,” she said.
Councilman Richard Sullivan, who has been investigating the switch to LED lights agreed that if a switch to new streetlights does happen, everyone agrees that lower end kelvin number lights would be used. But, he did add that right now the town pays about $45,000 a year for the electricity to run its streetlights.
“We’d expect to have a positive cash flow of about $3000 a year for the eight years we are paying off new lights,” he said, “and then once we do own them, we’d pay $20,000 a year less for lighting.”
Use of the Sacred Heart Gym
The town currently uses the Sacred Heart Church gymnasium for its lower-age youth basketball league in the winter, and for adult yoga classes. For that, the town pays Sacred Heart Parish $500 for the season.
Recreation Director Aaron Falk said he’d like to continue to use it again this summer (July an August) for Friday night open gym and a youth theatre program, and asked the board permission to offer the Sacred Heart Parish $1500 to do that. He said he was not sure the church would accept the offer, noting it recently faced a very large expense in repairing its heating system in the old school building which houses the gym.
Councilman Tyrone King spoke in favor of the payment to the church, calling it “a pillar of the community that we need to support”.
“The municipality should find ways to help strengthen them,” King said, saying that he believes more use of the building will help it remain viable.
Tax Reduction
The board, via attorney Justin Rider, responded to a letter received by the board from the Village Board expressing concern in the town’s willingness to reduce the assessment of Key Bank by $250,000. Rider explained that while the Town Board did vote to accept a proposal to lower the assessment for one year — because the building is sitting empty right now — the School Board still has not, so it is not a done deal yet.
Rider went on to say, however, that by coming to an agreement with Key Bank for the short term will eliminate court costs if the matter were to proceed into a tax certiorari case. As the agreement stands, he said, it will cost the town “less than $1250” in a tax refund to Key Bank, and the school district about $5000.
“The cost of a trial-ready appraisal alone could cost between $6000 and $8000,” Rider said.
The letter from the Village Board, signed by Mayor Joe D’Onofrio, said: “The assessed value of the property today remains the same as the purchase price paid in 2012 — $1,250,000. It has not been increased by (the assessor’s) office, and in our opinion, should not be decreased by the Board of Assessment Review.”
Parking Lot
Supervisor Bob Livsey suggested to the board that the ‘unofficial’ parking lot across from the Post Office in Fort Montgomery “is becoming abused”, with commercial vehicles being parked there for long periods of time. He asked that Rider create a local law establishing the lot as a municipal lot, with rules and regulations, and then signage be put up. He said the parking lot is “getting lots of use, which is great — hikers, people going to the churches — but they can’t use it if there are boats and trailers parked in it”.
