Village of New Paltz: Looking forward
Looking forward, Mayor West has several projects on which he’d like to focus in 2014. “Besides the stream of local laws we’re working on, like rental property inspections, wetland protection and putting in streetlights along Plattekill Avenue, where rapes and attempted rapes have occurred, I think an idea very worth exploring is municipal garbage collection with mandatory composting for all residential units as well as restaurants and businesses. I’ve been working on the numbers with Bleu [Terwilliger, head of the Department of Public Works] and some others and I think it’s feasible. We’re not a private corporation, so we don’t need to make a profit — just break even. If we can do that, it would only save the taxpayers money, as well as being more environmentally friendly, as there is so much compostable material that ends up in a landfill when it shouldn’t.”
Dovetailing this idea is one that the board has already earmarked as a high-priority: putting solar panels on the village’s approximately 300 streetlights. “This would not only save us money, get us off the Central Hudson grid, add to our desire for green infrastructure, but it would also make our lights independent of blackouts, which we have several times a year.” West said that he already has several volunteers working on this proposal and looking at grant funding. “I’d love to have a public power utility, buy the poles and wires from Central Hudson and then sell electricity wholesale to our residents. Again, we don’t have CEOs with six-figure salaries, golden parachutes, et cetera. We could greatly reduce the cost of village residents’ electricity if we could generate it ourselves and sell it back to them.”
Town of New Paltz: Looking forward
One issue lurking in the background of 2013 — a new drinking water supply — will likely start to make headway in 2014. With New York City set to shut down the Catskill Aqueduct in 2016, for a 10-week period, New Paltz will need to find another source of water.
Town and village officials are working together with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to find a backup water supply. But Supervisor Susan Zimet sees some opportunity there. She sees the promise of a community-wide municipal water system that will take care of needs well into the future.
Zimet said she’s proud of the 2014 budget, which lowered the tax levy by about $501,000 over 2013. The $11.17 million spending plan also gives $75,000 more for Elting Memorial Library and $25,000 extra for the New Paltz Rescue Squad.
“My goal for 2014 is to work on sustainability — both financial and environmental,” she said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announced he’d like the State Legislature to enact a property two-year tax freeze, which would reward taxing authorities that have made cuts to their budgets during the 2 percent tax cap’s existence.
It also punishes those that haven’t.
“The tax freeze will actually benefit us, I think,” Zimet said. “We have come under the tax cap two years in a row. The freeze will benefit the community because the state will be paying for any increase above our tax rate if we stay under the cap.
“The Town of New Paltz will probably be one of the few communities that will not be hurt by the freeze because how well we managed the budget these past two years.”
Now that they’ve approved a contract to hire a joint master plan consultant, town and village officials will likely spend a good chunk of 2014 whiling away on that project.
Expect to hear a lot about that next year.
“The joint comprehensive master plan will be one of the most important pieces of work the community and the two boards can undertake,” Zimet said.
The joint master plan contract is set to hire former Village Planner Curt Lavalla for $52,000 for 15 months to create the plan. It calls for at least three public meetings on the plan. But not everything on how the public will be involved is firm yet.
“The two boards have not worked out the details of how the community will be involved,” she said. “However it is important to me that the people that we do put on the Citizens Committee, if we have one, are people who care about the whole community.”
New Paltz schools: Looking forward
Since the capital improvement project in New Paltz wasn’t ready to come before voters in 2013, expect to hear a lot about it going into 2014. That project will continue to be a big news item.
“Basically the Board of Education’s biggest challenge for 2014 is to finalize their comprehensive long-range facilities plan, and then to determine what project — if any — they’ll put before voters in May,” Superintendent Maria Rice explained.
Right now, the board is considering three projects that range from $30.5 million to $84.5 million. Any of those projects would help fix up all four school buildings. But it isn’t yet clear if the Board of Education will phase the project over a period of years.
“And if it’s a portion of a plan,” Rice added, “what would that project look like in scope and cost?”
New Paltz’s labor contracts are also going to be up for negotiation in 2014. Everyone from food service workers, to janitors to bus mechanics, down to principals, educational support staff and teachers all have their contracts up. Rice and the board will need to negotiate new labor agreements with those bargaining units.
In terms of New Paltz’s school renovations — and whether or not Highland’s failure to win over voters means anything — Rice refused to read the tea leaves.
Where Highland voters nuked a $25 million renovation project at the polls, Kingston City School District voters passed a $137.5 million bond to overhaul Kingston High School.
“I think what that means is that you really have to understand your community. Different communities see things differently,” she said. “I can’t use those as predictors as to whether or not the New Paltz Central School District’s community will support or reject a project.”
Rice did add that she thought that either way it was important to establish the district’s goals in that comprehensive plan first.
“It’s the board’s job to read the community at the point in time and decide how much they can afford,” she said. “I’m confident that this board will do their due diligence and come up with a really solid comprehensive plan.”
