Rebecca Rotzler. (photo by Lauren Thomas)
At last Wednesday night’s New Paltz Village Board reorganizational meeting, mayor Jason West appointed newly elected trustee Rebecca Rotzler to be his deputy mayor. Although Rotzler is new to this board, she is certainly not new to being a trustee nor to serving as the deputy mayor, which she did for four years during her and West’s first term together.
“It was a no-brainer,” said Mayor West, who has been without a deputy mayor since trustee Sally Rhoads resigned from the position. “She served in that capacity during all four years of my first term as mayor, and she is someone that during her time on the Village Board took pride in turning around what had been a strained relationship with the Fire Department into a positive relationship — even going so far as to help ensure that our volunteer firefighters had the money they needed to purchase dress uniforms.”
He explained that not only is it critical that they work well together, but also that Rotzler has good working relationships with others in case of emergency, as she would be the one to take over if he were absent or incapacitated somehow, and would also take shifts at New Paltz’s Emergency Operations Center along with himself and the town supervisor, deputy supervisor and emergency service leaders.
The mayor went on to say that, besides her having good working relationships with “our emergency service providers, our Department of Public Works, she is also someone who, outside of her job and political duties, spends her free time volunteering to help disaster survivors, like going down every weekend to help those who lost their homes after Hurricane Sandy.”
He said that he felt very “fortunate” to have someone like Rotzler to appoint to this “position, as we’ve had to declare two states of emergencies in my first two years of my second term of office [Hurricane Irene and then Hurricane Sandy]. We had done the training and set up the Emergency Command [Operations] Center and chain of command during my first term, but we didn’t have a state of emergency then, nor previously during Tom Nyquist’s terms or during Terry Dungan’s terms. But now, with climate change and the predictions of greater and more severe storms, I have to plan on a hurricane hitting us in the fall, so that we’re not blindsided and can respond.”
Dissolve the Village. Have the Fire Commissioners put out a Public Referendum every two years as allowed by law to dissolve the Village, and we will be fine.
Stick it in your ear, Ron Turner. Were the Village to be dissolved, cranks like you would have the same voice as a mosquitto. It is our Village Government that allows those of us who are left of left, and yes, sometimes right of right to have a voice. A diffuse, Town Government would be comprised of middle of the road, political animals who would blythly ignore inovative thinking in favor of expediency and what will get them re-elected. Sound like the bigger picture of America? Let’s keep politics local.
Stick this up your nose. Richie Steffens of the Village Planning Board in 2012 got a STAR exemption on his commercial lodging service classified as an “Immediate family ” residence, as well as Ruger of the Town Board of Assessment Review and Taylor of the Board of Assessment Review. You can Freedom of Information Act my Property Grievance with the documents and evidence showing as such from the Town Clerk, which is in the Town Hall, which is in TheVillage which is in The Town? The Village of New Paltz abolished its assessing Unit in 1978, and ever since then, has made a joke out of the only checks and balances the parcel owner has. Dissolve theVillage and clean up your own backyard.
Sounds like the kind of corruption we as a village could do something about. Petitions actually work on a truly local level. I meant no offense with my stick it in your ear comment. I, too am a crank. I have long appreciated your curmudgeonly exterior, and simply think that our voices would be unheard in a wider forum. Sorry
What we may petition for is “The Homestead Act” to be purveyed by the Town Board. Have to petition the Town Board of New Paltz to institute a Homestead Act. Be forewarned: Kitty Brown and Kevin Barry, Town Board Members, own commercial lodging services that they do not live in, are not income capitalized for value and are classified wrongly in the assessment roll books. They don’t want that to come out, because they are in control of the budget for the Town Assessor, whom they as town board members direct and finance. As for the Town Supervisor, What’s her face and What’s his name, they ain’t no better for being a part of it. Petition for the Town Board to pass a Homestead Law, and get the State Department of Taxation and Finance to come in with the real property services and make the assessment roll books equitable and comprehensible. I’d sign a petition like that Jesse; twice!
My friends just call me “Cur” for short.
There is an article, Mr. Chance, on page 6 of the July 4th edition of the New Paltz Times. Read it for next issue I will have turned in my response to said piece, and it will be a gone ‘un, any response to this week’s letter by me not withstanding.
I was a volunteer fireman in the Village. Not for very long, but they still use my photos in their mailer, so that was a contribution. But it was in the firehouse I learned that the fire commissioners and the village trustees were one and the same, and as I had no respect for the Village trustees, then, now and in between, I sure as hell wasn’t going to have respect for them as fire commissioners. And I was right. I am the only person who has videotaped and photographed all the buildings to be burnt down back in the day. And that was just the historic ones?
And ask Village of New Paltz Planning Board how I stopped the building of more commercial lodging services with STAR exemptions over at Church and Mulberry Streets a couple of years ago. Once and a while even a blind pig finds an acorn, and that was me. Nuts?
They didn’t tell you it was me that found the Black Graveyard on Hugunenot Street? Really? I also own the oldest settled site in Southern Ulster County, and with a Dutch Cabin structure attached to an English Cottage with American Wings. Listed as being built in 1669 in the Town Assessor office? Come on, the Village Historic Committee can’t deal with it, not even the house alone. Upsets their White history. again.
Your a punk kid, and I will tell you why. You bring nothing but “marginalization” to the table, but the game is about bringing something “new” and new you ain’t.
Apology accepted. But I have to say, I loved writing that Rich Steffens, Adele Ruger and Margaret Taylor, Town employees and village employees, are getting STAR exemptions on their commercial lodging services in the 2012 Assessment Roll. And here’s a “shout out” to Everette.
Go to “Viewbug” and look up photos by “sojourner”?, J.C. I won another award today for something or other “cool catch” and all those photos have been taken in New Paltz.
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.