By: Brian Walker
“Safety, safety, safety, it’s all about safety for the residents,” stated Airmont Mayor Veronica Boesch at the Airmont Board of Trustees Workshop on Monday evening. She was referring to yet another new onerous resolution which was passed by the board without hearing any input from village residents. Initially proposed by the Village’s building inspector this resolution will now require violation searches by the building inspector for any transfer of property, change of ownership, purchase and sale, and even for a simple home refinance.
Unlike neighboring villages such as Suffern and Clarkstown, that simply perform external searches and only if requested to by the lending bank or mortgage company, this sweeping resolution places another “hidden tax” and time-consuming burden on the property owners, who will have to pay an additional fee to the Village and stay home from work for the building inspector (who is only available between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.).
Trustee Dennis Cohen’s unanswered questions of how expensive this would be for the homeowners and his request that the resolution be modified to exempt simple transfers (such as family transfers between parents and children, spouses or siblings transferring property ownership between themselves, or transferring ownership to a trust) compelled him to vote against the resolution. The Mayor and Trustees Philip Gigante and Ralph Bracco were the three deciding votes in favor of the resolution (Airmont’s Deputy Mayor, Anthony Valenti was not present). No reference was made of how the building inspector was going to do all these extra inspections despite his already full schedule, and if this would mean hiring additional personnel to handle all the added inspections and to manage all their accompanying record-keeping paperwork, with these expenses tacked on to the Village’s budget. No reference was made to how the residents of Airmont managed to do just fine for the past 25 years since the village was founded without this additional layer of local government involvement.
Just a few minutes later in the meeting, when another issue involving real safety for the residents was brought up, the board’s response was more laid back. Residents of South Monsey Road between Regina and Iroquois Trail had informed the board way back in the beginning of September that areas of their block were extremely dark at night, potentially presenting a safety hazard to children getting off the school bus after dark in the winter months, people walking their dogs at night and elderly residents arriving home after dark. They were requesting one additional street light to add illumination to a very dark street.
One would have thought that the Mayor, concerned for the safety of her residents, or Trustee Bracco, who is being paid to be a liaison to the community (who admitted that he wasn’t even aware that the request had been made all those months ago, despite the fact that he was listed on the communication along with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, and who must have known that the item was on the evening’s workshop agenda) or other members of the board, perhaps would have driven by there at night to see for themselves if more lighting would be helpful. If you thought that, you would have been wrong.
Instead, the Village did a survey of eleven of the local residents for their “expert” opinions. Four residents responded in favor and three were opposed for unknown reasons. A woman in the audience yelled out that she lived on that block and had never even heard about the survey. While not knowing if the remaining three residents had ever been contacted, the board summarily decided that the unknown responses would be considered as being opposed to additional lighting, and they voted to continue to keep the neighborhood in the dark. Only the Village’s attorney can answer if perhaps this can potentially leave the village open to liability if someone subsequently gets hurt there on a dark night.
Trustee Dennis Cohen made a presentation on the possible refunding of the Village’s bonds which would vary depending on the interest rate. This item was tabled for further discussion until the board can study the matter and have a teleconference with the investment company.
Members of the audience present were incredulous upon hearing the Village’s part time fire inspector report that many of the mailing addresses of the approximately 545 businesses located in Airmont are incorrectly listed in the village office computer. He requested that he be paid for the additional eight hours that it would take him, with additional secretarial help, to merge his corrected excel spreadsheet with the village list so that a mailing could go out before the end of the year. Much discussion ensued between the Mayor and the Trustees and it was determined that the board would need authorization in writing from the personnel department of Rockland County before they could allow him to work more than the 19 hours a week he is officially allotted.
The workshop adjourned to a private Executive Session leaving many of those present, who took the time out of their busy schedules to attend, feeling disenfranchised from and frustrated with the results of this meeting.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of Airmontscoop.com or its editorial board.
