Living in Dryden

A bigger Town Hall would be nice

The Town Board met Friday at 8:30am. Because court was in session, the board met in the Zoning Officer's office. It was a little crowded, and the picture doesn't even show two more of us who were in there.

Town Board meeting in a cramped space.

It was a powerful reminder that the Town is working toward building a new Town Hall, and that there's real need for it. (At least it was a reasonably cool day.)

The board appointed Jennifer Staton to be the new Recreation Coordinator for the town, replacing Jennifer Glaab, who moved to Tennessee when her partner took a new job. Glaab has been working remotely, with the help of an intern, and Councilman Steve Stelick said they planned to have some overlap time for a transition. The town put ads in several papers and received 60 or 70 applications. A four-person review team, including three members of the Recreation Commission, reduced that to eight, then had interviews and reached consensus on Stayton. The board approved a probationary appointment for her 5-0.

There was also some discussion of the Recreation Partnership. The board didn't take any action, but sounded pleased with the approach that the Municipal Officers Association is taking to the Rec Partnership. Control and accountability seem to be the primary issues, not the dollars involved.

The board also approved wording for the ballots to be used in the referendum on the Royal Road water and sewer districts, which will be held with the November 2nd general election.

The board discussed telecommunications tower issues, as a tower built before the town took the authority to approve towers is getting updates to its antennas. Town board members didn't seem to have any problems with the changes being proposed, and will look at revising the law to cover such situations in the future. The town also appears to be making progress toward finding a telecommunications consultant, though they haven't yet hired anyone.

The board briefly discussed a few other issues:

• The county is no longer inspecting the Virgil Creek dam, as their 5-year commitment has expired. The town and county need to sort out how inspections will work.
• The board approved giving non-union town employees four extra vacation days, which gives them parity with the unionized employees.
• There was a question about getting a final financial statement from Southworth Library as part of the budget process.
• An anonymous caller left a message saying that new houses had gone up on Leisure Lane and more lights were needed, but no one was sure where.
• The board may have to meet a week early in November because of budgeting.
• There's a financial issue with diverting sewage from the Cayuga Heights treatment plant to the City of Ithaca plant.

The board then went into executive session to discuss purchasing property and potential litigation. Yesterday's Journal reported that part of it was about buying 20 acres from Empire Livestock.

Posted by simonstl at September 26, 2004 06:33 PM
Note on photos