Monday, April 13, 2026

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

The next item on the agenda is acceptance of the minutes from March 22 and march 23 has Well, I guess it's really the three of us. Have you all had a chance to review the

Frances Uku  0:37  
minutes I have good with the you accept the minutes? I just had one request for the 23rd at the conclusion I had submitted a statement to the Clarke for the record, and I just would like to move that those be appended to the minutes.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:01  
That's not a thing. You can't submit something to the record. You can say it in the public forum, but there's no there's no record. I mine. My minutes is the record,

Frances Uku  1:12  
right? So,

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:16  
so your record, your record is here. You're speaking at, at the public public meeting is your

Frances Uku  1:23  
record, so do at the but when we have say public comment or a public hearing, you do take,

Speaker 1  1:29  
I transcribe

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:30  
what is said. I don't transcribe. I have to give a general idea of what was discussed.

Frances Uku  1:35  
Oh, okay, but that wouldn't apply to me.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:37  
Sure it does, but it doesn't apply. I'm not going to attach

Frances Uku  1:41  
No, no, no, no record, but there's no mention of it at all, I guess is

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:45  
I can, I can, I can add that that you submitted a written document.

Frances Uku  1:50  
Okay? Thank you. Do we want to wait?

Perry Allen  2:02  
Feels like we should wait to vote until

Karen Smythe  2:05  
that's in there. Well, that was for the 23rd we can certainly do the 22nd Yes, sure.

I believe I did you an amended agenda. It's literally just reordering of things, thinking about who's here, and efficient use of time. So you should have that in front of you. With that I would take a motion to accept the agenda.

Speaker 2  3:52  
Thank you. Second

Karen Smythe  3:55  
I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I figured that part of the acceptance sorry, would anybody? Did anyone have anything they'd like to add to the agenda?

Frances Uku  4:06  
Well, I mean, I don't know about adding to the agenda, but I we haven't even had a chance to to review the the proposed new agenda.

Karen Smythe  4:16  
It's just reordered. Everything that's on there has been on there. I just, for example, I put the land use study at the top instead of third from last. The items are all the same. There's no, there's, I did not add anything.

Frances Uku  4:32  
No, no, no. I Yes, I see that.

Karen Smythe  4:34  
Okay. Okay with that. I'll take a motion to accept the agenda. Thank you. Mark Clarke Fran, you want to second? Second, all in favor. Aye. Okay, the next item is a public hearing for the village budget before I would like to just make a short presentation on the budget share

the next item is a public hearing for the village budget before I would like to just make a short presentation on the budget share

Karen Smythe  5:15  
my screen. Yes.

Karen Smythe  5:22  
I thumbnail video. There

Karen Smythe  5:28  
we go. I know it's not that necessarily, that easy to see. You all see that back there? Fran, can you see that? Well now Fran can't see it. Oh, but Fran can see it on our computer. Thank you. I presented this. I've made made some adjustments based on the adjustments that I made after the we had a budget workshop on March 22 and I just wanted to share this in public session, and I added a few things to it. Just wanted to clarify for those we are a Village of Red Hook. We are inside the town of Red Hook. And every once in a while it comes up, you know, the question becomes, are we paying village taxes and town taxes are we double paying for things? So there is actually in the town budget, there's a, and I'm not going to remember the letters, but there's, though Kim will probably tell us, but there's a town budget for the town board member back there, but the town budget is split, so there's items for outside the village and then there are items for town wide. So for example, snow plowing is outside the village, because we do our own snow plowing. If there's a cost for the assessor. That's everywhere, because the assessor for the town also also covers the village. So there, there is a separation. If you are in the village, you are not paying the same level of taxes if you were a town, a town, does that make sense? Okay. Next item, 

Perry Allen  7:22  
do you

Perry Allen  7:23  
not just curious in general? Also, sorry. Do you want to go through this and then we ask questions? Or should I ask questions as we go that's

Karen Smythe  7:30  
related to this slide? Then ask it, and if you would pull down your mic so that?

Perry Allen  7:35  
Thank you so much. Just getting familiar with those operations. Curious if these are the what I'm looking at here. What, though, how those numbers break down? Can we see those numbers, like, what numbers we're paying for in for village, things within the so the town,

Karen Smythe  7:50  
the town has their budget is on their website, through that, of course, and of course, each individual tax bill is going to be slightly different because it's based on the assessed value of your house. So it's hard to do, but that's

Melkorka Kjarval  8:03  
what that top thing is. It's an estimated thing of like, what person would they have that value house? And it's in the November 5 packet on the town website. Okay, thank you on the November 5 package.

Karen Smythe  8:15  
General a, sorry. General a, town wide appropriations. General B, town outside I see, thank you. Okay, next item was, this is the income, the revenue that we bring in here in the village, and the majority is property tax. And there are a variety of other items. We do get state aid. We do rent space on our water tower. We have a contract with Tivoli to provide garbage pickup service. We sell garbage tags. We have police contracts with the school district, with the town and the Tivoli. There are fees associated with zoning. So if you get a building permit, there's a fee for that, etc, and then there's sales tax. And the newest item on this list is cannabis, which is we get a portion of the sales tax of any cannabis sale. Can I

Melkorka Kjarval  9:16  
add one thing? This is only the general fund. It's not also the water, which also bring income to different funds. Thank you. Just because that was a

Karen Smythe  9:24  
important clarification, and I just wanted to go over just some general trends over the past few years, property tax revenue has increased 95,000 since year ending May 3120 24 that's our fiscal year end with the New York State law of the 2% tax cap. I'll just clarify it's it's rarely exactly 2% there's a calculation that is done and gets confirmed by the State Controller's office this year our tax cap increase allowable increases, I believe it's $33,000 you'll see in the next slide. And so that's what it's been over the last cost of entry, cost of living, increase is included. There's things that are taken out and then put back in. It's a little bit convoluted. Happy to share with you the form that gets filled out for that we did receive $200,000 in American Recovery Protection Act funding ARPA that was spent from 2022 to 2025 police contracts have increased. 120,000 grants vary each year based on awards the renovation loan. So the renovation of village hall was done in 2000 believe it was completed in 2007 we made our last payment on that loan in year ending 2022 and that by having completed that payment, that's allowed for an accumulation of our fund balance. It's also covered a variety of increased expenses over the past several years. Might imagine when you suddenly have $230,000 available, that's allowed us to not have to consider any other either major costs or higher increases in taxes, state aid, chips allocation. We get a chips allocation every year. And this one doesn't stick in my head, but it's primarily related to paving and equipment related to the highway. That varies year to year. We get an allocation from the state. We can carry over two years worth, but not more than that. And then Canada, sales taxes and new revenue. New revenue now, expenses have changed over the last few years, unallocated insurance, general liability, auto, police. There's a whole list of insurance that's that's grouped together in this category, and that's increased. 25,000 in the last couple of years. Retirement payments have increased. 67,000 health insurance expenses have increased. 79,000 the health insurance is mostly due to cost increases. However, we have added two full time employees who have as a benefit, full time health insurance, and then added employees and increased pay has increased overall payroll, 300,000 police payroll has increased. 155,000 we have additional contracts. We also have a more senior staff, and we've also added the additional full time employee the DPW payroll was we added an entire department, and so two years ago, we made a shift in the pay scale to reflect the additional responsibilities that the DPW has. We also added a full time treasurer prior to well, in 2021 we had one part time treasurer who did all the treasurer work, plus payroll HR. We now have a full time treasurer and a part time payroll clerk. Honestly, I don't know how the treasurer did all the work that he did at the time. We did have the support of our controller. That was a lot of work for fund balance. We talk a lot about fund balance. We do have a fund balance policy, and that policy targets says that we should target between 15 and 25% of our budget as a fund balance. The purpose behind a fund balance policy is, if our fund balance is really high, it means we're probably taxing too much, because this is monies that are left over at the end of the year. And so if we're out of balance, it's something to consider.

Karen Smythe  14:05  
So that's also why you have a policy. There's there's the state controller doesn't actually make a recommendation. They tell you the different ways you can do it. We felt when we passed this fund balance policy, when did we do that? I think two, three years ago. That range, having the range be from 15 to 25% was inappropriate. And several other, many other municipalities use that range. Right now, we are at 23% and so as we go into the budget, we are using a small we are using a portion of our fund balance that will put us just above the median, the middle range of that,

Karen Smythe  14:47  
so that I just wanted to make sure you all are aware of our fund balance, so we are in a healthy position. And I can't Well, we've got two new trustees. The Office of the State Controller does a rating of your fiscal stress, and we rated, oh, gosh, what's it called? Non? It's a weird word. It basically means that we're good. It's not non distinguishable, non. What's that? Non significant? That might be it. It's a weird phrase, because it should be more positive than that, but it's okay. There's a rating, no designation. Thank you very much. It just means. And so they go through and they give you points, and if you have too many points, you become you're slightly at risk, or you're really at risk, and we are not at risk. So that is a we are in good financial shape. But I did want to point out that the tax cap allowed in the tax cap increase that's allowed for property tax does not cover the increases in expenses that we are experiencing, health insurance. I've heard a variety of estimates as to what next year's health insurance increase is going to be, and none of them are good. Retirement increases are not going down. And so for the long term sustainability, we will we will need a combination of additional revenue and reduced costs. And so that'll come, that'll be a theme as we go forward is, how can we either look for additional revenue or and at the same time, how can we look to be more efficient in in what, in the services that we're providing, so that we can reduce our costs? So that's, that's sort of an overview. It's primarily focused on the general fund. And before we get into the asking for public comment, I did want to go over the specifics of the sewer fund, because there have been several questions about that. And so does anybody have any questions about the general fund at this point? Is not your last chance for enough for questions. All right, so I just, I do want to go through the sewer expenses. So the wastewater treatment plant operator, we have a contract with them. And so this, this is a, this is half of their contract. And so that, that's where that number came from. There's a line item of $3,800 for extras. Things come up. And so this was to put in there to make sure that we had at least some monies for for extras, either primarily for the wastewater treatment plant operator. There shouldn't be any extras for the wastewater treatment plant operator, because the contract basically covers that if they have to do extra things, it's included in the contract lab sampling. So lab sampling, we are currently being charged $305 per testing, and we are now testing twice a month. So the the estimate of $10,000 is a test twice a month, plus just shy of nine extra tests. We have done a lot of testing over the past year because we've had a lot of issues, and we wanted to keep checking to make sure where we were. We are only required now by Dec to do once a month. They went to once a week just about a year ago, and so they have pulled us back to once a month. Our operator has requested that we stay with twice a month for now. And so I wanted to include that make sure we had that covered in the budget the DPW support for the wastewater treatment plant. The DPW is responsible for repairs and maintenance, so when something broken, it's our it's our team that goes in and fixes it. So we assumed, and this is again, was a discussion with the sewer team, which includes the wastewater treatment plant operator, the engineer Jenna's village, Clarke, me as as mayor. And so the estimate came back as 12 hours a week. I will acknowledge that the 2997 and the 2990 is was just a typo on my part. I did seven cents times 330 hours comes to about $32 so I decided not to make the change, but that's where that number came from. And then the outside of the wastewater treatment plant, the septic tanks that are at all the properties, it is the dpws responsibility to check on them and and also to clean them out. So this was an estimate from the DPW, which was 170 hours of tank cleaning and 106 cleaning and 160 hours of checking the

Karen Smythe  19:45  
tanks fuel. We assumed. We originally

Frances Uku  19:49  
assumed $358

Karen Smythe  19:52  
a month. Tony was concerned about the fuel costs. Looked at it increased. I increased the assumption per month to 375 so that puts us at 404,500 for the year. I will say our current average for nine months is 350 the winter months are higher because of the cold. So that's where that came from. Electric originally 3048 a month. And we did, I did increase that. The proposed budget is 38,000 we are working with the USDA to see, to look for ways to reduce our electric use, repairs

Frances Uku  20:34  
and maintenance. So sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you earlier, just going back to just want to confirm that the that our deep so Wastewater Treatment Plant support is all DPW that that's not covered by h 2o at all. They don't cover a portion

Karen Smythe  20:48  
or so h 2o is they, they do the daily operating so if something breaks, it's on the village to fix it. Got it, they're usually, they're working with them, but it is on the village to do the fixing. Got it. Thank you. So repairs and maintenance that includes pumps, replacing the sand, UV bulbs, etc. I do have another chart that shows what we have spent that has been exceptional. Like, for example, we we bought two, the two tanks above ground, EQ tanks. We bought those. We will not be buying anymore. We will be that will be part of the capital project that we do at this point it looks like this time next year. And so the, I guess it doesn't show the $20,000 is an estimate of a regular, ongoing things break. You need to fix them. A pump will die. You have to get a new one. The software security system, that's QuickBooks, alarm system, generator permits. That's $1,400 supplies is a detailed list was originally, and I have a copy of that detailed list for you all. Was originally 7500 we did a follow up review and put in the budget, 8000 the grease trap pumping for a five month period, it was $3,800 and so that works out to $760 a month. This is an estimate when we have to pump out a grease trap more often than standard. We do charge for that pumping at the plant itself, one of the main reasons why it was so much it's been so much higher the last two years. It was April 1 last year when Delaware engineering took over the operations of the wastewater treatment plant. They shut down the old plant, which is Plant B, and in order to do the fixes and the maintenance that was required, they had to pump out the entire tank. It, it turned out to be how many, 30,000 gallons. It was an enormous tank. It was actually bigger than than they expected. So the and they had to keep pumping quickly so that they could get it all out. And that was an enormous cost. And there have also been, there were problem after problem that required emergency pumping, and so I'm looking through, and again, I can show you the list of all the expenses highlighted that these are all emergencies that we to say there will be no more emergencies would be incorrect. But with all that we have put in place, including the alarm system, we should be in a position to not have very many emergencies. So and the reason why we're not going back to last year is because we basically were not operating the plant properly, and April and May were in the midst of basically completely restarting the plan. So that's why two years ago, not not this year, but the year before, was also higher than what we expect going forward. So that, and then the septic tanks again, it was looking at what we had been doing this year will be higher because January and February, we had to do a lot of additional pumping because of the frozen pipes from the septic tank to the force main that in for several of I think there were 18 tanks where the pipe from the tank to the force main froze, so they weren't able to pump it out that way. So you had to Fran superior sanitation to pump it out so it was significantly higher than and we are working on a solution so that that

Melkorka Kjarval  24:48  
doesn't happen again next year. And that was not the plan individual property owners, individual

Karen Smythe  24:53  
property correct?

Perry Allen  24:55  
And that's not the time to dive into brainstorming any of that, right? We're just okay. Just want to, just want to be sure. Yes, okay, exactly. The good

Karen Smythe  25:05  
news is we have a little bit of time before the next possibility of frozen pipes. And the team, the sewer team, has has a number of ideas about how I'm excited to talk and Social Security that just goes with the DPW payroll. And then what remains is listed as reserve. So that's the detail. Again, I've got some more detail that we can go through for the sewer plan, but or sewer budget, but I wanted to go through that before we started the public hearing, just so that people have kind of a background and a general sense of where where these numbers came from. With that, I would like to take a motion to open the public hearing for the village budget, both with general fund, water fund and sewer fund.

Perry Allen  25:53  
Can I second that 

Karen Smythe  25:53  
you can 

Frances Uku  25:54  
move it? Second you move 

Perry Allen  25:56  
I move it? 

Frances Uku  25:57  
Yes. 

Frances Uku  25:57  
So moved. Thank you, and I'll second.

Perry Allen  26:01  
Got it now, I'll know next time i

Karen Smythe  26:10  
Yeah, there we go. So this is an opportunity for the public to make any comment that they would like

Karen Smythe  26:20  
for who, if anyone, would like to make comment on the village budget of any kind, I don't see anyone in the waiting room. Any public comments going once, going twice. Okay, now in the public I would that's this is an opportunity for the board to ask questions, make comments. The goal here is and, and I think I've said this before, but a budget is a place to start, and this budget is my, what I put forth as the proposed budget. We did have a budget workshop where we, the board, had an opportunity to ask questions to and the one thing I didn't do, which I apologize, is put a page on the front that shows what the payroll salaries are. The Treasurer is split between the general fund and the water fund. The Clarke is also split between the general fund and the water fund, and the DPW is split between garbage maintenance of streets, snow removal, water and sewer. I do have a chart that puts it all together, but each day for the Department of Public Works, they come in, they might start and and do garbage pickup, but then they might go on a water project. And we keep track of that and allocate the funds appropriately based on the projects that they're working on. And so that can be a little bit confusing when you're trying to figure out, well, what's the total, and I just didn't get to

Frances Uku  28:08  
make that chart, will we be able to get to get a copy of the chart, or even this slide that we had in Your presentation today? Because, yeah, I have notes, but I'll it,

Karen Smythe  28:23  
email it out to all of you right after the meeting, for sure.

Frances Uku  28:30  
My question is only because, because we did the item, the adoption is on the agenda. So I just wanted to know how that, if we don't have that information before

Karen Smythe  28:42  
that I just shared with you,

Frances Uku  28:43  
know, the information that you just

Karen Smythe  28:45  
said that you would share? Well, you do have it. It's just in pieces. So I'm, let me, let me pull up the budget and I can, I can show it to you.

Frances Uku  28:56  
No, but what I've, what I was asking for, is just as you described in, in just such. So, well, yeah, I'll pull up. Were you about to refer to the to the budget? Okay.

Frances Uku  29:21  
Okay, so we can, I will go to all of it, but specifically sewer, because I didn't realize.

Karen Smythe  29:37  
Because so you'll find so the treasurer. You'll find the treasurer, includes the treasurer and the payroll, Clarke, and there are two line items that together is their total and public

Speaker 3  29:59  
hearing do.

Karen Smythe  30:02  
Okay. So that's pretty small for folks up there, but so if you go down into the expenses,

Frances Uku  30:20  
nobody, there's one person.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  30:24  
Oh, there is That's right.

Karen Smythe  30:38  
Okay, now, especially sharing on Zoom. Okay, so if you go down

Karen Smythe  30:51  
better, okay. So here a 13, 25.1 treasurer, dash Purser. This includes 80% of the treasurer and 100% of percent of the payroll Clarke, and so the remaining portion is in the water fund,

Karen Smythe  31:11  
which I'll pull up in a minute. 

Perry Allen  31:13  
And that's gone up to the point that you made earlier, in terms of the amount of labor that was required.

Karen Smythe  31:21  
Part of that is going from a one part time position to a full time, basically a 1.5 te

Karen Smythe  31:28  
full time. And

Karen Smythe  31:33  
then for the again, for the highway, for the Department of Public Works in the general fund, there are three line items for them. One is maintenance of streets is 5110, point one in the general fund, the there's an additional that we just started doing a prorated version of the PTO, the person of the benefit time off, and they didn't the three of the four full timers get on call pay, meaning they have to be available anytime something happens, even when they're not working. So that that's included in the maintenance of streets line. And then they also are under snow removal.

Perry Allen  32:24  
Just curious, why was there a dip? You know, in I see in 2122 is around, what were around 165 then it dropped down to the 130s there for a minute.

Karen Smythe  32:37  
So this is where it gets tricky, because it made its lot. It's likely that that just means there was more work somewhere else, so meaning that they might have spent more time on water, streets, interesting. So you have

Karen Smythe  32:53  
snow removal,

Karen Smythe  32:55  
and then you also have, if you keep going, there's material management, garbage. So a 81 60.1 is is garbage. And so we have two lines. One is for our garbage removal, and then the second one is for Tivoli. Is a new contract that we went into this the year that we're in now, and that is expected to continue. Word is that they're very happy with the service that we're providing. So those are the three line items, where and what. What happens also for the sewer, for example, this past year, there's been quite a bit of overtime, and we're already seeing that go down and not projecting that to be what it was that you'll that's in the sewer, that's another piece of the sewer, DPW time that will come down because they just, they will not, and that's reflected in the sewer budget. That's reflected that's part of what brings that number down. Okay, that

Perry Allen  34:01  
was part of my question, because we didn't have a chance earlier to talk about the sewer numbers. Yes, I was curious. There was a large discrepancy between our project, what was this year's expenses and one of the next year?

Karen Smythe  34:12  
So a year ago, when the engineer started operating the plant, the DPW and certainly, the foreman was pretty much at the plant every day, working on just about everything that they were working on. And also the DPW was doing the day to day work. So it's supposed to be at least four hours a day every day, seven days a week. The DPW did that work until the end of December. So starting in January, we adjusted our contract with H 2o they now do the day to day for the for the wastewater treatment plan. So that's another reason why the hours will go down. I see and obviously have emergent when you have a lot of emergencies, your your overtime goes up.

Perry Allen  34:59  
And I suppose I won't see this until Thursday, when we have our first sewer meeting. I'm very excited about but we're assuming, with the repairs that we've made up to this point, we have a system that can operate at that 20,000 operational

Karen Smythe  35:15  
a system that is not not fully optimal. There are several temporary, temporary things in place that will that should get us through to when we do the capital project of expanding the EQ tank, and the timing of that, because we have to allow six months for DEC to review and approve our plans. I was hoping we could do it this year, but that's just not going to happen. So it'll probably be next Fran when we do that work. But that's where the extra above ground, EQ tank comes in. The alarm system now alerts super soon

Perry Allen  35:56  
the EQ take that's there was part of these expenses, yeah, okay, that's what it was exactly interesting.

Karen Smythe  36:02  
So yes, we have, we have done a lot of work to get it so that we know how to run the plant consistently smoothly. It doesn't mean that there won't be some hiccups or some non compliance here and there, but we are doing it each time something happens. It's like, what can we do to not have that happen again? And we've been doing that for a year, so we should be in a pretty good position to avert any significant and we put in new pumps, we put in and the old plant, Plant B, has had a lot of long overdue repair maintenance, and so that that has made and and I say more of this in my in my sewer report, but the pump that just failed in the pump house, that's an old pump. It's not that old. It's not as old as it the other stuff it was, it was doing pretty well. There was no indication it was a problem and then it failed.

Perry Allen  37:03  
Okay, so I suppose that's my last thought about sewer. Leads me to another thought, okay, so I was just curious, and I once again, I'll learn on Thursday, which gives me just a little hesitation in terms of some of the things, but is how many of those older systems still might exist that we're unaware of, and thus do We somehow run out of that 35 rough revenue, or not revenue that we'll have left over? What our sorry, let me take a step back. I know that we have the plan to get the bank loan to pay back that 20,000 200,000 do we have numbers as to what that would that expense would be for us, so that we can judge that against this, only $35,000 that we have, which is at risk of depleting as soon as there's an emergency.

Karen Smythe  38:04  
So Well, first of all, on the emergency part, yes, the engineer and the operator and the DPW Foreman have been through every inch of these plants to say that everything is new enough to snob would be wrong. To say that there's no possibility of an emergency would be wrong, but we are so much farther down the road. We have done an enormous amount of work, so I feel confident that it would be unlikely that we would have a major emergency happen again. No guarantees, but I certainly feel confident that we, we have an operator who's got his eyes on the plant every single day. I mean, this weekend, the UV light went out. It was a switch. It got fixed. So things come up. And of course, it's a little teeny thing, and the thing itself is not very expensive. It's more the time the labor to go in and fix it. But it we have so we had two overflows in February of the of the mud wells that led to partial, partial, partially treated discharge. We put in the alarm system. After that, the alarms gone off once, and probably it wouldn't have ended up being a non compliance event, but the operator was there, checked everything out and and it all ran smooth. So we have not had, we've not had a non compliance event since February 24 so we're, we're feeling, again, cautiously optimistic, as it relates to the to the loan, I have been trying to see if there was a somewhere where we could get grant funding so that we wouldn't have to borrow the full 200 I have not been successful. But that was also why, in the resolution to take the advance from the general fund, I wanted to give us a little bit of time to at least explore some options, because that would be better is if we don't have to borrow the full 200

Speaker 4  40:19  
which is why, until May, that's why you propose that

Karen Smythe  40:25  
date, and so we know what we have. And so that's we will have to tailor the loan to what we what we expect to have.

Frances Uku  40:37  
Sorry, I have, I have a statement. I was I was waiting to ask my questions about the we had gone to the sewer fund budget because you had shown in the in the in the presentation, some of the assumptions and projections that you know that I've been asking for. I'm happy to see them, but I don't have copy. Well, none of us on the board, as far as I know, have copies of those. That's what I would need to be able to understand the budget proposal. But since we did so, we had sent a message to the or rather, I had sent email to council requesting an opinion on the situation that we find ourselves in with the sewer fund. And we did only just hear back from Council, so I have a statement to read based on, I'm sorry that I was late both Perry and Craig for your ceremony, but I felt I needed to take the responses from Council in and and so I Have a statement on this $205,430 inter fund advance in February of this year, the sewer fund did not have enough cash on hand to make a scheduled debt service payment. The board authorized and temporary advance of $205 430 $205,430 from the general fund under General Municipal Law, Section nine dash a, to cover that payment by the terms of Section nine A, and by the terms of the Board's own resolution, that advance must be repaid by May 31 the close of the current fiscal year. The Village attorney confirmed today in writing, the failure to repay by May 31 2026 would contravene the Express terms of the board's resolution, implementing GML nine a permitting the general fund to absorb a sewer fund obligation indefinitely without authorization, may expose individual trustees and officers to personal liability under applicable law. That's from our Council today. The advance was authorized by the prior board in February, but the liability exposure is on the current board, which is to say the five of us sitting here tonight, Perry and Craig didn't vote on the advance, but starting tonight, they carry the same fiduciary duty as the rest of us, to see it repaid. The February resolution also requires the treasurer to present a repayment schedule to the board by May 11, four weeks from now, and just 20 days before the repayment itself is due. The board has not seen a schedule. The only thing the mayor has said about repayment, just as now in an April 6 email, is that the village will borrow funds from another source without identifying the source, the instrument, the terms or the timeline. I believe that this is the heart of the oversight problem we have here. Each of us is personally accountable for $205,000 $205,430

Frances Uku  43:26  
obligation that we have no visibility on into how it's being met. Fiduciary Duty is not something we can exercise if we cannot see what we are supposed to be overseeing. The sewer funds, cash crisis developed over months without the board seeing it coming, and again, not blaming the administration, but I'm just saying this is what we need in order to fix a very real problem that we have, the sewer funds cash crisis developed over months without the board seeing it coming, because the only person with operational visibility into the fund is also the person spending it, the repayment is shaping up the same way six weeks from a legal deadline, we do not know which instrument is being proposed, what revenues are being projected, or what the treasurer's schedule will say, should it appear on May 11. By May 11, we are being asked to absorb the liability without being given the information to manage it. That is why the parity resolution to follow on tonight's agenda matters. It affirms, among other things, that every trustee has the right to direct access to information from village staff and professionals on matters within the board's jurisdiction, and that materials prepared for board action must be distributed to every trustee at the same time. Those are not procedural preferences. They are the minimum conditions under which any of us can exercise the fiduciary duty the village attorney's opinion places upon us. Without them, we are being asked to pay to bear personal legal exposure for decisions we cannot see being made. Which brings us to the decision in front of the board on the advance itself, the instrument we use to repay is not something the board has been shown, and on this timeline, not all possible instruments are still available. We cannot borrow again from the general fund a new nine a advance to repay. The first one is the same tool with the same constraint it would also be due May 31 it doesn't solve the problem. It just moves the number external borrowing under the local finance law, budget notes, anticipation notes, may theoretically be available. Perhaps we can explore that the board has not been informed of any evaluation of those instruments. Has not been told whether bond counsel has been engaged and has not seen any feasibility analysis. With 48 days to May 31 and procedural requirements for debt issuance that typically take weeks. That path is narrowing, even if it exists. That leaves one realistic path. The board can see an authorized general fund subsidy, a budget amendment, not an advance to cover the shortfall, and that's a general fund. Bailout of the sewer fund is what that means general village taxpayers, including those not on the sewer system, will cover this year's sewer operating shortfall. The board should make that decision, not me, but the board must make that decision with eyes open as a deliberate budget amendment in the open if the mayor has been working on another path, an external borrowing instrument, a grant, anything else the board needs to see it, I would love to see it personally, six weeks from a deadline that creates personal liability for each of us. We cannot proceed on options. The board has not been shown. This also bears directly on tonight's budget hearing a proposed fiscal year 2627 sewer budget has to account for how this current year's advance is being closed out, and it has to be built on line item assumptions that the board can see without that We cannot responsibly adopt it even on April 27 i

Karen Smythe  47:00  
Can I ask what line items it is that you haven't seen that you would

Frances Uku  47:07  
like to have? Well, I don't have that. You made a presentation in which, for the sewer, you gave assumptions based on on various ones in each each of these here supplies, Clarke, I don't have them now because they're in your in your presentation, but they're not in the notes.

Karen Smythe  47:26  
I will say the when we as a board voted to increase the fee, the sewer fees, the estimate of ongoing cost, which is primarily based on is the basis on which I used to make the budget for next year was shared with the board in I believe my notes say December. So I'm happy to share that document with you. I actually went through an exercise of taking, taking the what, what was shared, and there's some adjustment between the items, but the number at the bottom stays the same. That's what the increase in the fees was, was based on. That's where the fees led us to, so that we would have ongoing the proper amount of fees. No other is in the resolution about the repayment plan. The May 11 was a date that the board approved. And so the fact that you don't have the what's going on in between is,

Frances Uku  48:26  
yeah, sure, take responsibility for that. Also owed a

Karen Smythe  48:30  
repayment plan by May 11. Will there perhaps be a need for some special meetings to make sure we can meet the deadline? Maybe. And so I'm with you. We absolutely this is an important financial piece. The other is, every single invoice we have paid for the sewer has been presented and approved by the Board, of course. And the estimate of where we are budget versus actual you get every you actually get that every twice a twice a month, absolutely yes. So all of the information is there, whether or not it was. I mean, I we were spending more than more than we would have liked, except we had a system that wasn't working. So in the spirit of trying to come up with solutions, while also trying to fix fix a very significant problem is, you know, that's what we're all here for. So as I say, I I'm happy to give you more information. I'm happy to give you all manner of reports. We I won't have a loan document for you in the next week or two. I can have, certainly will have, will have more information.

Melkorka Kjarval  49:51  
Just, I just want to counter that one claim that the board was unaware. We get, she mentioned it before. But just in case anyone is unaware, we get the actual budget. Sorry, just to,

Frances Uku  50:05  
just to interrupt really quickly, because was that a statement from Karen or for me? Because I never made a statement that the board was unaware. I said that we are unaware of the instrument that will be used.

Melkorka Kjarval  50:14  
No, you said that we were unaware of the budget that we were going to be have a shortfall.

Frances Uku  50:21  
This is what happened at the time

Melkorka Kjarval  50:23  
your statement, okay, okay, so I'm going from my memory that you said that the board was not aware that a shortfall was was going to happen, right?

Frances Uku  50:33  
I said surprised. This is, I mean, yes, you don't have, you don't have a copy of this. I did not think that we this is literally what we received from our lawyer.

Melkorka Kjarval  50:42  
I misremembered, because I don't have a copy of what you said. What I'm saying is that we get every month, twice a month, we get that information. Yes, so I just, I just want everyone to know that we do get that information. It has, we have, I have received it. I review it, I was aware,

Frances Uku  51:02  
as Karen said, I've been nodding along. It's not a question of the of the review. I'm speaking specifically about the attorney's response today and the personal liability that this introduces for all of us. I'm not talking about I'm just that was a storyline of how things have happened so far. And yes, I do see every twice a month I did, it was a unanimous, as you recall, resolution to make that inter fund advance so it's there's no question about any of that. I'm just surfacing

Speaker 4  51:31  
this question. Sorry, I have two questions. Also, were you proposing that there be? I want to make sure I understand what you said of a general fund. Could you reiterate that one more time? I have two questions. I can but a general fund. Again, forward, bail out. Bail out. That sounded just, I'm just interested to hear your thoughts about that. And then as well, because this came in just before the meeting, I didn't have total time to fully look over the attorneys comments. Could you read that one more time what they said about the liability. Just hear it once more. The I know it's on just

Frances Uku  52:07  
it is, but I will just read that part. And you know, and again, the subsidy or bailout, as we're talking about, this is something for board to contemplate. This is only my statement. This is obviously not a statement of the board. I will read you specifically what the attorney confirmed today in writing, failure to repay by May 31 2026 would contravene the Express terms of the Board's own resolution implementing GML nine a permitting the general fund to absorb a sewer fund obligation indefinitely without authorization, may expose individual trustees and officers to personal liability under applicable law,

Karen Smythe  52:45  
and also, just to remind the board there is liability insurance. Okay, yeah, so, you know, obviously we have work to do. Is it really? I'm sorry, you had another question.

Speaker 4  52:59  
Go ahead. Oh, no. I mean, is this the time to to hear thoughts about that other the general fund, I would prefer

Karen Smythe  53:07  
to do is to get some legal counsels and get the bond counsel and our financial consultant to which is part of the plan, rather than us speculate as to what it might be and what the possibilities are,

Speaker 4  53:23  
and is that to be done before the budget is due, or by the May 11? By May 11, that's by the May 11,

Frances Uku  53:31  
but the budget must be the budget

Speaker 4  53:33  
some by the end of April. Yeah, I understand.

Karen Smythe  53:35  
Okay, so I'm going to suggest that we I mean, are a variety of options that we have here. I know we have. I would suggest that we consider closing the public hearing for the for the village budget. You all in agreement with that? If not, we can make that open.

Speaker 5  54:02  
I thoughts on that.

Speaker 6  54:05  
Ask for a motion safe to post.

Karen Smythe  54:07  
I'll ask for a motion to close the public hearing.

Speaker 7  54:10  
So moved. Thank you. Second.

Karen Smythe  54:13  
Second, thank you. I'll take a roll call on that. Craig no corco

Frances Uku  54:21  
Aye, Perry Hi. Fran, hi,

Karen Smythe  54:24  
and then I okay close the public hearing for the village budget in the interest of moving along as we have, as we have laid out the agenda. I just want to provide. This is an opportunity for public comment the public hearing specifically for the village budget. Now we have an opportunity for, let me stop sharing sorry.

And anyone like to make public comment on any anything at all? Okay? I'll take that as a no. The next item on the agenda is what I expect to be a relatively brief attorney client conference. So we do, we need to adjourn the motion to go into an attorney client session. So I'll take a motion. I will make a motion to go into attorney client session.

Okay, the next item on the agenda under general business, is trustee, uku has has brought forth a resolution to amend the land use study that we passed in our March meeting.

Karen Smythe  0:30  
And so that allows Fran and we also have our land use attorney here to help us

Frances Uku  0:39  
work through this. Okay, okay, so I think it's useful to first describe the differences between the land use study that we adopted on March 31 and the resolution, which is an instrument that implements the or rather that makes, if you have, if you have a study by New York State law, you have to say that with the resolution that we wish to use village law seven, Dash 7722, to make turn this thing into a, into a, into a study. So some of the things here, actually, I'll read, I'll read the resolution, and then amongst ourselves and with Victoria, hopefully we can, we can discuss some of Victoria's feedback. I hope so. This is called the resolution to readopt the North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study as an amendment to the village comprehensive plan. This also, I should also say it's is based on some input that I that we got from Victoria, as well as input from General Counsel, whereas the board adopted the North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study, the study as an amendment to the village comprehensive plan by resolution on March 23 2026 and whereas village law seven, seven to two authorizes The board to adopt or amend comprehensive plan, any portion thereof you do have that we're reading the same, I believe. So yes, it's it. Yes, this is new as of my so yes. And I thought that you were looking at the so these, if you wouldn't mind just passing those down and let me see. Yes, I will have to look at mine on my laptop, but Sure, thank you. Let me just pull the version

Perry Allen  2:30  
that's mine. So let me, did you, Victoria, did you get

Karen Smythe  2:35  
a copy? I did take one. Thank you. I'll make a couple copies. So making. I'll make a couple

Frances Uku  2:44  
copies while. Oh, okay, so she's gonna make copies. That's great.

Perry Allen  2:49  
That's nice. Better off paper. I don't know how, yeah, I

Frances Uku  2:53  
read it on screen, but if I had to give out my copies, I would have, I would have gone there. But I also would like to read on read on paper, but I'm especially happy that Victoria got that. I'll wait for Fran to return, because,

Perry Allen  3:11  
yeah, we should do it together.

Frances Uku  3:13  
Yeah, we must do it together

Victoria Polidoro  3:17  
while we're waiting. Jen, when you filed the resolution. Did it? Was it? Do you have the filed copy of the first resolution? Was the study not attached

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:27  
to it? It is attached. I mean, the study is not part of the minutes. The resolution is in the minutes. And the resolution was sent to the county with the with the study.

Victoria Polidoro  3:41  
Okay? So if someone went to your office, yeah,

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:45  
yes, it is not currently attached in the resolution book. But I don't consider the resolution book official. I mean, I have the the the study is now part of the comp plan, and we've worked on how to address that which is still in process. I'm happy to attach it to the resolution in the resolution, but I feel that is like the prior

Victoria Polidoro  4:16  
resolution did.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  4:18  
Did say attach. Okay, I will. I will add it to the resolution book.

Frances Uku  4:26  
Oh, may I think I gave mine away, Karen, did you? I mean, is it

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  4:31  
appropriate the minutes the whole study? Sorry, I gave mine away. I mean, in, like, the special minute book with, like the paper that doesn't disintegrate, kind of notebook.

Victoria Polidoro  4:42  
Yes. I mean, why does it cost a lot? Yeah.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  4:47  
I mean, it preferred to not put, like, large items like that in there, but, but if it's part of the minutes, it's part of the minutes, you tell me legally what you'd like me to do. Well, I mean, let's have this discussion tonight. Okay?

Frances Uku  5:20  
Curry, able to save time I could, yeah, I don't love to read on my screen, but I would have just so it's this one right here. Adoption. It was I think

Speaker 1  5:45  
it was, did you get a copy? I did that. But thank you for this. Fran needs a copy too.

Perry Allen  5:52  
Oh yeah. Thank you so much. Right now we're loaded, just getting it

Frances Uku  5:54  
shorter and shorter. So hopefully, I'm so happy. Victoria is here. I Okay, so shall I continue? Yes. Okay, I'll start from whereas the march 23 2026 adoption resolution contained procedural and statutory defects identified on the record at the time of adoption, including the absence of a statutory citation under village law 7722, the absence of a county transmit transmittal direction required by village law 7722, plus 12 and general municipal law 239, M and the absence of a periodic review provision required by village law 722, as well. And whereas the adoption resolution did not identify the specific version of the study being adopted, referencing only minor amendments made during the March, 9, 2026 meeting without specifying them. And whereas the document being adopted was not attached to the resolution, included in the minutes or posted with the agenda, leaving the board and the public unable to confirm which version of the study was adopted. And whereas the narrative descriptions of individual historic properties contained in Appendix B of the adopted study include owner supply documentation that has not been independently verified, and if retained as operative, text of the comprehensive plan could be cited as a basis for land use claims against the village in future proceedings. And whereas the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development in its response dated March 12, 2026, referral number ZR, two, six, dash Oh, three, two, classified the study as a local concern with comments and recommended a a footnote on the method, methodology, methodological differences between decennial census counts and ACS five year estimates, including margin of error and B household size data from prior years to illustrate shrinking average household sizes and whereas the board held has held a duly noticed public hearing on The readoption of the study pursuant to village law 7722, and well that's that there needs to say that we will schedule a public hearing, whereas the board has identified and confirmed the definitive version of the study to be readopted as the file. So I just went, Jen, to what you had provided as of the last as of March 23 that file North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study. Underscore, Mar 2026, underscore, clean dot. PDF provided by Bonnie Franzen on March 23 2026 at 4pm on file with the village Clarke. Now therefore, be it resolved by the Board of Trustees of the Village of Red Hook as follows. One, the resolution adopted on March 23 2026 adopting the North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study as an amendment to the village comprehensive plan is hereby rescinded. Two, the Board hereby adopts the North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study in the version identified above as an amendment to the village comprehensive plan pursuant to village law seven, seven to two with the following modifications, a the demographic tables within the study are amended to include a footnote explaining the methodological differences between decennial census counts and American Community Survey five year estimates, including the applicable margin of error and two household size data from prior years, illustrating the trend of shrinking average household sizes, as recommended by the Dutchess County Planning Department of Planning and Development be the following periodic review provision is added pursuant to village law 7722,

Frances Uku  9:38  
the Board of Trustees shall review this comprehensive plan amendment at intervals not to exceed five years from the date of adoption, and shall determine whether amendments are warranted in light of changed conditions, new development or updated data. C, the narrative descriptions of individual historic properties contained in appendix B are removed from the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Appendix B may be retained by the village clerk as a reference document, but does not constitute an operative provision of the comprehensive plan for purposes of land use. Review three, the village planner shall incorporate the modifications set forth in section two into the study document without substantive alteration. The Village clerk shall file the RE adopted study in the office of the village Clarke, upon receipt of the final document from the planner for the RE adoption, set forth here and is subject to the state Environmental Quality Review Act, the board determines that the RE adoption constitutes a type one action under six, NYC, rr, six, one, 7.4, b2, and adopts a negative declaration, determining that the RE adoption will not result in any significant adverse environmental impacts. The modifications, clarify language, improve data presentation and add a periodic review provision they do not alter the geographic scope or permitted uses of the study. The board five the board directs the village Clarke to file a copy of the RE adopted study with the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development in accordance with village law 7722, and to transmit a copy of this resolution in accordance with general municipal law 239, M, if any provision of this resolution this is six operative, call six. If any provision of this resolution is held invalid, the remaining provision shall remain in full force and effect. Seven, this resolution shall take effect immediately. Please.

Victoria Polidoro  11:31  
The village has undertaken a planning process for some land in the northern portion of the village, which culminated in an amendment to the village's comprehensive plan. The village's comprehensive plan itself is a full and complete document, but it's quite old, and so because it's a huge effort to redo the entirety of the Comprehensive Plan, the village, in the past, has done a small piece, and now they've done a second small piece. So the intention was that this land use corridor study would be adopted as an amendment to the village's comprehensive plan. There's a certain process that needs to be followed. Whenever you do a comprehensive plan amendment, the village had public hearings. There was public input. At one meeting, a lot of changes were discussed, including some of the changes in this letter, the board decided to make some changes. They decided not to make other changes. The planner sent a red line version to the board. I did not attend the meeting when the board adopted the Red Line version, but the intention was that it was the version with the red lines that was being adopted. So I just, I do take some umbrage with the statement that the original resolution that the board contained included procedural and statutory defects. I mean, well, by saying that, I mean, by saying that you're putting the board's action at risk. I see, okay, so that's not an appropriate statement, okay? Plus, I take, you know, I take pride in my work, and the resolution, in my mind, did not contain procedural defects. This land use study could have been adopted by motion, motion to adopt the amended study. So moved, I we wrote a resolution to try and provide history, so that when someone goes back through the record, they can say, Oh, what was this? Why did you do it? And so that's what the resolution was intended to be, provide some history, identify when the hearings were held, show that these minimal requirements were met. The resolution did that. I can draft more substantive resolutions. It could take more time and effort, but we're always trying to find that balance, because you're a public body of over lawyering and using taxpayer money wisely, so, you know, trying to fall within that center space of giving you something that is legally sufficient, but not spending extraneous words, because I charge by, you know, and so that resolution was not defective, be that in a Spain, it could have included more language, and we can talk about what other language it should have included, or we could have had a conversation. Unfortunately, I didn't come to that meeting, and so we didn't have that conversation. I just wanted to start out by saying that what what is being proposed. Now, though, I do understand that as as the resolution was intended, it was intended to be adopt, attached to the amended land use study so that it was very clear which study was adopted. That's how it was drafted, that it would be appended. And if that didn't happen, we can fix that and make sure that happened. In the meantime, though, that study is being appended to the comprehensive plan as well, with a notation that says, you know, this is the study that was adopted on, you know, march 23 2026 so I don't think there's going to be an issue for the public to know which study was adopted because it's being incorporated into the comprehensive plan. But be that as May, it sounds like there might have been an issue with the filing, so we can fix that. What, what this resolution is doing now is, it seems, making further amendments to the border study, especially regarding this properties. So if the board wants to make further amendments, that is fine, but further amendments have to follow the process. And so we would need to have a document identifying the amendment. And you know, you've identified them. We would have to set a public hearing sent to county planning, you know, creating eaf, and take those steps in order to make an amendment to the land use study at this point. So if you feel that you know, versus a technical change, if, if the planner had made a mistake and didn't include something you directed her to include, we could fix that with a technical change. If you are changing something that was discussed and you know, not included or included by vote of the board, that is now a substantive change. So I think you guys should focus on these changes and decide if this is something you want to move forward with, and if so, you know, we'll talk about what that process is.

Perry Allen  16:15  
Could I ask a quick question before we focus on those changes? You mentioned at the beginning that the intention was to submit that version. But that's not the version that was submitted. Is that?

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  16:26  
So, no, no, the version was submitted. It was submitted to the county, and the clean version exists. The only thing that is the defect, which I will take fault of I did not read the resolution. Was that it just I did not take the resolution and attach the study. That's, that's my defect, a staple. Yeah, it

Victoria Polidoro  16:50  
was intended to be attached so that you could, you know, have that paper record.

Frances Uku  16:57  
Did you finish, Barry?

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  16:59  
But if you'd like copies exist in my office with the comp plan, and I'm in the process of amending the comp plan with the amendment as elect, as voted on and

Victoria Polidoro  17:11  
adopted, and the board members had all received, I understand again, it wasn't there, but everyone had received a copy via email that day, so everyone knew the version of the study that They were voting on.

Victoria Polidoro  17:21  
So can I ask substantial

Karen Smythe  17:23  
wait to Perry, did you have a second question? I think you said you had two questions.

Perry Allen  17:27  
It can go next to that's totally fine. I was just curious about this note. This line of could be cited as a basis for land use claims against the village. If we could hear more about that. But maybe you want to think about that. Mel Clarke asks your question,

Victoria Polidoro  17:42  
let's, I mean, we can talk about that. So there was an issue, and I don't know, trustee, explain more where this issue is coming from, but then I can comment on the legality

Frances Uku  17:57  
of it. Okay, I will come to that. But firstly, I just as a personal statement, I would like to apologize to you. The way I work is to me, this is when I when I write a resolution, and again, I'm a lay person. It's not committing this to until the board votes on something. It means nothing. It's not an instrument. So the fact that it says procedural and statutory defects is not a reflection of your work. And I hope you know that I, I'm, I'm, I looked at this and because there it's down to like, three things that are county comments, the periodic review and stating seven, seven to two, there's nothing. The the the resolution is perfect. It's just that these are, like you said, substantive. We can't afford to, you know, we can't afford your minute per minute rate. But it's just something that I looked at rhinebecks And literally, 7722, is listed right there. First thing, and they won 2024, best comp plan in all of New York. You know, they paid a lot of money for this, and we would have to pay lots of money to get you. But my point is, I want to apologize for that and make it clear that, from my point point of view, this is a it's just a draft. It's not binding. It's not, you know, so if we were to pass something like this, I'd be very happy to strike that from anything that we did finally. But I just, I don't, I wanted to say that. Now coming back to Yeah, back to the land use claims. So if you remember when you were here on March 9, we discussed how some of the language in the narrative study, I mean in the in the study, which was particularly related to the Martin homestead was very gushy. I believe was your word, and it was just my feeling. And I'm getting, if I'm not incorrect, that that the changes that would from what I've been reading. This is your domain. And feel free. I won't be offended if you say you are an amateur. Like is that when you have something in a in a comprehensive plan, the entirety of it is has operative weight. So when someone comes before and says, Well, this thing in this this prop, this language in here, my lawyer can use this because it's in the village's comp plan. You adopted this thing so that, in my mind, doesn't serve the village's interest necessarily, if that content has not been independently verified, like in in the study, this is before the planner, land use planner had said that this was owner supply documentation, and there was no sense that it had been independently verified with research. It's just there are a lot of very, as you say, gushy details in the narrative. And so while it's fine to have it in the appendix, I just feel giving the appendix the same power as the actual study. I just feel that it and obviously you're the No, I

Victoria Polidoro  21:18  
understand that. It's just that I think the board had that discussion, and the majority of the board at the time did want to keep it in the attendance. So that's why I'm saying this would be a substantive change from what was previously discussed. But so what is a comprehensive plan? It is an aspirational document that says this is what the village wants to be. It's almost like a vision board, right? We want to be there one day, but the comprehensive plan itself does not carry the force of law. When you adopt new zoning, it has to be consistent with the comprehensive plan, but it doesn't have to implement every single aspect of the Comprehensive Plan. The village can take baby steps in amending its zoning, or it could do whole new zoning that accomplishes everything in the comprehensive plan all at once. It's very unusual for that to happen because, like I said, it is aspirational, and villages tend to grow slowly. So I mean that being said, having information about historic resources. I mean, I understand the concern that maybe it hasn't been independently verified. I don't know if it has or hasn't, because Bonnie Franson, your planner, is not here tonight, and she was the one who put the document together. But how? I mean, I don't understand how someone could misuse historical data if the policy is to protect historic research resources to the maximum extent practicable, you know, I having some extra flowering language. I don't necessarily see as opening up the village to claims. If it were something about, you know, natural resources that were incorrect, water quality, something, something that had more impact on laws that the village would adopt, I think you'd want to be more certain. So I think that's a discussion for you guys. You know, what do you want in the plan, and are you comfortable with data that either has been checked by Bonnie or she was unable to fully check, and I don't remember where she came out on that. So that's that's for

Frances Uku  23:27  
you guys to discuss. Yeah, and this may be something that that Perry and Craig may wish to, you know, take a look at it. My issue at the time of our working on the study was the fact that was the imbalance between the narrative text related to this one particular property versus the others, including the Elmendorf, which is in fact the oldest property, the oldest building, the oldest, yeah, property in The Village. And so the table was really, it is, it is, it's in well, I have the study in front of me, but you probably don't. So it is, in fact, the oldest. It is a contemporary of the of the Martin home, because it was purchased by and I forget the inside. I have it here. Okay, so, so the the Elmendorf was actually sold to one of the Martins. Let me see if I have it in that in that table. Anyway, this is beside, beside the point there. But it did not seem to me that the Elmendorf had comparable treatment.

Victoria Polidoro  24:42  
The concern was that you feel future village boards might think that you intended to give more weight to one and not the other. That's right.

Frances Uku  24:52  
That's right, especially as in the historic resources of the 1968 comp plan, the Martin House is the only referenced in there. So you could say that this is a very covered, very covered property, as is, but that's, that's,

Karen Smythe  25:09  
it's also a property, property that's that is actually referenced in the Library of Congress. Yes, which is, which is substantive, and the almendorf has a is on the National Historic

Frances Uku  25:20  
registry, yes, absolutely, which is the point about keeping it in the table where all those are referenced, because if they live

Karen Smythe  25:28  
what we discussed board meeting, we agreed that we would put the table in to the main portion of the document, and we would maintain the narrative and put it In an appendix. Absolutely you're indicating is having the appendix has some sort of negative effect on and then maybe I don't understand why this is relevant and why we need to go through this again, because we went through it as a board, and we agreed as a board that we would put this information in an appendix. We had Bonnie there at the meeting. She did not see any issue with having both in there. And so we're rehashing something that we already went through. So I'm a little confused

Frances Uku  26:09  
as to why, but this one is, this is a question for Victoria, because Bonnie, she can write our land use, but she's not that. She's not she does not have the legislative we make those legislative, legislative decisions as far as what we used, what we wish to, to have as an operative instrument. This is something that I'm getting at with with Victoria, because she would understand, and it's maybe something that we are happy as a board. And this board today is not the board on March 9. It's, it's something, it's something to if it's not removing the appendix, like I say, the appendix can live both in the Library of Congress and in in the Clarke's office, but it's just removing the power of it in this, in this context,

Victoria Polidoro  27:00  
Victoria spoke to the power of it, right? She spoke to the it's not the same thing as a law, right? It doesn't leave us a liability to have the ethics. Am I? Am I incorrect and correct? It's nothing in this carries the force of law. I don't, I don't see potential for liability. But there is, as trustee pointed out because there is a possibility that a future board would think that you intended to give one historic resource more weight than another historic resource, and maybe you did. It's a policy discussion for the board.

Melkorka Kjarval  27:31  
Yep, interesting, and we've discussed it many, many

Frances Uku  27:36  
times, not this board,

Melkorka Kjarval  27:39  
the board that passed this did. I didn't interrupt

Frances Uku  27:43  
you, Fran, but I didn't either you said you stressed that the board adopt it's I apologize, continue. I'm sorry.

Melkorka Kjarval  27:52  
We discussed this exact thing. What would happen with the narrative if it was too long, if it was too Florida, if it was too we went over this many, many times in many meetings, and the board continued to say that they thought having more information was better, because it could open up grant possibilities and it could support, you know, further funding possibilities, that there was no liability that We saw or any downside, that is what we came to an agreement multiple times. We have discussed this multiple times. I just, I don't totally understand why it comes up again. But can I ask my question about so sorry. I wanted to know the substantial changes. It was that narrative. It was all these in number two, those are changes that were already supposed to be in the document that we had worked on. Right?

Karen Smythe  28:54  
Because these were the comments from

Melkorka Kjarval  28:57  
the county. Yes, but I

Karen Smythe  28:59  
thought that we had, is that data that that's, that's historical data? Is that something that we could add as a technical item?

Victoria Polidoro  29:09  
I mean, I think we're taking a position that once you start changing it, you're changing it. Okay, go through the process for changing it, got it. But I thought that we did ask for clarifications in the tables. She did. I don't. I would have to compare what's right here. And then the first version I saw had some of the changes already. I'm not sure. Okay, got it so I sorry.

Melkorka Kjarval  29:35  
And then the number b is it? Okay? That number b is also substantial change that would require us to amend or or review every five years.

Victoria Polidoro  29:50  
So, I mean, that's, that's a requirement of a comprehensive plan, yeah, be amended or reviewed

Speaker 2  29:57  
10 years. 10 years is

Frances Uku  29:59  
that? So you can say five

Victoria Polidoro  30:01  
or 10, it's not really enforceable. Yeah, there's no, right, yeah. I mean, your comprehensive plan is much older than that. I think, I mean, that is what it is. It's it's there. You can put it in, not put it in,

Melkorka Kjarval  30:17  
but us referencing it. What would be, what would be the plus in pulling that out, re going through this whole process, let's say we say, okay, the narrative is fine. What is the plus in us pulling this out and stating it in a resolution? Let me just pull up that one section and I'll read, yeah, sorry, village, comprehensive plan. So this is section seven, 7.2 of the New York State village law, which is the state code, which sets the laws for the village. And then the village has the following.

Victoria Polidoro  30:52  
So, okay, so it says content of a village comprehensive plan. It may include the following topics at a level of detail, and then it has a list of things that you should consider, such as the needs of government, agreements, proposed, location, intensity, land uses, type of transportation. So there's a full list of things that could be in the plan. Then there's a section on preparation. So this is the procedure for how you amend the plan, it has to be referred to the county. Did you have to have some public hearings? To have two public hearings, to publish the notice, and then you can adopt it so see so it says the village Board shall provide as a component of such proposed comprehensive plan the maximum intervals at which the adopted plan shall be reviewed. So it does want you to include that statement in the document that you know this plan shall be reviewed every five years, 10 years, it should be in there should, but again, it's, it's one of it doesn't have any teeth. So if it's not there,

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  32:07  
what if it's listed in the comp plan?

Victoria Polidoro  32:11  
Well, right? The comp plan, if it's in the main comp plan, yeah, yeah. Then, then that language is there already, because this is an amendment that is being appended to the comprehensive plan.

Frances Uku  32:21  
Is it in there? I'm it in there?

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  32:23  
I'm currently trying to live. That was a good

Karen Smythe  32:24  
question, question regarding the comments from the county. They suggested that we put certain historical data, adding to the historical data that was in, was in the land use study, based on the way they sent their comments, is it required that we may make those amendments? No.

Victoria Polidoro  32:52  
So county planning, the county planning department, gets referrals of certain land use matters. They they said that this one is a matter of local concern, which means you don't have to follow any of the recommendations. They made a few comments, but you are not required to incorporate those comments. If they had required you to incorporate those comments, then you would have to do so by you'd have to do so or have a super majority to overrule them. This was just a comment for your consideration. Can I ask another question? Yes, so let's say we were say this is definite we need to do this. Can you estimate what the cost is of going through this process?

Melkorka Kjarval  33:32  
How much would it be the cost of the taxpayer to do this sort

Perry Allen  33:38  
of yes, that was my question. I was wondering how, what would be the worst case scenario, two public hearings. The public

Victoria Polidoro  33:45  
hearings have to be noticed. You have to have the that page amended.

Speaker 3  33:50  
We just sent it to the county down, yeah

Victoria Polidoro  33:55  
I think we sent it to the planning board.

Speaker 4  33:57  
So it's not insignificant,

Karen Smythe  34:01  
and time was, it's, it's probably at least two months, right?

Perry Allen  34:06  
Yeah, two months. What is it? What is not in, what is not significantly, just for a municipality, I'm curious.

Victoria Polidoro  34:17  
I'm new here for I defer to the budget officer. I only know. I can only give you a legal budget.

Perry Allen  34:21  
I don't sure you know for sure. I'm just curious. I just want to make sure I'm fully

Karen Smythe  34:25  
understanding this. Well, it would be, it would be several hours of our planning consultants time. It would be several hours of our land use attorneys time. There are a few other expenses that go with that, in terms of doing the notice, etc. That's not a huge that's not a huge cost. The big cost is the hours professional consultants, which are several $100 an hour, and if I'm not also the use of the time, all of our time, etc, that's less while we're doing that, we're doing this, there's there's less capacity to do other things. And it also pushes back the time to go from the land of study comprehensive amendment to the actual law. That will be something that has teeth, right?

Victoria Polidoro  35:21  
So, yeah, the next step in this process, if once this study is put to bed, is that new zoning regulations can be adopted to implement portions for all of the land use study.

Karen Smythe  35:38  
I believe part of this also references that the reference to village law, 7712, is not in the resolution.

Victoria Polidoro  35:48  
I mean, again, it doesn't have to be in the resolution, because that is your authority for adopting it. That's it's probably but it doesn't hurt to put in the resolution. I wish I on hindsight, I wish I had thrown it in there, but it doesn't make the resolution defective. The resolution doesn't reference it.

Melkorka Kjarval  36:10  
Can I ask sitting here now, are there people on the board, aside from Fran, that find the idea of appendix with the his the historic narrative problematic enough to restart this process. Is there any sort of people don't have to answer? I know that's putting people on the spot. I feel like that's the major that's a major thing that would be

Frances Uku  36:41  
make it worth the if we were going to that would make not work. Because, no, no, no, that's, yeah, the thing that substantial change, that would be the substantial change,

Melkorka Kjarval  36:51  
because we're saying that the other step probably already is in our comp plan somewhere.

Perry Allen  36:57  
I think to answer that question, I would need to go back and look once more at that plan in order to be able to confidently say out loud whether I think that would be a substantive change that would need to happen, and need to hear as to why I feel as though new to the process at the moment, I wasn't a part of that conversation. I hear concern here. I don't necessarily want to redo work that needs to be done, but hearing your perspective on, say, the Martin homestead, I would want to go back and look at everything just one more time with that perspective before I made an official statement as to the whether I find it problematic, does that make sense?

Perry Allen  37:42  
That seem reasonable? 

Speaker 5  37:45  
I think it is. Want to review it before you.

Speaker 6  37:48  
Yes, I just come back to Fran had mentioned something about operational weight

Craig Rothstein  37:57  
in terms of the comp plan. And so what I'm hearing I and again, I'm going from memory, so, but what I'm hearing is that this appendix and these historical narratives are significantly different from something like a historical register or, you know, in other words, could, can they be put into play in any sort of claim or any sort of

Victoria Polidoro  38:23  
so National Register listing can be used for sometimes they carry the force. They can be incorporated into laws because it has a very defined set of information

Craig Rothstein  38:34  
in it. Does this meet that criteria in terms of weight?

Victoria Polidoro  38:37  
This, this does not, unless you some, unless you go the next step of adopting your own Historic Preservation Law, in which case you'd want to include your own criteria and backup for that law. So no, I don't see the appendix as carrying a force of weight. What what might happen is, there might be an application to do something in the vicinity of one of these historic resources. Members of the public might look to your comprehensive plan for guidance and say, Well, you know, the village has all this information. And look our comprehensive plan says we should protect historic resources, and so it could be used as a guidance document. Guidance, guidance, yeah, which is the operator? Yes.

Melkorka Kjarval  39:26  
And again, we did have this conversation multiple times about the narrative the previous board.

Craig Rothstein  39:34  
So I would not, I don't I mean again, going back and doing a little bit more homework, because that was good idea, particularly new. But on the surface of it, you know, it's a value question in terms of, does it inherently possess a value that make it significant in future contestations or anything like that? It doesn't sound like it does. I mean, it could contribute to some kind of opposition to village one, but it would not be the thing that someone relies on to say, you know, this has to stop, or this can't go forward. So I don't, yeah, I don't know that it's the most valuable use of science, again, coming from the limited

Melkorka Kjarval  40:26  
sorry, to put you on the spot. I just want to make because I know that Karen and I have discussed it. I know. Fran, it's just good to know where everyone's

Karen Smythe  40:36  
feeling what I'd like to suggest. And obviously, Fran, you're welcome to make the motion to pass this resolution as you presented it.

Frances Uku  40:46  
No, no, absolutely not. If anything, what I would, what I would be interested in, in making a motion on, is setting a public hearing. But I can't, I can't for what, that's what Victoria had just said. That if we were going to address any

Victoria Polidoro  41:05  
of make this amendment right before I would first put it, I think in the like, you'd want to get your exact amendment. You need an EF, and then you classify it and set that hearing and refer to counting.

Frances Uku  41:21  
May I ask, okay, those would be the steps. And may I ask if the eaf that we passed associated with the adopted the adopted amendment is it, can we reuse that? Do we

Frances Uku  41:34  
need updated? 

Victoria Polidoro  41:37  
Because this is a new

Victoria Polidoro  41:39  
action, right? That action closed when you Yes, you could reaffirm that review. Okay, normally, you at least have a new date on it that says this current action is not the adoption of the whole land study. It's an amendment to the adopted land use study. Okay, that's how

Karen Smythe  41:55  
that looks. So before, my perspective is before we ask our planning consultant to do additional work on something that the Board did pass at our last meeting. I think that if, if the board would like, we can put it on the agenda as a discussion item for the next meeting, which would give the two new, new board members a chance to take a look more closely at the merits. Well, at the appendix, at the land you study, specifically focused on the historical aspect. But I myself don't think it would be appropriate to expend any further professional consultant funds towards that until the board has decided that that's something that the board would like to do.

Perry Allen  42:42  
I appreciate that perspective. Yeah, I think that would give me enough time to just make sure I've got my thoughts in order about it. If we could put it officially on the agenda for next time to continue? Yeah, I moved to do that, to continue, to Scott, to officially put it on our agenda for next meeting.

I put the trustee whose resolution that she's referred to as a firm parity in board governance and board governance next. Because I would like to take advantage of the fact that we have our we have one of our professional consultants here, David schnell's is being proposed

Speaker 9  43:51  
in this resolution. As far as I know, it's not that that has not changed.

Speaker 10  44:01  
No problem. I

Frances Uku  44:07  
can, but I so, because you had mentioned, I'm assuming you were talking about Victoria. So can you clarify what you meant by because we have,

Karen Smythe  44:18  
well, in your resolution, you have direction for consultants and professional availability. So Victoria is one of our professionals and also falls under the professional and so you, in your resolution are proposing that each individual board member can reach out separately to professional and get a direct response, and that is not standard practice for municipalities, for boards, and part of that is because our professional, our professionals and consultants, cost money, and So if everyone is individually, at their own instance, sending information and requests to a consultant, and there's no coordination of that. The risk is that we would spend a fair amount of money doing that. And so I just thought, given that we already have Victoria here, that she could comment from her perspective, because she works with many municipalities and has for many years.

Frances Uku  45:20  
Okay, and so, I mean, we can solicit. Can you put it in the form of a question to Victoria? Because I'm not sure what, what the are we looking for feedback from Victoria? Or, Oh, I see, because, yeah, I wrote this with a view to the board's input. I wasn't really trying to put a consultant on the spot or seeking input from a particular consultant. So this is our I

Perry Allen  45:51  
had a question about this particular clause. Has this? Can I just learn about the history as to why this clause is here? Has this?

Frances Uku  45:59  
Which one about professional availability?

Perry Allen  46:01  
Has this been trouble I would imagine? Because I hear that why we would all want to individually reach out to be able to get information that we need. And I also hear why it's very important to be able to streamline conversations, especially in terms of finances working with experts, the only problem, so the only problem that I could then foresee is if there are questions being asked of the professionals that are not being communicated thus, and then that information received, and so I, I has, is that the trouble that this is avoiding, or can I'm just curious to know about the context of that particular clause. This particular

Frances Uku  46:44  
clause is, obviously, it's it's not, well, maybe not. So obviously, if it's unclear, the idea is for us as a board to decide what things in the in the moment when we have discussions, for instance, based on a land use study, if we have made decisions about about things that are recorded in the minutes, then I'm not going to go. I say I'm Mel Coco, you and Mel coca having a conversation about something, and we come to an agreement then that previously, I had proposed that if we have something like that that the chair could document, and then it would go to the consultant for action. But that was not, and I'll get into the recitations, but that is not what in practice was happening. Okay? In practice, the mayor and deputy mayor had access that was different from other members of the never directed the consultant.

Melkorka Kjarval  47:41  
I just want that on the record that I never directed the consultant. That was not my role, was not in the contract I directed the consultant, and I take umbrage to any

Frances Uku  47:53  
sort of inference that I did so.

Perry Allen  47:55  
So does this relate specifically to the land use, or would it thus transfer

Frances Uku  47:59  
it was zoning to zoning

Speaker 11  48:01  
to this conversation, this access to professionals. So as drafted, it's to everyone, every conversation. I'm just curious.

Frances Uku  48:15  
I'm just curious. So again, this is back to the the the question of of deliberation, right? This is us here. And if that my envisioning with this was that not that we're all firing off emails to all consultants at all times, but that we amongst ourselves would coordinate, and if we had decided, right? So Malcolm is going to reach out to Bonnie with this particular thing. That is something that we would agree on, just as we're talking about costs, Karen

Melkorka Kjarval  48:46  
always reached out, because that was in the contract. You reach out to Bobby multiple times and use taxpayer funds for your own request, but I never did that.

Frances Uku  48:53  
Okay? I will read the resolution in a second, but I will also read your minutes from your statement from your planning board or your zoning review committee, to February, I never directed her. You said that you not directed that. You and Karen, sorry, I'll just to make it clear, just a resolution to a Fran parody in board governance and dissolve the unauthorized zoning review committee. Whereas the Board of Trustees is vested with the legislative authority of the village under village law 412, including the power to establish rules governing its own proceedings. And whereas the Public Officers Law 103 requires that the business of a public body be conducted at meetings open to the general public. And whereas the Board of Trustees is a legislative body in which every member holds equal standing, regardless of title or seniority, and whereas the mayor and Deputy Mayor have met regularly outside of notice public meetings as the zoning Review Committee, without authorization from the Board of Trustees. And whereas through this body, the mayor and Deputy Mayor directed the village's planning consultant and land use attorney on the development of the North Broadway corridor land use and zoning study. And whereas the Village of Red Hook zoning review committee appeared on 12 consecutive board meeting agendas from April 2025 through March 2026 listed under the Deputy Mayor's report as though it were a duly constitute, constituted body, despite having having no enabling resolution. And whereas at the February 9, 2026 board meeting, the village, Clarke stated that the zoning review committee was authorized by the board at the April 14, 2025 re org. And whereas the clerk subsequently confirmed in writing on February 10, 2026 I stand corrected, it does not look like it was included in the reorg and that the body operates based on quote past precedent, rather than any resolution or action of the current board. And whereas no resolution establishing or authorizing the zoning review committee appears in the records of the Village of Red Hook, and whereas the deputy mayor reported on the activities of this unauthorized body at board meetings throughout the period, it appeared on the agenda, her reports document that the mayor and Deputy Mayor reviewed and revised drafts and board members comments before forwarding them to the consultant, all outside of notice public meetings, and whereas the remaining board members were presented with draft legislative, draft legislation, and consultant work product developed through this channel in substantially final form, limited limiting their ability to participate equally in shaping work on which they were asked to vote. And whereas on February 5, 2026 a trustee moved that the board assert its authority over the development of the study and that public deliberation occur at board meetings, this motion received no second. And whereas the board adopted the work product of this unauthorized body on March 23 2026 as an amendment to the village comp plan with procedural and statutory. Again, I will apologize. With amendment to the village comp plan with statement with defects identified on the record at the time of adoption, that's something I'm happy to the recital I'm happy to edit, but going on, whereas for effective governance, all board members require equal access to information, equal ability to introduce work product, and equal participation in directing the work of village consultants and professionals. I would also add their in board meetings, not off in board as decided in board meetings, public meeting as exciting?

Speaker 12  52:20  
Are you adding notes right now?

Frances Uku  52:22  
I'll come back. I was adding a note and reading that out loud. But anyway, I will Yes equal participation in directing the work of village consultants and professionals as decided in public meetings, whereas the substantive policy development should occur at do, oh, here it was but should occur at duly noticed public meetings, not through informal working sessions that exclude board members or the public. Now therefore, be it resolved by the Board of Trustees of the Village of Red Hook, as follows One dissolution, the body known as the Village of Red Hook zoning review committee is hereby dissolved. It was never established by resolution of the Board of Trustees and has no authority to act on behalf of the board. No work product direction to consultants or deliberation conducted under its name constitutes actions of this board. Two, equal standing, any board member may draft and introduce proposed legislation or other work products for board consideration. Three, timely distribution, draft legislation, consultant reports, contract proposals and other materials prepared for board action shall be distributed. Be distributed to every board member at the same time. When any village professional retained by the board produces a draft or revision of a document that will come before the board, it shall be distributed to all board members upon receipt by any village officer or employee. The Village Clarke shall be responsible for prompt distribution within one business day of receipt. Agenda access. Any board member may add items to the agenda of any regular special or workshop meeting. Five, direct access to information. Any board member may request information, data or clarification for village staff and village professionals retained by the board regarding matters within the board's jurisdiction. A request for information is not a direction to staff and shall not be treated as such. Six, direction to consultants, substantive direction to village consultants, regarding work product that will come before the board for action, including, but not limited to changes to draft legislation, planning studies or policy proposals shall be given by the board as a body at a duly noticed public meeting, no individual board member shall direct a consultant to make substantive changes to work product outside of a board meeting, except for ministerial corrections, formatting, typographical errors, factual updates which shall be disclosed to the full board at the next meeting. All drafts and revisions of work product prepared by or for the Board shall be red lined, dated and distributed to all board members, so that changes between versions are clearly identified. Seven professional availability village professionals retained by the Board shall make themselves available at meetings of Board of Trustees when their expertise is relevant to a notice agenda item, or when directed by resolution of the board, such professional shall respond to inquiries from any board member with the same priority and completeness, completeness as inquiries from any other board member, including the mayor aid future committees, no committee working group or similar body shall operate on behalf of the Board unless established by resolution specifying its name, purpose, membership, duties and terms, individual trustee assignments as liaisons to external bodies are departmental assignments, not committees, and are not affected by this resolution. Nine, notice to village professionals. The Village Clarke shall transmit a copy of this resolution to all village professionals retained by the board within five business days of adoption. Seven, not 710. Severability, if any provision of this resolution is held invalid, the remaining provision shall remain in full force and effect. 11, effective date, this resolution shall take effect immediately.

Karen Smythe  55:52  
One of the things that I would like to say is related to the zoning review. It was referred to as a committee. It's probably an inappropriate appellation. It's not a formal committee. One year ago, we actually passed a village law that committees. This is one year ago, so I was for many years that we would make it more formal in terms of a working group, which is effectively what the zoning review committee was. In my experience, I don't have that much public experience, but in my work experience, having giving a working group a direction. So from my standpoint, the goals, the general direction, comes from the board. The board says we would like to do a zoning study as it relates to the northern section of the village. Then the work group does their best to get good a good draft before submitting to the board, because the hours of back and forth, and how do you do this, and where's that and what's the there's a lot of time that goes into that. If we did that at the board level, it would take even longer than it's taken us to do this. We started this project two and a half years ago, and so in the in an effort to take the goal that the board has approved, and then the project team works on it. It's a working group. When two board members work together, it's not a quorum. It doesn't have to be it does not have to be a public meeting. It's not a quorum. It is perfectly reasonable for two board members to get together and have a discussion and work on a project, to bring forward a document that really feels like it's ready for review. The board has had, we've had two public session, information sessions where the the entire board could come that was one of the reasons to have an information session. We had. We started in December, going through the document. The board has had every opportunity to make comments, make changes, request edits, and the professionals have been available at meetings, not all of them, but at meetings to ask questions and to get clarification. That, to me, is a very proper, appropriate and efficient way to function, so that we as a board are not doing hours of that work in a board meeting. I may be all by myself in that thought, but to me, it would be highly inefficient to do all of the background work to get a document to a form that really is worth reviewing and that the board had every opportunity to see the document, to make comments on the document and to discuss with the professionals at meetings, public meetings,

Melkorka Kjarval  58:55  
just because I started Hearing one is I never directed. Never directed the consultant. Okay, so any sort of talking to this about that I directed the consultant is incorrect. I just want that on the record, because in the contract that we have a consultant, she works in the direction of the mayor, that is the contract that the board at the time, at the time we we approved that contract. I was not on the zoning review team. That was Steve. Before that, it was Brent. This is not some sort of setup that is new to me. It is something I inherited when other people you know, were no longer on the board. This is like a long standing practice, and I know of one board member who has directed the consultant multiple times, and that is Fran and I think that's inappropriate, because you have used taxpayer money for your own, you know, for what you think should be done, and you have emailed her directly to ask her to do

Frances Uku  1:00:01  
what you to provide language that we decided in a meeting we would receive from Bonnie. But when I asked Bonnie, I heard I never directed Bonnie Franzen, I asked for language which we had agreed in our February meeting that okay, so listen, Miss spending taxpayer money. I will read your report that you included in the in the February Well, she has accused me of things, and her own words are on the record in her meeting about she and the mayor met with consultant Franson in private to review comments from the public hearing, any further comments from the board, including a written document from trustee uku, as well as requests and typo corrections identified from fellow trustees Fran soon screen, shared the land use study document, and we went page by page, identifying areas where suggestions and requests could be implemented and or, you know this is these are your words. These are your words.

Speaker 13  1:00:59  
That is the mayor's role. I never suggest as discussion.

Karen Smythe  1:01:09  
And again, given that we have have our land use attorney here, Trustee Hugo, is suggesting that a meeting between the deputy mayor myself and and Bonnie Frans, and it sounds like what you're suggesting is that that's not appropriate.

Frances Uku  1:01:27  
Yes, what I'm suggesting is that, and you referred to it now, previously was referred to as a committee. You just refer to it as a work group. Regardless of what it's called, it has not been formally authorized by this board by even the previous iteration of the board project

Karen Smythe  1:01:45  
was authorized. A contract with the planning consultant was authorized, and in that contract, it indicated that the direction would come from the mayor.

Frances Uku  1:01:53  
The direction comes from I've worked

Victoria Polidoro  1:01:54  
in the village for a long time. Please, the village is small, 2000 there's been a long standing tradition of not formalizing committee if an issue comes up the mayor, you know, I used to work a lot with Ed glendell before, hey, I have this issue, and two members would be responsible for doing the work on it, and then they bring it back to the board. It hasn't been the practice to formalize a committee if that is the practice moving forward, you know that is a more formal practice. It can be done, but that historically has not been the practice, because, again, it's a small people have been doing things in a less formal manner. It is not illegal for two board members to meet and to have these kinds of meetings, because, you know, you're all volunteers. You're spending your time here at these meetings. These meetings already go for a long time. And so to do, you know really basic wordsmithing and workshopping of things you know, your meetings could go for hours and hours and hours and hours. And so just like a not for profit board or a business board, people go off and they do their project, and then it has to bring you back the board. It has to be reported to the Board. It has to be a public hearing. You can't just blindly vote on something, but it is the usual course that a certain level of work gets done to formulate an idea that then gets presented to the board. It doesn't have to be the case. You guys can can do everything at your meetings and only at your meetings if that's how the board wants to work. But I just want to point out that, you know, historically, there has been, I don't want to say committee, but a group of you know, the mayor and another board member have met. I think it was every Friday, they used to sit and talk about, you know, what, what do we need to do with our zoning? What should we review, what's working, what's not? And then they would come up with ideas and bring them before the board when they were ready. So that's been the practice in the village.

Perry Allen  1:04:00  
Could I ask you a question? Sure, I think this back to the board. Is why, when there was the time of codifying all of the committees, this one was not

Karen Smythe  1:04:16  
primarily because it was made up of two board members and the planning consultant, or with the planning and the planning consultant, and we brought in Victoria when, when it was appropriate, committee as, and I don't remember the specific language, but for example, the public spaces committee that's primarily made up of Non board members. It's primarily as it should not elected people. So it's really, it functions very differently. And that's, you know, getting more precise about the language that we use. It's committee, because we get together and, you know, it's a few of us who work, but the committees that we were forming were the public spaces committee, the Village Green Committee, the climate smart the majority of the people are not, are not board members. There are people from the public who are part of that committee. And so the idea was to have the board give that committee a charge so that they had authority to work on what it is that they were working on, whereas when you have a group that is literally two board members and a consultant that is driven by or based on a contract with that planning consultant for the project that was agreed to by the board, so that's why it really ends up being different,

Melkorka Kjarval  1:05:39  
understanding, I'm sorry that it was called a committee because we were trying to report out every month. And that was sort of like the idea that we wanted to, almost like it was in the committee reports. But it wasn't actually a committee, but I was trying to keep everyone up to date. Every month I would do a report there was anything that was new.

Karen Smythe  1:05:57  
The other is, I think there was a, there was previously an inner municipal zoning committee that had town, town and village, and I think maybe some, not some citizens as part of it. And so when that pretty much folded, it just sort of morphed forward using the same language of zoning Review Committee, the team

Melkorka Kjarval  1:06:19  
also reported on it before I recorded and Fran recorded before. So this is

Frances Uku  1:06:25  
not, this is all stuff Jen had shared as well. I'm aware, the only

Victoria Polidoro  1:06:28  
just doing it, I've been doing to inform the public. I'm sorry, oh no, this won't come up just in zoning. I mean, if you have another sewer issue, maybe to have it may not be possible to convene meetings constantly to talk about, you know, sewer you may want to put a working group together of board members that deal with the sewer

Frances Uku  1:06:49  
issue, and that would be fine, but that should be something formally authorized by the board. Like we should say, this is the agreement, and we're, we're forming a standing committee. But the thing with the standing committee is that is still that committee authorized by the board, is still subject to open meetings law, and if there are,

Karen Smythe  1:07:09  
I just like clarification on that statement. Is that correct? It is correct.

Frances Uku  1:07:13  
And I can, you know, I have my it is correct a committee, a committee that's doing the public of

Victoria Polidoro  1:07:22  
so if you have a committee like a tree committee, right? And they're they're meeting to review applications and do that, they're open to their subject to Open Meetings off. If it is a two members of the board, it's generally not subject to open meetings law, because it's not a quorum.

Frances Uku  1:07:37  
It's actually the opposite. So if you have something like the tree commission, that's a citizen, as we were just saying, the public spaces committee, that's a Citizens Advisory Committee. And I've had advice, a guidance on this from Nikon, yeah, advice,

Victoria Polidoro  1:07:50  
reviewing applications. Then it becomes a public committee that has to follow open meetings law, right? If, if there's just two members of the board, it's not a quorum.

Karen Smythe  1:08:03  
Well, even on those committees, they're generally not, not that the Max would be two board members who would be part of that committee. So and perhaps a better language to word would be a working group. I mean, we do have a sewer department team, I think probably called it a committee for a while, where it's it's the operator, the engineer, dBW, foreman, the Clarke and myself. That's that. That's not a meeting that would require being open to the public.

Frances Uku  1:08:36  
That's an or that's an operation, that's a departmental meeting. That's not

Melkorka Kjarval  1:08:39  
you've had a liaison meeting in the

Perry Allen  1:08:44  
past. So I guess that question is whether or not we want to keep operating as such, or if we want to have a conversation as to if it needs to be codified differently. Yes, that is correct. That's kind of conversation, I suppose.

Karen Smythe  1:09:01  
I mean, from my standpoint, the meeting set is just the details of the operation sewer. To me, that's not something that would be certainly the results of that.

Frances Uku  1:09:12  
Yes, the results absolutely

Karen Smythe  1:09:13  
reported at the meeting. But I wouldn't want to have that be a public meeting.

Frances Uku  1:09:17  
They're not, they're operations, just like you said. So you are mayor. That's an executive. That's an exact operations is executive. Why is the review of the zoning not the same thing? This is not, this is, this is the board business operations is your domain. That's, that's not, that's not the village. I could, I'm not welcome. I wouldn't come into your meeting that you have with Jake, and you know, that's, it's just not appropriate in the same way that I cannot direct village employees. That's, I mean, if I were invited, yes, sure, but I mean, I'm not entitled to be there. But this, this, this work that we do here. This is, this is board work, which is different when you have board members breaking off and and whether you call it a committee, or you call it, I'm sorry, what I forget working group. That's right. It is still, it's still subject to open meetings law. If we're discussing board business operations is your domain.

Karen Smythe  1:10:17  
I'm struggling on this one. I don't understand the board has directed even call it a task force. Okay, that's fine. Of working towards and developing a land use study. Does that mean that every meeting has to be with the board? That's what I'm hearing from you to me, we'd still be talking about it if we did it that way, it was much more efficient to have a small working group that was not a quorum of the board. We have no no ability to have votes or make decisions. We brought forth what we felt was a document that was ready for review, that had every opportunity to make any kind of changes that anybody wanted, that we did, frankly,

Frances Uku  1:11:02  
but there's the term you just used that we felt was appropriate for absolutely, but that's because we met, and that's the point you're making.

Karen Smythe  1:11:11  
There was no nothing. That was, what's the word I'm looking for? It was, once again, a piece of paper at the end. We couldn't vote on it. We couldn't make it. We couldn't amend to the cut to the comprehensive plan. That's what the board had to do. Yes, but it was document. It is, in my experience, standard practice to work out the details. When you have the general overview of what your goal is, work out the details to come up with a final editing a document with five people is pretty cumbersome.

Frances Uku  1:11:47  
We had very good meetings, I thought. And the problem the main issue

Karen Smythe  1:11:51  
here document that was ready for prime time, it was ready for you all to review and discuss.

Frances Uku  1:11:57  
No, we're going back to the February the second, the public hearing where we made a decision about language that we would Bonnie was here. Actually, she was on Zoom for this one, going back in my notes. But anyway, we had, and since we I will bring it specifically to my questions. We had had, we had had a public hearing. I wrote a document based on what we decided in the meeting would be six requests that we would make of Bonnie. We agreed that that was that there were six things, including one. So the idea was that we would get like we would make these decisions at the meeting, and these were the things that we were going to request of Bonnie, and I sent that to you, and the understanding was that they would go to Bonnie. But then we heard back from Bonnie, and of the six, there were two that had been that had been given language. And so I said, What about the other four? And I heard back from you, and you said that this was not that you felt, and you gave me responses to to things that I'd asked of the professional. I wasn't directing her. I was we had agreed in the meeting I would get back. It's just language. I wasn't trying to change the I wasn't trying to change the study. Her role is as a planner. You give her the request, she gives back the thing. But, but I heard

Karen Smythe  1:13:20  
Fran and her perspective and opinion on something she's asked to do is part of why we hire her, as I recall, if I recall correctly, these six items we went through multiple times, including with Bonnie, and there was a discussion about it, and we ended up with so here's what, here's what. I'm going to suggest. Several of the things you have in this resolution already exist. Anyone can put anything on the agenda. Sure, sure, draft legislation. I don't think sure we need to have a solution for that.

Karen Smythe  1:13:55  
I do think that we should be mindful of how we go about protecting our paid professional control.

Frances Uku  1:14:02  
Professional consultants

Karen Smythe  1:14:05  
and absolutely and attorneys, and I'm not comfortable with the way this is written, and I would like to have perhaps a little bit more of a discussion as a board as to whether or not the board would like to approach it differently, and so we spend a fair amount of time on it. I think it's an opportunity to think about and discuss.

Frances Uku  1:14:27  
I guess my question for the board then would be that, are we happy with the zoning review village, zoning review Village of Red Hook, zoning review committee to continue operations

Karen Smythe  1:14:39  
as is, I believe you will find that in the reorganization document the working group is called something different, to be honest, at this moment, I don't remember exactly what was called. It not called a committee anymore. So we can discuss that when we get to the reorg document, if the board would like to line that out and have further discussion. We can do that if the board is comfortable with the way it's presented. But I would like to give, to give our land use attorney just an opportunity if you have any further observations or advice for the board, as we consider these.

Victoria Polidoro  1:15:14  
So first off, the open meetings law. Being subject to open meetings law doesn't mean it has to be at a night meeting. For instance, if you decide that you want to form a formal committee, because forming a formal committee of members of the public body does does have open meetings on locations that meeting could still take place, Friday mornings at 930 it just means that anyone who wants to come watch gets to come watch. But formalizing that committee, I think does, does have implications. What was the other

Karen Smythe  1:15:47  
part of the question? Just in the in any, any other advice you might give us as we're considering discussions we've had whether or not a work group is something that's standard practice.

Victoria Polidoro  1:16:00  
I think it's standard practice only because it's hard for boards to sit and go over every little thing in every meeting.

Victoria Polidoro  1:16:16  
The town of Red Hook has they have the individual task force, which often gets ideas through zoning laws and sometimes drafts, eventually it will display up to the town board for consideration. I don't know how active that committee is right now.

Speaker 14  1:16:35  
Is that committee subject to Open Meetings?

Victoria Polidoro  1:16:38  
Well, they they do allow the public to come in, but they meet on their own. Very often, it's not just learning. Like another law will come up. There'll be a need for something, and there'll be some discussions, there'll be someone will be directed to do a draft, and then it'll be presented at a meeting. And so the only thing I can think through off the top of my head is that if you have to wait for a meeting to ask your lawyer to draft a local law to be present at the next meeting, and it's something that you want to act quickly on. I'm just going to come up with a crazy example. Let's say someone's putting storage they want to put storage units across the street in a near the Martin house or something, and you're like, oh, gosh, only allows that. And so you want to adopt a moratorium to give yourself some time to think through the appropriate application. Again, this is just you would have to go to a meeting. You have to wait, you know, have your meeting, Director attorney, then get it on the agenda to set the hearing, and then, you know, it adds some time to things that sometimes you don't have time

Melkorka Kjarval  1:17:55  
for. Is it normal for a board to all direct professionals? Is that like normal, standard practice that everyone has access

Victoria Polidoro  1:18:03  
to directing. So like, if you were in the City of Kingston, where there's a corporation Council and full time planning staff, I think it is more normal for people to everyone can talk to the staff when, when there's outside consultants, generally, there is one person who is directed to be the liaison. You know, questions go through them. In the case of an attorney, though it's we always have to be cognizant of who the client is, and the client is the full board. And so oftentimes, we'll get a question and we'll have to give our answer to the full board. You can't just give an answer to one person, because, again, the client is the full board. You know, from time to time, I'll get calls from other people, but it's not, it's not usually a routine, usually, usually things are funneled through one person. Thank

Karen Smythe  1:19:02  
you. So I'm going to suggest that we move on. The next item is the sewer budget documentation, which I have shared, and you do not need to stay any further. Yeah, I

Speaker 15  1:19:24  
A on what subject resolution that's coming up. Well, we did, actually, I'm

Speaker 16  1:19:39  
talking about the resolution.

Frances Uku  1:19:58  
Requesting, supporting documentation, sorry, what is what's happening right now?

Karen Smythe  1:20:03  
Well, so the next agenda item is the budget, documentation, resolution.

Frances Uku  1:20:10  
Where is your So, yes, is this the new one? This is the new one. Okay, yes, I see that. But the board launches

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:20:22  
into into the marks of trustees resolution. I'd like to correct the public record please. The third paragraph of her resolution says trustee Yuko has been requesting sewer fund financial information from the chief budget officer and treasurer since February 18, 2026 without receiving the written documentation requested. This is factually incorrect, which I will demonstrate, and furthermore, going back even further on February 25 is there a representative from the daily touch here? Yes, may I ask your name? Please, sure you wrote an article that was published February 25 that said, I've asked the mayor and treasurer for this information, since I found out last Wednesday, they couldn't make the debt service by email, Phone and public, and I heard nothing

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:21:40  
back, so on February 18, at 5pm trustee wrote, hello, Karen and Mary Beth, I understand there's a resolution coming to transfer funds from the general fund to sewer. So we're all prepped and ready. Could you please let me in the full board know how much was the transfer? Is this an intraphysical year alone? If not, what are the full year projections? This is based on either way, when does the zero fund become depleted? Thank you. Fran, since only Karen could have answered these questions. She wrote to the full board at 5:41pm that day, just 41 minutes later, I want to alert the board about an item on the agenda for Monday. Our bond payment for the sewer project is due by March 18 for $205,430 as of the end of January, reported by Mary Beth at our February 9 meeting, the sera Fund had $13,022.88 in it. January utility payments are coming in, so there will be a replenishment of funds, and our March utility bills will have the increased rates. However, given all the extra costs that the sewer has required, we will not be able to cover the debt payment cost in time for the March 26 2026 payment, despite the increase in rates, it is not expected that we will be in a position to return the funds by May 31 26 26 the end of our fiscal year, the plan is to have a repayment, a repayment plan, to present to the board prior to the end of the fiscal year, our accountant, auditor will confirm the interest rate that we should charge consumer fund For any outstanding borrowed funds. I reviewed our borrowing options with our financial consultant, Beth Ferguson of financial advisors and marketing Inc, who supported our borrowing for the zero project, she recommended borrowing from our daughter funds as it eliminates closing and legal costs our reserve funds and fund balance provide us with plenty of available cash to cover this loan from the general fund. I send this to you so you have the background information you need for the meeting. If you have any questions or require backup, please send them on before the meeting. So Mary Beth and I have a chance to gather requested information. All right. Information a reminder. We cannot deliberate via email, but we can ask questions and share factual information. Fran, I think this answers all of your questions. If not, please, let me know. Thanks, Karen, sorry.

Frances Uku  1:24:37  
May I interrupt only because we are in the middle of board, no, but you No, no, you don't get to speak. This is a board meeting. Mary treasurer, Madam treasurer, this is a board meeting. This is chair meeting, and I gave this authority to speak. No, you did not. You didn't make a motion. We she just stood up and spoke.

Speaker 17  1:24:56  
She asked if

Frances Uku  1:24:56  
she could speak. Not

Karen Smythe  1:25:00  
well, she asked if she could speak, and I and I said, Yes, you may, because I knew that it was information, factual information, as it relates to the resolution that is was next on the agenda.

Frances Uku  1:25:13  
Okay, I could also read every I mean, I have exactly the you're interrupting her.

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:25:21  
You let her finish? I'm happy to give anyone any documentation. This is all any medicine. Despite, on the 26th of February, I wrote, I said, despite the above documented correspondence, you were quoted in The Daily catch was factually incorrectly, saying, I've asked the mayor treasurer for this information since I found out last Wednesday, we couldn't make the debt service by email, phone, in public, and I heard nothing back on March 4, You sent a formal request for sewer fund financial information. Hello, Karen, Jen and Mary Beth, I'm attaching a letter formally requesting data so that the entire board of trustees and I can fulfill our fiduciary duties. I'm requesting that this letter be linked on the three nine agenda as sewer fund financial information. Please don't hesitate to pitch me any questions sincerely. Fran the accompanying letter says is addressed to Mayor Smyth Clarke Cavanaugh and dear Mayor Smyth Clarke Cavanaugh and treasurer David Philippus, I'm writing to follow up on my previous email and phone requests made over the course of the last two weeks for financial information regarding the village sewer fund. I have not yet received a response, and I'm now submitting this request in writing for the record in order for the board to effectively exercise its oversight and budgeting responsibilities, and for me to do so as an individual trustee, I request the following information, projected expenditures for the remainder remainder of the fiscal year, broken out by expense category, projected revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year, Fran, how the expense estimates used to determine the new O and M rates were created and what assumptions were made. This information is important for the board to evaluate the financial condition of the sewer enterprise and to assess whether the proposed rate structure is well supported. I'm requesting this information be provided no later than the board meeting on March 9, or the plan and timeline for providing it is presented to the Board at that meeting. Thank you for your contribution to this. Sincerely. Francis, code trustee on the following day at March 5, at 1239, I wrote, dear Fran when we last spoke at length on the afternoon on Friday, February 20, 26 I answered all of your questions fully, and to the best of my knowledge, as for your knowledge, as for your mark March, for written requests for the following information respect to the village sewer fund, projected expenditures for the remainder of the fiscal year, broken out by expense category, projected revenues for the remainder of the fiscal year. How the expense estimates used to determine the new O and M rate were created and what assumptions were made. I was not asked to provide input on any of the above projections, nor was I asked to participate in determining the new O and M rate or invited to the relevant meetings pursuant to village law l5 500 the mayor serves as a village budget officer, unless the village has adopted the village manager, administrative form of government. I can access historical financial information if you'd like it. I But that same day, just several hours later, Karen wrote Fran and the board. I want to clarify that Mary Beth has provided timely information to the board and to you, Fran, projections fall under the purview of the budget officer, which is the mayor. Shortly thereafter, I wrote Fran adding to Karen's answer above, and based on my responses below and subsequent discussions with Karen Michelle and Paula Clarke, I formally asked you to remove my name from your letter and all future correspondence to discussion aimed for public and our press coverage regarding the matter. Thank you. No response, and I reached out to you by phone, but you didn't answer, and I texted you, hey, Fran, do you have time to drop in and talk about your letter and subsequent comments? I can also come to you. I On March, I had no no reply to that. On March 17, at 5:30pm

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:30:31  
you wrote titles that emails, title request for cookbooks, export, sewer, fund expenses. I'm very bad. I would you kind of slide a a QuickBooks export of all sewer fund expenses from June one, 2025 to date, a transaction level report would be ideal. No need to summarize or reformat the raw data is precisely what I'm looking for. I'm happy with the CSV or Excel file, whatever is easiest for you, I appreciate you are super busy. If the data will take longer than a few minutes to pull, could you please give me an estimate of when you might have time to deliver sincerest thanks. Fran, this was 5:30pm on the 17th, just 24 hours and 41 minutes later, I sent you the report sewer expenses through March 18 for Fran neutral In both Excel and pff formats, the pff PDF I

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:31:44  
PDF is 12 pages long, and details each individual expense we had in the sewer. Fran, between June 1, 2025 and march 18, when I started to Fran, let's say a typical, a typical entry gives the bill date as December 10, 2025 it was a bill from all state Power Systems Inc. The invoice number was 603935, description, yearly preventative maintenance contract for two WWTP generators. Total Cost of $1,747.25

Karen Smythe  1:32:37  
I think you've made your point on that for a lot of very detailed information.

Frances Uku  1:32:48  
Can I just, can I just note also, since you Yes, but you gave sewer expenses and the whole time, all I was asking for was projections, which Karen and I have been talking about, because I learned that that is the purview of the chief budget officer. So you have read a lot of things that are exactly right that I sent and that has nothing to do with the resolution in front of us, because you

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:33:13  
say that as I just read on the 17th of March, 530 you wrote to me. Hi, Mary Beth, would you kindly provide a QuickBooks? Yes, all sewer fund expenses.

Frances Uku  1:33:26  
That's expenses, not projections. Yes. So I never asked you for projections after as are we going to be madam? Madam Chair? Are we going to be in? Because I'm on the board. You absolutely cannot. That is not how this works. I gave I asked for information. That is his problem. I don't write articles. I don't work for the daily catch. I can't I don't have control over some time, and I'm giving her some time. Fran more

Frances Uku  1:34:15  
I have made no slander whatsoever. If you have something to take up with the journalist. That's for the journalist. That's nothing to do with me. I have

Karen Smythe  1:34:25  
just to clarify in your resolution. Yes, yes, public information. Yes, absolutely yes. Trustee uku has been requesting sewer fund financial information. Yes. Chief budget officer, yes. Treasurer, since February 18, 2026 without receiving the written documentation requested Yes, and as I what the treasurer is doing is refuting that statement as it relates to the treasurer.

Frances Uku  1:34:49  
But that is not what I said about her in this I said, which is what you just read February 18, which is when the response came. I just said that I have been requesting that from the chief budget officer and treasurer since that date, not saying who it needed to come from. I said that in email today, all it specifies is who I asked, what you were asking for. But that's exactly what that's exactly what I'm saying.

Karen Smythe  1:35:15  
It was perceived as you saying you asked for information, financial information, yeah, of the treasurer, and she didn't respond, I said,

Frances Uku  1:35:25  
without receiving the written documentation requested, I did not say the treasurer did not respond. To make this easy, in this resolution,

Karen Smythe  1:35:33  
I'm sorry you are parsing words in a way that's really clever, but clever You said you've been requesting Yes, financial information, yes, the chief budget officer and treasurer, yes, without receiving the written documentation

Frances Uku  1:35:46  
requested just this date from February 26 is my first request. I'm not saying that.

Karen Smythe  1:35:53  
What it implies is that you've never received any written No, no,

Frances Uku  1:35:58  
absolutely not, absolutely not.

Speaker 18  1:36:00  
Appreciate the fact that you might have tried. You might have

Speaker 19  1:36:03  
thought you were writing it that way. No, that's English.

Frances Uku  1:36:05  
That's not I have all those emails. I She's reading my emails. Of course, I wrote that

Karen Smythe  1:36:11  
because the way it's written is what you're saying is you requested

Frances Uku  1:36:14  
financial information. I have,

Frances Uku  1:36:16  
 I have, I have, I have a suggestion. I'm happy to strike this line from the whereas is strike completely. We haven't even put it before strike and then just strike it. She can have the right to respond. No, absolutely not. The board has

Karen Smythe  1:36:30  
not passed this I had, I had given Mary Beth a chance. She has one more thing she'd like to share. Mary Beth, if you found what you'd like to share, what

Marybeth DeFilippis  1:36:42  
I was going to say was I'm truly thrilled that you fully embraced your role as a steward of the village funds. You may remember that it was at the Fall nicoms Fall training school that I heartily encourage you to become even more involved in the stewardship aspects of your important job in reviewing the record. There were more than 600 vouchers that you didn't review and sign. The majority of the board did approve those. So if you don't have information, it's because 600 bills that we, in fact, I don't have to rescind that. And I'd like the public comment, the public record corrected in the daily catch. And I'd like in the public

Karen Smythe  1:37:36  
I would just like to reiterate that Mary Beth has been with the village for just over a year, and I'm very grateful for the work that she does. She works very hard and is doing and is doing her job as and it's very clear that she takes her job very seriously. So I just want to thank you, Mary Beth. And on the record, Mary Beth responds when she gets a request, she takes it very seriously. So with that, this resolution is referring to specifics as it relates to the sewer we did go through that when prior to increasing the sewer rates, there was an estimated budget of estimated ongoing costs, which had all the details of where that came from, and that is the basis on which the sewer budget was developed. I could have included it in the board the budget document. I didn't, because I wanted to show the all the years of prior budget, it gets awfully small when you start adding a lot of detail. I guess one of the things that I would hope that we can move towards is, rather than having formal resolutions presented on the agenda, that we can find a way to request information and then if you don't get it the way you want it, to follow up rather than have a formal resolution, and that may not be something you're willing to do, and that that is your right.

Frances Uku  1:39:10  
Karen, I've been trying very hard over the past year. This is my one week, one year and one week anniversary on the board. I've tried everything. I try informally, I try coming in, I try calling, I try everything, and this, this seat, this is an avenue, and maybe this avenue doesn't work either. All this is literally, this is formalizing what I asked you when we were doing the public hearing on the budget, is just you had those facts in your projections, your your assumptions, in that spreadsheet, I mean in the presentation. I just don't have that

Karen Smythe  1:39:47  
that's and as I said, I shared it with the board when we were reviewing the rate increase, but I don't have it written for not it was in writing on screen.

Karen Smythe  1:39:58  
I did, and I'm sorry I didn't go back to find exactly which meeting it was shared what I if it's something that you don't have. I thought you had what you needed, and obviously you didn't have what you needed, an email, a phone call. You haven't called me in quite a while. We haven't met, except for the meeting prior to the discussion with EFC, we haven't met since the fall. I'm here a lot.

Frances Uku  1:40:29  
Before we met with them in

Karen Smythe  1:40:30  
February, that's we met about EFC. We didn't have any other discussion when we met, except about the compost plan, and the prior meeting that we had was in the fall about the compost plan. So I just hoping that we can find it feels like this, you've tried. I feel like I've tried and it's not working. So that's really what I we need to figure out.

Frances Uku  1:40:58  
Sorry, I do get that? I do get that. Because we

Karen Smythe  1:41:03  
are a small village, I get that we are all here. It is my firm belief that we're all here to do what we think is best for the village. If we get more and more formal, it has harder and it we don't have the staff to do a lot of the

there is a motion to adopt the 2627 budget as presented. There are a variety of things that we can do here. I'm. I have this motion I am, and it virtually takes the budget as amended after our March 22 budget workshop, and those are the numbers that are in the resolution that would be the general fund budget to be $2,652,305.50

Karen Smythe  1:55:31  
kind of reason I got down to 50 cents. But there it is, the water fund budget at 598,100 and the sewer budget at $451,490 I guess I'll start with, I will make that motion. Is there a second discussion? Okay, hearing none. I'll take, if I

Perry Allen  1:56:00  
could just just I do? I feel as though there have been a few things brought up in various capacities that have led me to feel as though more conversation needs to happen around all the budgets or one budget. Oh, that's a great question. Oh, hold on. Give me a second to just deliberate on that internally and think about that for a second. I didn't realize that question was coming. Let me look back on my notes from tonight's meeting we've had is on the sewer Fran, what

Speaker 22  1:56:24  
is the legal requirement

Karen Smythe  1:56:32  
for passing the budget by the end of by May 1?

Perry Allen  1:56:40  
Yeah, I would certainly want to have my first sewer meeting just before fully giving my personal go on that. So would you be able to have all those questions confirmed

Karen Smythe  1:56:51  
for me? Would you be open to passing the general fund and water fund budget?

Perry Allen  1:56:56  
I saw no troubles in my reading of the water fund because I was the one I felt least skilled in reading. I'd be interested in hearing anybody's thoughts on it otherwise. But otherwise, I feel comfortable in the conversations that we had earlier in our meeting, that we could continue some of the work that we've discussed and maybe seeing where that goes from there. But otherwise I feel comfortable.

Frances Uku  1:57:21  
Yeah, I would have liked to have the access to the perhaps the public as well, to have access to the information that you have certainly discussed with Karen,

Speaker 23  1:57:30  
I would actually be happy. I can be happy to share

Frances Uku  1:57:31  
that I know, don't know. We've, we've, I think we've, we've kept people.

Karen Smythe  1:57:36  
So just to be clear, yeah, Perry and I met to go over the budget so that I could explain to Perry what each line item was to get him up to speed, because he hasn't had, for example, the benefit of going through the vouchers meeting after meeting, etc. So it was a meeting where we just went through the budget so that that that opportunity is available to

Perry Allen  1:58:02  
anyone at any time. You're certainly not trying to deliberate outside of the board. I had kind of questions that I needed. I wasn't my own understanding of

Frances Uku  1:58:11  
I wasn't figuring out how to move forward. Yeah, okay, right.

Perry Allen  1:58:17  
I want to, I want everybody to feel like the conversations are

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  1:58:25  
we can absolutely and to be, because I want everyone to feel comfortable. Meetings a lot today. There's no nothing holding people against meeting on in pairs, to talk, to deliberate, to do all the things in pairs. Have at it. Have at it. I'm full support of everyone

Perry Allen  1:58:45  
chatting, agreed. I think just getting accustomed to the dynamics, I want to just also assure trustee Ukraine, I want to be communicative about all my thoughts regarding anything, and I was not trying to inhibit any sort of of that flow.

Frances Uku  1:59:07  
No, that's just fine, but yes, and so if, if everyone is, if everyone is happy, I would like to make a motion also. I would like to move to table adoption of the 2026 27 village budget to the April 27 workshop meeting. Seventh workshop meeting, all budgets, three budgets. I'm talking about the village budget. Yes, all three.

Karen Smythe  1:59:36  
Hearing none. I would like to suggest, if I'm understanding you, Perry and Craig, I think you're in the same mix, I would like to amend the resolution to actually, all the warehouses are still correct, but to leave that the resolution is to pass the general fund budget And the water fund budget, and that we would eliminate the sewer fund budget for the for this resolution, and we would pass that budget with a separate resolution having that on the agenda for April 27

Karen Smythe  2:00:19  
So what that means is the immediate for the resolve to say the water fund budget will be as follows, water fund at 598,100 sorry, the first part of that resolve is the resulting general fund budget will be within the New York State Controller formula for the tax cap, 652, kilo budget, and those general fund and water fund budgets are hereby adopted by which the treasurer to be fully advised and authorized to proceed accordingly. So I have a second for that. I further discussion? I'll do a one co host, start the other way. Trustee rusty aye,

Marybeth DeFilippis  2:01:13  
Deputy Mayor Clarke Well, Trustee Allen aye, Trustee uku no Ryan mcgay

Karen Smythe  2:01:21  
Aye, aye. Okay, motion passes. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is the Greenway grant proposal. So we you all have in your premier binders proposal. It is a revised proposal it is a revised proposal from five months. We

Okay, the next item on the agenda is the Greenway grant proposal. So we you all have in your premier binders proposal. It is a revised proposal it is a revised proposal from five months. We

Karen Smythe  2:01:51  
did approve a grant, Greenway grant application in the fall, I believe it was in October. We did not receive that grant. So with further information in a follow up, we are like to make the proposal to reapply with a revised proposal from Titan bond. They suggested right the Greenway. What they suggested, yes. What they said was that the way we had originally organized, it was to be $50,000 I'm only

Amy Smith   2:02:32  
speaking because I'm the one who writes the brand,

Karen Smythe  2:02:35  
and you're clarifying for me. So we asked for more money. What we proposed is that we would

Amy Smith   2:02:41  
part of the villages match, the majority of those match would be in kind with implementation, they would prefer to only find, which is why it's been removed, also why the proposal is prevailed. And to be clear, the language that was used in the original is from them. This is what they want. If we don't

Karen Smythe  2:03:04  
have that, you cannot apply. That's so just to clarify. So the resolution is something that needs to be part of the grant application. And obviously it's appropriate, because if we receive the grant, we would be committing funds. So this is highly appropriate. And so we got a sample resolution that has very specific language in it that they are expecting. I didn't indicate that in the resolution. Trustee, you who has I will 100% admit it's probably not. It's definitely not the best English. And certainly what we got from from Greenway was really not the best English. Trustee, you who has had has taken the time to make some revisions. What we need for the resolution in order to apply for the grant is very specific language, which is in the resolution as you have it in front of you.

Speaker 24  2:04:08  
The two key sections are six. It's the sixth and seventh.

Speaker 13  2:04:14  
Whereas I know what I'm looking at, but I don't know that the other question, this is

Speaker 25  2:04:21  
the one. It's in your it's in your book.

Karen Smythe  2:04:29  
Oh, those. But those, those are the ones that came from trustee uku that says, with AI assistance from Clarke Fran, yes, I just wanted to make sure that's all Gotcha. Yeah. So this the 1234566, whereas the Village of Red Hook is applying for the Hudson River Valley Greenway, for a grant under the Hudson River Valley Greenway McHenry planning grant program for a project to develop a prioritized plan to improve pedestrian experience to be located in the village center. That language came directly from the Greenway, the folks at the Hudson River Valley Greenway the next whereas the Village of Red Hook requests 15,000 and agrees to provide funding match and or in kind match in the amount of 15,000 equal to or greater than the amount requested, that is also specific language that they requested to have, and the other in the first Now, therefore, be it resolved. The end it says for a project known as prioritized plan to improve pedestrian experience in the village center, that's the that's the way they labeled the project, and so it needs to have that same language, write it differently. But again, the purpose of this resolution is no not catchy, is for the board to effectively just authorize the grant application and the matching fund, I will say that Fran the way you rewrote it, it is much nicer, and it is, it is, you know, you've corrected, you've corrected grammar, etc. Amy would

Frances Uku  2:06:14  
do it. That's why I did it.

Karen Smythe  2:06:17  
My concern is that by changing the language that we risk to have them not find exactly what they wanted, and it so.

Frances Uku  2:06:28  
But the only thing though, that, and you know this, is, I welcome, I welcome Amy's comment on this is, I don't feel that what made the majority of my additions here were in an attempt to Huh, oh, sorry you were, yeah, I know, I know, but I you know, we all Yeah. Anyway, it was it. It doesn't preclude using the very specific language that you have from them. This was just adding in that we had, for instance, adopted a comprehensive plan amendment, and that specifically, it speaks to the pedestrian experience, and they don't want to hear any of that. No, the geographic

Amy Smith   2:07:16  
area, yeah, of this, yeah, does not include anything north the southern tip of Memorial Park. Is it? I understand very specific about we have to have a very quickly defined it's map

Frances Uku  2:07:29  
the whole nine year. No, I get it, but it was more as a statement of values rather than this applies to this section that's being considered for it, or asking me, my

Amy Smith   2:07:39  
opinion, yeah, person writing this grant and having read all of their small Fran to do so, while yes, does restate the value that we all share would introduce an element that is not directly in keeping with the narrative that we are using in order to get the money. It doesn't help our narrative because it refers to something completely a different geographic area. You are the expert.

Frances Uku  2:08:05  
So I brought it just, yeah, I basically, I did it for you. So I'm happy to you know, I'm happy to pass I do know I did look at the October because they changed

Amy Smith   2:08:20  
two things delightfully for me. They also because they also changed as the word count. So it's smaller, which is harder if it were longer that. be easier. In the same way that they revised and added McHenry, they did some other revisions. It is different for very specific reasons,

Frances Uku  2:08:40  
okay, and then, but what about the things like authorizing the mayor to execute the contract, both with tie and bond and with and, yeah, we do

Speaker 26  2:08:48  
not have a contract, okay? If we do not get this

Frances Uku  2:08:54  
money, okay? So it's the other way. They

Karen Smythe  2:09:01  
can say, we get the grant. We don't have to accept the Fran. So the next phase of that process would be the board to formally accept the grant. And that would be a logical time. We would then need to go into and and authorize them to sign a contract.

Amy Smith   2:09:15  
So there and you get, I mean, in you vote on her ability to sign the contract with the with the contract available, that's too many. That's a couple steps ahead of where we're at.

Karen Smythe  2:09:31  
We're it's nice to imagine that we get the grant, but it makes sense to wait until we actually get the grant to then do the following things so fully acknowledging that the the resolution as proposed, nicely written.

Frances Uku  2:09:50  
I wasn't meaning to cast any No,

Karen Smythe  2:09:53  
I say it's the language from. I mean, arguably we could go as simple as just the two warehouses and the one. Now, therefore I included.

Amy Smith   2:10:04  
They like to know that there is popular support for whatever it is we're suggesting, and there is definitely established popular support for pedestrian

Karen Smythe  2:10:15  
improvement the beginning, whereas those are the same ones we had before, basically just acknowledging that we're a greenway compact community and we are these values that they have, are ones that we acknowledge, and then the other resolve is where our matching comes from. Which to clarify is supposed to come from the unrestricted fund balance. We have space in that fund balance to you to do that. Nice part about this is it's a one time, one time hit. It's not an ongoing, sustained thing that we need to find money for. And as we've talked about, pedestrian experience is something that is is very important to a lot of people. And we've heard that again and again, both in our public meetings, as it relates to the land use study. So this, this project, if we are fortunate enough to get this grant, the whole idea is to create a framework that gives us a list of priorities of project that will then allow us to apply for very specific grants for pieces of it that sort of move us along the path. We sort of struggled quite a bit of, oh, we've got this idea and that idea, and let's do but it's all in pieces. This would allow us, with professional support, to create that master plan with prioritization that really gives us a roadmap to go forward. It's going to give us something eminently doable and not very expensive, and then they're going to be more structural, and because we're basically talking about two state roads, it also gives us the weight of tie and bond, to bring together the people from D O T, we bring in people from the Dutch County Transportation Council, and to bring together that group so that they're on board and they understand that we're serious about a plan, and not just one, one offs.

Speaker 27  2:12:22  
It also, if you once you have a prioritized plan, then it's

Speaker 28  2:12:28  
much easier to get Fran because

Speaker 27  2:12:34  
you can say, this is our prioritized plan, this is number two and so on. So it's all self referential, but it's useful.

Speaker 29  2:12:44  
This is exciting. I'm excited.

Karen Smythe  2:12:49  
I'm happy to read the resolution. I don't think I need to. Think you need to. I would take a motion to and again, we're going to go with the resolution that's originally in your packets.

Frances Uku  2:13:01  
Yeah, I have a question about since trustee Smith is former trustee. Smith is no longer on the board. How are we keeping track of of the of the of the submission, submission like I was a volunteer grant

Speaker 30  2:13:14  
writer for The Village before I was on the board, and I

Speaker 31  2:13:23  
continue to do so. So

Speaker 32  2:13:25  
there's no the continuity

Karen Smythe  2:13:29  
stays, yeah, and that's, and that's Amy working with me, because I'll be the one making the

Frances Uku  2:13:34  
actual Thank you. I just like to know things Thank you.

Karen Smythe  2:13:38  
Absolutely okay with that. I'll take a motion to adopt this resolution. We resolution number 14.

Karen Smythe  2:13:51  
Craig second, thank you, Perry. Any further discussion? Just want to

Speaker 13  2:13:59  
thank Amy for writing this and going after this. It's exciting. It is exciting.

Karen Smythe  2:14:03  
Yes, with that? Oh, well, I guess I'll do a roll call vote. It's important. Aye, Trustee Allen aye, Deputy Mayor, Carol aye, Trustee Russell aye, and then Aye as well. Thank you very much. Okay, the next item is the reorganization. Does

Okay next. Abraham heart Community Foundation, Perry, I know I forwarded it to you because I forwarded it to you because this year, on the public spaces committee, so the public spaces committee and the and the Abraham's task force, so the Abraham's task force at this point is subsumed by the public spaces committee. They've been working towards a master plan for the Richard M Abrahams Memorial Park for several years. We've identified a bard intern candidate with a focus on landscape architecture, who is interested in a summer internship. And a key element to the park master plan will be adding a parking lot with the best location currently identified being off land and avenue that will make that will take work in coordination with Dec due to the wetlands in that area, whereas engaging a civil engineer to support the development and planning for a parking lot off Linden Ave is an essential first step in any master plan, the community foundations of the Hudson Valley offer grants from their donor directed funds on a rolling basis. The Village of Red Hook is requesting up to a total of $15,000 for a stipend for a summer intern and initial civil engineering support for exploring the possibilities of a parking lot lost an avenue Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Village of Red Hook Board of Trustees hereby does approve and endorse the application for two grants for up to 15,000 total to the Community Foundation's the Hudson Valley for a summer intern focused on planning and civil engineer for parking lot exploration for Richard M Abrahams Memorial Park. The beauty of these grants is it is not a matching grant. So if we get it, we got it. If we don't, we don't. But I wanted to bring it to you all so that you knew this was happening. I did mention, I have mentioned at past meetings, at the public spaces group grants and in in conversation of community foundations. This is they do do grants to municipalities or items for public, public good. And so I thought this is an exciting opportunity to explore. And I do know the public spaces group, it has the capacity to handle these grants. We are lucky enough to get them fantastic. So I would take a motion to approve this resolution, which will be number 17. So moved. I'm excited any further discussion. It's really exciting. All in favor? Aye, great. Moving out, moving on. Sewer phase one, lessons learned. So here's what I'm going to suggest. So, in order to have an engineer, if we are going to ask an engineer to do a formal report. Prior to doing that, I would like to know what that would cost. I would also like to suggest the sewer team has been keeping a list. It's not sort of formally put together in a presentable form, but there is a list. So what I'd like to suggest is that we charge the and we can do this informally. We can do it formally however you want, but to charge the sewer team and again, getting you up to speed with putting together, because it is important. It is absolutely essential for the one thing I will point out, Delaware engineering was not involved in phase one. They did not CT, and they did not oversee the construction. Now, Delaware engineering basically restarted the entire plan starting a year ago. So they are very familiar, right, right, right, right, but they, they were not the engineer.

Abraham heart Community Foundation, Perry, I know I forwarded it to you because I forwarded it to you because this year, on the public spaces committee, so the public spaces committee and the and the Abraham's task force, so the Abraham's task force at this point is subsumed by the public spaces committee. They've been working towards a master plan for the Richard M Abrahams Memorial Park for several years. We've identified a bard intern candidate with a focus on landscape architecture, who is interested in a summer internship. And a key element to the park master plan will be adding a parking lot with the best location currently identified being off land and avenue that will make that will take work in coordination with Dec due to the wetlands in that area, whereas engaging a civil engineer to support the development and planning for a parking lot off Linden Ave is an essential first step in any master plan, the community foundations of the Hudson Valley offer grants from their donor directed funds on a rolling basis. The Village of Red Hook is requesting up to a total of $15,000 for a stipend for a summer intern and initial civil engineering support for exploring the possibilities of a parking lot lost an avenue Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Village of Red Hook Board of Trustees hereby does approve and endorse the application for two grants for up to 15,000 total to the Community Foundation's the Hudson Valley for a summer intern focused on planning and civil engineer for parking lot exploration for Richard M Abrahams Memorial Park. The beauty of these grants is it is not a matching grant. So if we get it, we got it. If we don't, we don't. But I wanted to bring it to you all so that you knew this was happening. I did mention, I have mentioned at past meetings, at the public spaces group grants and in in conversation of community foundations. This is they do do grants to municipalities or items for public, public good. And so I thought this is an exciting opportunity to explore. And I do know the public spaces group, it has the capacity to handle these grants. We are lucky enough to get them fantastic. So I would take a motion to approve this resolution, which will be number 17. So moved. I'm excited any further discussion. It's really exciting. All in favor? Aye, great. Moving out, moving on. Sewer phase one, lessons learned. So here's what I'm going to suggest. So, in order to have an engineer, if we are going to ask an engineer to do a formal report. Prior to doing that, I would like to know what that would cost. I would also like to suggest the sewer team has been keeping a list. It's not sort of formally put together in a presentable form, but there is a list. So what I'd like to suggest is that we charge the and we can do this informally. We can do it formally however you want, but to charge the sewer team and again, getting you up to speed with putting together, because it is important. It is absolutely essential for the one thing I will point out, Delaware engineering was not involved in phase one. They did not CT, and they did not oversee the construction. Now, Delaware engineering basically restarted the entire plan starting a year ago. So they are very familiar, right, right, right, right, but they, they were not the engineer.

Sewer phase one, lessons learned. So here's what I'm going to suggest. So, in order to have an engineer, if we are going to ask an engineer to do a formal report. Prior to doing that, I would like to know what that would cost. I would also like to suggest the sewer team has been keeping a list. It's not sort of formally put together in a presentable form, but there is a list. So what I'd like to suggest is that we charge the and we can do this informally. We can do it formally however you want, but to charge the sewer team and again, getting you up to speed with putting together, because it is important. It is absolutely essential for the one thing I will point out, Delaware engineering was not involved in phase one. They did not CT, and they did not oversee the construction. Now, Delaware engineering basically restarted the entire plan starting a year ago. So they are very familiar, right, right, right, right, but they, they were not the engineer.

Frances Uku  3:00:20  
So that was all CT. It was all CT, man,

Karen Smythe  3:00:23  
CT, through the entire instruction to substantial completion. Very good. So for that one, that's what I would like to suggest, rather than a formal resolution asking the engineer to do something that we don't know what they're going to charge us for, right? Right? Because that'll also come out of the sewer funding, right?

Frances Uku  3:00:43  
So this is, this is, and again, I don't know if anyone takes it when I say, like, literally nothing of my resolution, because I'm not an expert. I bring them with the idea of describing what it is I think we could use. And so this is not directing preparation, it's directing request for us to get that information. So it's exactly as the mayor just said, and that's perfect.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:01:04  
Great. That's part of the sewer team. Wouldn't an informal list from the sewer team suffice for what you're requesting?

Frances Uku  3:01:13  
If it involves the engineer, it's just, I think what Karen is saying is for the team. Yeah, so, so, so it's of the engineer. We would be getting this proposal of what it would cost.

Speaker 42  3:01:25  
It's not just the engineer, it

Frances Uku  3:01:27  
would be the team, okay, so DPW and everyone coming together to absolutely as input. Okay, so I

Karen Smythe  3:01:34  
think suggest is that we as a team come up with that list, or just,

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:01:42  
I know you have a list, I have a list, trying to think of a word to not pad it. But like, I like, if there would be a way that we make it into form, yeah, yeah, and then

Perry Allen  3:01:51  
package it in a way to that could perhaps even be publicly distributed. I think would gain a lot of just, well, it would certainly be publicly available. Absolutely, I'd love to be able

Karen Smythe  3:02:01  
to make it a super formal document, because that just takes more time and

Frances Uku  3:02:05  
money, so much, I mean. And also just to clarify that this because the Karen did make the point that I should have made in this I just want to make it clear that that this resolution specifically highlights the fact that the mayor only took office when the sewer was made operational. And this is an attempt to, I mean, not that you need empowering by me, but an attempt to hold you to like, to support you in this really quite overwhelming situation. And so that was the intent of this, to hear that's not accurate, right?

Karen Smythe  3:02:50  
Well, you know, and again, we can go, what's not accurate. I mean, I became mayor as the constructions project was authorized to proceed. So the, I mean, that's and I was, I was here, so, but I think that's really important to me. It is super important. It's completely appropriate for us as a village to say, what are the lessons learned? Because we want it now. There are many ways that we will not, we will not make the same mistake, not the least of which is what's being proposed as a different technology than what we have. But that's, I mean, I think that's the opportunity, is to put something together, and if, if the board wants more or more substance, or whatever, we can go from there. But I think we can start with, we can start with, with that. So, the video conferencing, I think there's

So, the video conferencing, I think there's

Frances Uku  3:03:48  
some so sorry to go back, just to close this one out, so I know that you will be having a sewer just in terms of what will be coming back, or what what we've decided, rather than requesting, would it be? Yes, I'm sort of

Karen Smythe  3:04:06  
not knowing. I would rather not put any dates on it. At this point, I would like the sewer team to discuss what it is that we're going to put together and how long we think it's going to take, and then bring that back at the next at the next report out, we can make a proposal of how long the team feels it will, it will take to put

Frances Uku  3:04:27  
it together. Okay, so that's, that's something that we are, that as mayor, you will be requesting of department heads, or, how are we

Karen Smythe  3:04:35  
it's, it's, it's one group of which I participate and and we have a meeting this Thursday, so that'll be the first conversation.

Frances Uku  3:04:46  
No, I just Yes, because we're coming, I just can, it's just so that I know what we decided, so that so what we've decided is, is a at the next monthly you'll have an update on where we're going, basically, with the with the lessons learned, you'll have an update on on the lessons learned, process, report, report, video conferencing.

Karen Smythe  3:05:16  
So in my reading of the zoom for nonprofit, we actually do not qualify. I did print out from zoom. What are the organization null eligibility requirements, nonprofits and libraries only. The following organizations are not eligible, and that includes government agencies. I do pull up our invoice for our kind of thing cost us $159.90 a year. In that invoice, it includes all the fun things you can add, and one of them is zoom webinars. And that would be $89 a month, which would be 1000 $1,000.60

Karen Smythe  3:06:03  
$8 i I would propose, I don't think there's any way that you can ever fully, completely safeguard from from zooming the bombing. I would prefer to have a further conversation, not tonight, about what it is we're trying to accomplish. Just to clarify, there is no requirement that our meetings are available remotely. It is not a requirement. The only time it becomes a requirement, what we passed as a resolution to you two three years ago is that we are allowed to have video conferencing if we have a quorum of the board physically in one location, and a board member has an exceptional, extraordinary, extraordinary circumstance. They're sick, sick kids, whatever there's there's a sort of a limited notion. It's meant to be extraordinary. And they can zoom in and participate, but only if there's a quorum that's that's in a physical space. So we are not we're actually not required to have panda. That is an additional feature that we provide, and we're grateful for pan to Panda for doing that. So I'd like to have a further discussion about what it is we would like to accomplish. When I became mayor, we were fully remote, and the first meeting that I did, I had us come back into in person, but left the at that time, it was Ring Central available. We switched to zoom. We've had three years of high school interns who've been monitoring the screen. I think in three years, if we had 10 people who zoomed in, that would be a lot. So now I don't have anybody monitoring, and 99% of the time it wasn't a problem and it became a problem. So I think just a little bit further, what's the possibilities? How would we, I have watched a couple of YouTube videos since then about how to, you know, there's a way to silence them. They took over. We don't allow screen sharing. They took it over. So they obviously have technical skills that are above average. So I just, I would actually like to table this resolution for tonight and suggest that we bring it up at another meeting where we talk about what it is we're trying to accomplish with video conferencing and understanding what the possibilities are. Because to me, I'm not sure that $1,000 to allow for the webinar piece is the best use of those dollars. I agree.

Frances Uku  3:08:51  
I do agree, actually, and that the 34 was based on, on Amy's research and then subsequent research that that that was not the case. My My only point in bringing this, and you know, no webinar, it seems to me and Jen and Amy and I were discussing that there are things I believe that are currently not in place, that could be even with our standard. I believe what we have is a business like a single user, business setting that up alone. I wanted to ask. I can certainly come in. But what is our feeling as far as the IT consultant? So the IT

Karen Smythe  3:09:34  
consultant in that to date has had nothing to do with Zoom and we, we, we engage zoom. We. I mean, he's no expert in zoom. I frankly, would prefer to talk to somebody who actually uses zoom on a regular basis. I can't imagine that that our IT consultant uses zoom very much.

Craig Rothstein  3:09:54  
I feel I should speak up and say that I ran zoom meetings at Bard for three years a while ago, and we were one of the organizations therefore, is the Hannah Arendt Center, which is kind of often targeted because of its Think Tank. And we're zoom bomb sounds just as bad as the one that happened here. They tried it again. There are and we were very tight on budget. There are way, again, to your point, it is good to understand and to articulate what we're trying to accomplish here, whether that's access, interaction or whatever. I think that there are multiple options to proceed in terms of making these accessible remotely. Some of them don't necessarily even have to do with Zoom, but specifically with Zoom, I do have some experience in that area. So before we pay somebody, you know, I'm happy to

Karen Smythe  3:10:52  
and I can age further, I can say, on Jen's behalf that that's what she's looking for.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:10:57  
Love it.

Frances Uku  3:10:58  
How, just very quickly, before we move off this, how would we feel? Because actually, Google meet is a webinar product. So Google meet actually offers you everything that Zoom webinar that you pay for intrinsically in in their service. And I would be happy if the board were open, because not only does it provide those more high level security standards you could, it's also no one is, is Google meet bombing, or maybe if they're, you know, but it's just not as many people use it. And so if it is, for me, really strictly, the issue is just access. People being able to join, to come, who can come in,

Melkorka Kjarval  3:11:39  
done, right? Like there was one research already, yes, we share that. Maybe we can get that access to like, the research that was done, so we can all review it, and then we can have a better conversation together with

Frances Uku  3:11:49  
that Sure. Okay, can we table this and then I will forward the conversation that between Jen and information that I got from

So the next two items are somewhat linked. There's it. Fran has a resolution that is is requesting that that all the people listed are

Karen Smythe  3:12:24  
that all the people listed can go to all of the

Karen Smythe  3:12:33  
training sessions, and all of their expenses will be covered. I can tell you that

Karen Smythe  3:12:41  
I looked back at the last two years of the form icon Conference, which I can tell you, is probably the best one for a trustee to go to. Yes, if you are a new trustee, there is a grant program that can get you $1,000 over in 2024 the average cost was $1,140 in 2025 the average cost was 1400 74 I don't expect those numbers to go down. So I believe that I used the average of 1473 so if you have four trustees who go to one of those to that conference, that's $5,900 we have 2000 in the budget. If you add the staff, that's 2900 we have 2000 in the budget for the mayor. It's 1400 1400 we have $1,000 in the budget. And that budget is not uniquely for training, if we were to the legislative conference, is potentially a little less expensive. So I just did times two and a half instead of times three, that would put the proposed budget the if everyone can go to all of these things, the trustee budget would be $14,700 and what we currently have is 2000 the total for two staff plus mayor would be 25,700 so the difference between what's in the budget the

Karen Smythe  3:14:13  
wrong thing, I looked at the wrong thing. So versus the versus the current budget, I made the wrong difference is that would be an increase of $20,000 if that is what the board would like to do. I just would need to know where you would like to cut the $20,000 what we have done in the past is we have, prior to me, there was no money for Fran the $2,000 for the trustees was an opportunity to what ended up working is, for the most part, there was one trustee Who was able to go, and interested in going, and that that trustees expenses were covered. So I think we need to have a bigger conversation about how we would like to manage that, to just have a resolution that says the budget just needs to cover that. I don't think that's a responsible way to proceed, and I do think that we do need to have a procedure for confirming and requesting going to going to conferences. This is something that was developed Jen. Jen put it together, but the village of Rhinebeck does something very similar, just as a way, because if there's a webinar or conference coming up, and the all you do is look at what's been spent, you may not know who else is interested. So there may or may not be budget actually available, which is why a coordinated effort with communication around who's interested, who's not, what budget do we have? I am a big fan of training, and I think that we need to be very mindful of how we spend our money. You all know that we're tight, and we're only going to get tighter going forward, so I think we need to be thoughtful about how any change in the proposed budget that I had something has to, has to go down, to give yes to go up. So and, and I, as I say, I think, I think it, it would be, would make the management of conferences easier if anyone who's interested would fill out and send it in separate or in addition to that, the other resolution that you have is related to the invoice payment for the Nikon conference that that trustee uku and Trustee

Frances Uku  3:16:41  
macaroni went to, I'm so so sorry. Before you go there, since we were just just the Oh, were you tying the two together only because you just handed this out? So I just had a question about this, because it seems to me that this is something that is currently used, maybe Jen developed for village employees, but this, this has a block that would not apply to trustees.

Karen Smythe  3:17:07  
Well, right? So there's no supervisor signature, if you I would sign it upon Board approval,

Frances Uku  3:17:13  
but if the board has approved,

Karen Smythe  3:17:16  
well, so that's the question. If the board wants to approve, all trustees can go to all three of those conferences. We need to adjust the budget. If we don't do that, then we need to have some mechanism for knowing who's interested in going and whether or not we have the budget. We did pass a motion to take the 2000 divide by four, and each trustee can go, can spend $500 obviously, under authorized trainings. If anything is going to go above that, it would have to have board approval. These conferences are above that.

Frances Uku  3:17:59  
Would anyone be open to our discussing amongst ourselves? Say, if you have been to one fall training that in that once you've been to one, maybe in another, you know, three years or whatever, then you can go to there, because our resources are limited. I agree, but this training is really, really I mean, just today alone, before getting into the nicom is really, really valuable. We've said that so many times and but it is spendy, and I agree with that, but I think we can have a conversation about it's not just again, it's, it's come up before this is, these are, these are things that I came up with, and I think my, my approach to it seems to be offensive to some. These are all drafts like nothing becomes.

Karen Smythe  3:18:50  
And I think what I mean, I am responding to your draft. And so the first thought when I'm reading it was, there's no budget consideration here. And that, I think, is an important tension. I mean, I would love to send all of you to everything nicom does. They are tremendous. I will say nicom We their membership is quite expensive, and so it's very valuable. And I encourage everybody to use nicom as much as possible. They have a lot of webinars, and a lot of them come with our membership, so there's a lot of training that you can get that is not going to a session. Absolutely, looks really cool, yeah. Oh, there's, they have a lot of sessions. And so I think it's really just a question of a we need a procedure that, because it's a limited budget, we need a procedure to ensure that everybody's clear what's happening. Any of you can go to any of these things without any approval if you are going to pay for it. If you are not going to ask for village funds to cover any of the expenses, it's when you're going to request the village funds to cover any of the expenses. If there's a different way, like that form, we can certainly look at that this was putting it out there as a as a formal procedure that would enable the management of that budget in a way that that feels like it's workable, and yes, it applies to the employees as well as to the board. And yes, they're sorry, which does, obviously, if the court clerk is going to go, the judge needs to say, yeah, that's worth it. And then, and then it comes to me, and if we have budget or whatever employees form she's talking about, please use that form.

Frances Uku  3:20:42  
Oh, okay, that's why their variability. But who has used this form? You said trustees use this form?

Karen Smythe  3:20:49  
No, we will. The idea is that this would be used by all the employees, including the trustees.

Frances Uku  3:20:58  
I'm confused then then, but we have this. Maybe we could just have a meeting and decide, just like we did the dates, who's going to what can we do that?

Karen Smythe  3:21:10  
Sure that's what you all want to do. What do you mean? Who goes to what I mean you're talking so what you're saying is, at a at a workshop meeting, for example, we would spend some time talking about who's going to go to, what? Yeah, to, if that's how you all want to spend your workshop time. But I

Melkorka Kjarval  3:21:25  
can't know what my availability is until the time comes later. I've never been able to go to the fall thing, because always in the same time, it's hardscrabble. And I volunteered for hardscrabble every

Frances Uku  3:21:40  
year. This, this, it was before hardscrabble. This, oh, but that's this year, I guess. But I mean, in the fall, when I went, it's before hard scrabble, yes, like the week.

Karen Smythe  3:21:56  
I mean, I'm certainly open to that. But as I say, the proposal, as you've written, it, has very significant budget implications to it, sure. And so the notion of the reorg resolution, and I also you referenced last year's reorg resolution in that resolution, it specifically says subject to budget availability, giving preference to those who have not gone before. So that was, it wasn't a resolution that said you are already approved to go it was. There are some caveats to it, which leads to your next resolution, which is about paying for the conference that you did go to. So there are a couple of issues just in the warehouses. There's a variety, variety of the first one just says authorizes the board and certain staff to attend. It just allows you to go. It does not give you permission to go. Yeah, that's all

Frances Uku  3:22:54  
authorizes to attend. That's all that says.

Karen Smythe  3:22:58  
Relating to trustee macarini, he was specifically asked if he had asked the mayor, and he said, No, he hadn't. And when he was signed up, he was told that he might have to pay for it himself. The invoice was never submitted by him to either me or the or the treasurer, because the question came up. Jen actually went to nicom and said, Do are there outstanding invoices. So a fair amount of effort was made to actually get those. They were that for trustee macaroni. It was never presented for payment. And when you forwarded your invoice, you mentioned that the treasurer responded immediately. I also responded which you did not, you did not indicate in your in your resolution. And my response was that I was surprised that you had signed up and not contacted me to find out whether or not there was money

Frances Uku  3:24:01  
to go. But if you recall, I also responded to you when you brought that up, and I said that my understanding at the time is because there was a board authorized the April 14, the reorg 2025, which was unanimously approved. Had given, had given, had given trustees, the had authorized trustees to go. And when I said that, I had asked, because we get the year to date, so I knew what was in the budget, I looked and, in fact, historically, no other like the last person who had been to fall trading was Kim obviously, I don't have the context of Mel Corkers. You know reasons for not going, but my understanding, and I understand that you corrected later on, but at the time, all I knew was that the treasurer had indicated that there was money in that line. And so based on the board resolution, I registered and I forwarded it actually sends automatically to Jen and myself, and I forwarded that to the Treasurer, and she responded, excellent. Because, as I understood it, her understanding is, if there is a resolution approved authorization by the board, then the mayor doesn't come into it. It's not to insult you. It's not to but that is just right. So what is that now she she said, I mean, she's not here, and I wish she she were. She sent me the email saying Karen asked me to hold it back. So how am

Karen Smythe  3:25:34  
I making anything up? Correct? However, you're not making anything up. You left something out. Okay. When Mary Beth responded, I also responded separately to you, saying, I'm surprised to see that you have signed up for this conference. Yes, without confirming that we have the budget for it, we have a $2,000 budget, of which 1400 has already been spent to support your attendance at the fall meeting. You are always welcome to attend these conferences at your own expense. If you are expecting the village to cover it, it needs to be confirmed through me. First, the goal is to give all trustees the opportunity to attend a training though we don't budget assuming that all trustees will be able to take advantage of that opportunity. You didn't know if anybody else was interested. I didn't. It wasn't the end of the year. So there's, there's basically, effectively, with these two vouchers, there's nothing left in the training budget. So that's the other piece of it is it's not just checking with Mary Beth to see if there's space there. It's part of a process to say, have we appropriately allocated the funding that is limited. So that's why I want to have the form and have it filled out in writing, so we have it for all of that. And I want to be clear as to how we are going to if you all are okay with the $2,000 budget for training for trustees, I'd like to have the board discuss and be clear how we are going to use and allocate that fund. And that's that's, I will say, there obviously was some confusion as to what was approved a year ago and how the process should work. We've never had to have a formal process, and clearly we need to have one now. So I, I wanted to pull out the vouchers. I don't think, from my standpoint, that it's enough of an issue to to use a terrible phrase, die in a sword for I just wanted to have a conversation clarifying what the situation is, what our opportunity is. As a board, I am planning to approve the vouchers, but I would like to not be in this situation again, so that is why I wanted to have it as a formal conversation that I don't want anybody to make their own assumptions about who's spending and what that we do it as a group, and the simplest way to do that is to do it through the person who is the Chief budget officer, who spends an awful lot of time looking at this budget and figuring out how we're going to make it to the end, so that that Is that is what I wanted to share with you. That is why I didn't sign the voucher when I went through the vouchers,

Treasurer's report dated April 13. All the account balances are as of March 31, 2026, general fund, $168,367.83 NY class general fund, $425,461.18 water fund, $90,006.35 night class water fund, $153,000 978, and 41 cents. Sewer fund, $15,389.58 payroll, cleaning, clearing. Account, $87,188.39 card, scrabble account, $42.76 Village Green, $5,156.35 health insurance deductible. Account, 9308 61 cents. Reserve savings accounts as of March, 31 fire department, 10,000 $10,702.52 Police Department, $18,390.45 nine class USDA water reserve, $151,135.20 USDA water reserve, $7.93 highway reserve, $614.09 snow reserve, $3,533.68 tower reserve, $19,084 and 29 cents. Unemployment. Reserve, $7,569.97 court reserve, $3,554.28 office reserve, $1,047.90 monthly expenses for March 2026 funeral fund, 449,000 fund, $449,023.51 water fund, $66,769.60 payroll, clearing account, nothing So sewer fund, 288 $233 $233,000 $596.06 Respectfully submitted by Mary Beth D flippers, the Treasurer.

Karen Smythe  3:43:30  
I'll take a motion to accept the Treasurer's Report. So moved. Thank you second. Thank you all in favor.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:43:36  
Craig, did you say I Fran I didn't. Thank you.

Karen Smythe  3:43:42

just right before I read Amy's reports. I just, I pointed out the sewer report. Please do read it. I also just want to mention that Congressman Pat Ryan came for a visit last Monday, Fran, I know you were away, I offered you the opportunity to have a tour of the wastewater treatment plant and go up to the I mean, we just stood in the parking lot for the cooking ham North Brockville project, but happy to take you. It was a great opportunity to, I think, for the two new trustees, to also hear the description the sort of brief oversight. And I had reached out to the congressman to see if there was any possibility of France. And they said, Well, just tell us about your project, which I did. They said, Well, how much do you need? I said, 7 million. They they put in for 2 million. And so we are on their list when you find out whether or not we make that cut, I don't know when, but the fact that the Congressman came for a visit. I take that as a good sign. Oh no, I'll talk about that next time. Project reports. Amy Smith, thank you for presenting, doing your reports. Amy participated in a personnel policy development meeting with the mayor. We reviewed the personnel files, access and retention policy that Amy drafted. Amy is continuing to work on the draft policy about the use of municipal commuters, internet and tech security, school Speed Zone, for the request of the regional traffic and safety group at doc that submitted, Amy submitted the full traffic study completed by Creighton Manning in 2025 and a copy of the village board resolution 11 of 2026 that asserted the village board's support for the establishment of a school Speed Zone. The village's request is pending review grants, and he completed the editing needed for the Greenway compact Fran to request funding for a prioritized plan to improve the pedestrian experience at the village center. Come up with an acronym or something. The final piece is the resolution of support by the board. Notification is expected in June. The extension request for the big language access grant was granted, the village will be able to use the balance of the language access grant funds to improve the signage of this Prince Street entrance and to establish a public notice board at the village at the mayor's request, Amy reviewed the current municipal investment Fran opportunity from Dutchess County, given one of its priorities includes funding measures to improve safety and security. I believe it is a good fit for funding to purchase replacement body armor plates for the Fran the police department officers and new AED machines for each police vehicle and the village highway garage, as well as replacement electrode pads for the AED and village hall. The application is due May 13. Events, Amy met with Dave bright to review the rotaries plans for Apple Blossom day. The group the board approved that event application at the March workshop. I also met with two red hook high school students who are interested in organizing a youth led parade for pride in June. I reviewed with them all the elements of such an event. Yes, well, anybody have any questions clarifications of Amy, my

Yes, I just wanted to talk about that. The town resident comprehensive plan is having a second workshop in May. It's going to be, they're not sure exactly, it's like mid May, but if anyone is interested, it's going to be where they're starting to talk about their vision, goals and stuff, and it's going to be very important to strategies and that sort of thing. The other thing is, we have a communication survey. We only have 29 responses. Everyone campaigned on how communication is very important. Please follow through with that goal and share with your networks. And we really want feedback on what, what people want to improve, because, like we have discussed, every improvement has budget, you know, impacts. So we want to make sure if we do improvements, that they are targeted and that they actually serve people. So please take the survey, share it with your your networks. It would be helpful. Would love coverage. Would love some coverage about communication, following up after hearing about how awful our communication was for months and months,

Okay, trustee, you could you have anything from your reports

Frances Uku  3:49:04  
that you would like to highlight, I have village green, but I don't have a print. I sent it very late to Jen, so likely it didn't make it in village green. Did make it? Yeah. Oh, mailbox. Oh, did I not grab it? There are just a few highlights the main. Oh, thank you so much. The main being. Main one being that, after discussion among the committee members, this is Village Green, they decided to consolidate to a single planting day this fall, rather than the traditional two per year, to allow for better advanced planning. And also, you know, there's finite space in the village, and it seems that it's becoming harder and harder to get people to commit to accepting trees. So the good thing is that, per tree City, USA standards, our Arbor Day obligations is to observe the day at some point during the year. So that opens opens up possibilities beyond planting day alone. There's also some more information about Arbor Day. This is all in my notes. They're very hard working crew and

Karen Smythe  3:50:06  
yes, I would just request that a copy of the postcard that was developed. I would like to have a copy.

Jen Cavanaugh, Clerk  3:50:11  
Yes, that's the record in the future. Yeah, I would like to see that before it gets printed. It's not printed. It's not printed.

Frances Uku  3:50:17  
No, this is designed. It hasn't been printed. Yeah, it would have to come before the board before any printing happens. 

Frances Uku  3:50:23  
There is a tree on

Speaker 52  3:50:24  
Fisk street. What is it? The Fran

Frances Uku  3:50:30  
Yes, the tipped, yes, yes, we are we asked. We're in or not we the committee is in conversations with that homeowner, so they're aware.

Karen Smythe  3:50:44  
Trustee Allen, you anything you want to say at this point?

Speaker 53  3:50:48

Trustee Allen, you anything you want to say at this point?

Speaker 53  3:50:48  
No, I'll have more next time.

Karen Smythe  3:50:50

Trustee Rothstein, you have in your in your section, the facility, billing report. We just need you to read that in the record. Do we? It's going to be recorded. Okay, go ahead. So this is what the switch page however, Department report, we had operational meetings

Speaker 54  3:51:13  
related

Speaker 55  3:51:13  
utility billing report, but yeah, utility rules issued $581.53

Craig Rothstein  3:51:26  
and penalties, finance charges issued, $0 utility payments received $17,257.48 accounts receivable outstanding to the village as of April 1 2026, part of posting April 1 2026, bills, $18,919.04 adjustments, none submitted by Jennifer Kavanaugh, water, sewer Clarke, thank you.