Grants, trees and sidewalks reviewed by Village Board

MILLERTON — The Village Board was made aware of the status of a few village grants as well as the possibilities for next year’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) during its workshop meeting on Monday, Oct. 8.

With the entire board in attendance, the meeting was live streamed to the “Village of Millerton VOM” Facebook page due to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 6 p.m. After handling its vouchers, the board turned its attention to Village Clerk Kelly Kilmer for current updates.

Kilmer reported that the Annual Updated Document was filed on time on Thursday, Oct. 1, and the village is now ready to start the new fiscal year. Shedding a light on its Water Infrastructure Improvement Act grant, she said the village is scheduled to be on the Loan Committee agenda for this month and that it has all the sufficient documents needed. Out of the checklist of 15 required items, she said it is down to three items (soon to be two), including completing the insurance questionnaire and draft documents and submitting the village’s completed executive loan council and bond council agreements.

Regarding the village’s website, Kilmer said she wanted to get an overall view of how the board feels about changing its listed email addresses in order to be more secure and unified. As the board considered the benefits of this change, she shared her plans to speak to its information technology people to see if they can transfer everything from the old email addresses to the new addresses without losing any information.

Mayor Debbie Middlebrook shared that she recently sat in on the public hearing for Dutchess County for next year’s CDBG program. As far as what the village is looking to do with next year’s CDBG program, Middlebrook said she thought the village could submit a CDBG application to cover the cost of its engineering study for its wastewater project. However, she explained that it can’t submit an application for engineering or architectural costs as CDBG projects have to be tangible projects. Looking ahead, she said the board will have to figure out its next project, hold the mandated public hearing to garner community ideas and have everything set by November.

Having communicated with Village Trustee Alicia Sartori about potential CDBG projects, Middlebrook said there are still many places where the sidewalks could be redone in the community. Deputy Mayor Jenn Najdek asked if there was a project the town of North East is looking to do and suggested the village submit a joint project with the town, to which Middlebrook said the town hasn’t mentioned doing anything at this time. Moving forward, Middlebrook said the village could look at redoing another section of sidewalk in the village. She mentioned that Sartori had a great idea to redo the section of sidewalk that runs along Main Street in front of the NorthEast-Millerton Library. 

Middlebrook also shared that Trustee Matthew Hartzog had reached out to Highway Supervisor Coleman Lawrence, who is currently trying to get prices for removing a dead elm tree between the library and Lopane & Co. Hartzog said Lawrence had reached out to three different companies and received a price from only one. Hartzog asked Kilmer if it was true that, if they’ve reached out and did not receive bids from other companies, they can go ahead with the one bid they did get.  Kilmer said Lawrence has to document who he called and when he called, and document that nobody else called him back. 

Hartzog said it was explained to him that Lawrence was given a price per day for removing two trees in the village, totaling $2,500 a tree. He explained that this would only be for removing two trees, which he believed was included in the village’s budget. However, he mentioned that the village is looking to remove another tree and turned the board’s attention to the tree on Main Street in front of Lopane & Co. If the board decides to remove that tree, Hartzog said the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) might need to get involved, given the tree’s location on Main Street, which is a state highway (State Route 44).

Kilmer said the village would only be able to afford one tree, as there’s only about $4,000 in the budget for removing trees. Middlebrook mused that if the tree on Main Street needs to be removed and if there’s a possibility that someone would like to donate to help with the cost of removal, the village could get another tree removed. Hartzog said that he’s driven past and looked at the trees in question and has seen that they’re “in a pretty bad way,” with visible signs of rotting through their trunks. 

Middlebrook asked Hartzog to see if there’s any other funding available for the project, while Kilmer reminded the board that the village is also purchasing trees to plant in the places where workers removed trees last year.