This morning (2017-03-04) was a special meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees, with the intent of reviewing the proposed 2017-2018 Budget.
In all fairness, this was a tentative budget and will be adjusted some more before being passed. So any detail may change, and should be taken with a grain (or more) of salt.
With that being said, it was mostly a dry meeting. Lots of numbers, with generally little or no change from previous years. But there were some things that stood out to me.
Time Warner, which is Spectrum, which is Charter (or maybe not, looks like a shell game), pays a franchise fee to the village for the honor of providing cable service. As someone that uses those cables a fair sized amount, I wonder if the idea of cutting off Time Warner would come up if the fee was ever not paid. I doubt it would get to that point, but that is what I was wondering when I heard about this aspect of the budget.
The big item, at least from a time point of view (and probably dollars too), was the Ambulance, in all of it’s complexities. For those of you that did not know, the village of Honeoye Falls runs an ambulance service. They in turn, contract with the town of Mendon (and I believe West Bloomfield) to provide coverage there. From what I can see, the village is doing a commendable job in keeping the ambulance going. Unfortunately, as these things tend to, it has changed over the years and is not the same service as they started offering. Not necessarily bad changes, but change can lead to complications.
Long term, I think the village will either get out of the ambulance industry, or move it to a stand alone service (much like the sewer). While I think the desire is to find another entity to manage the service, from past attempts I think it is unlikely that will succeed. Which means, over time, moving the finances to a more self sufficient model. Or at least that’s my speculation. Time will tell.
The salaries of the elected officials in the village look to be staying the same. Which, in general, I think is a good thing. If you got involved in politics to make money, you shouldn’t be there. If you are there to be of service to your neighbors, then you’ll never be paid what you are worth. As with most things, finding the balance is the challenge.
Bottom line budget numbers (at least as I heard them): Approximately $2 million for expenses, with a shortfall of approximately -$150k. Again, as noted at the top, these are tentative numbers. I’m sure that shortfall will be addressed one way or another before the budget is approved.
And while that’s all I have to say on the budget portion of the discussion, they did keep talking.
In particular, about Hyde Park, and the fallout from a recent accident. The mayor had met with some residents of that road, and was sharing the feedback with the other Trustees. Which lead to a brainstorming session on what to do. Options are limited, due to both space and finances.
The ideas that I think are most likely to get somewhere are making the road one way and/or making it a park. One way would (hopefully) lower the risk of future accidents. Declaring the creek side a park may allow the village to declare the road inside a park and from that lower the speed limit, which would (hopefully) also lower the risk of future accidents. Only ideas at this point, and they all have their difficulties to overcome. We’ll see what happens.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the March 4th, 2017 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees. Next meeting of this group is scheduled for March 11 at 8AM.
Link to agenda on Village website.
Link to agenda stored on this site, should the village lose their copy.