Tonight (2017-04-03) was the Honeoye Falls Annual Meeting.
Before that was the public hearing for the 2017/2018 Village of Honeoye Falls Budget. The village approved the budget for their next fiscal year (which does not match the calendar year). Approximately 5% increase in the tax levy. I want to say 5.42%, but likely have that off a little. They rattled off a long string of digits there. No one in attendance spoke out against the budget, but there was discussion on a variety of topics while waiting for the allotted time to end.
Much of the budget information was repetitive. Had me thinking the village should have made a flier/slideshow/whatnot that could have brought new people up to speed quickly. Sort of what the school will be doing in a few weeks. Publicizing the budget on the website would have been nice too…
With the budget done they moved onto the Annual Meeting. It’s interesting how each municipality calls it a slightly different thing. The town has has an ‘Organizational Meeting‘, the school ‘Reorganization Meeting’. All essentially the same, reappointing/designating mostly the same stuff as last year. Which is where the potential for optimization comes in. If they focused more on what has changed, and quickly went through what is the same, the overall time could be decreased considerably. And it is the differences that are the important part. I can’t see how anyone cares that a particular bank is still officially used by the village. If it was the first year, yes, important to note. But the 7th?
They also set a mileage reimbursement rate. Which left me wondering, how often is that used? I hear this every year, but I don’t think I have ever heard about it being used. I have heard people that could have used it comment that they didn’t, how it wasn’t worth the hassle. How much do you have to drive before it becomes worth the hassle?
Charlie (Code Enforcement Officer) received an award for many years of service. He wasn’t the only one being recognized, but of those receiving awards he was the one I knew the best. It’s good when people do good work, double so when they keep at it for many years.
Rick (Mayor) gave a ‘State of the Village’ speech. It was decent. Not as long as some have been, which is good. He mentioned trying to bring more businesses to the village, and looking to code changes to make that easier. As streamlining the code is something I have mentioned before, I was glad to hear it’s being looked at. The devil is in the details, but if it isn’t looked at improvements aren’t possible.
He also spoke about people that won’t be running for office again, and how the village will have to find new people to fill those positions. Personally, I think the logical place to look for a new mayor is in the existing trustees. As they will have a degree of familiarity with everything they need to do. And in turn, bring new people in to fill any gaps there. We’ll see how that works out in two years at the next election.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 3rd, 2017 Annual meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.