Tonight (2017-09-18) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
While listening to the department reports I realized that they have become the primary usage of time at these particular meetings. Didn’t used to be that way. Nothing wrong with that, just means most of the other agenda items go quickly.
One of the trustees discussed the history of the summer rec program. Relevant here because it’s time to plan for next summer. Looks like costs will be going up, primarily due to minimum wage increase. Was an interesting contrast, the way it was to the way it is. Change is one of the few constants in life, and in this case I don’t think it’s for the better. over regulation appears to be removing what made summer recreation great.
The Zoning Steering Committee looks to be having a public input meeting at the High School Auditorium on November 1st. Currently tentative, may change, check village website closer to then for confirmation.
Managing water (in particular floods) came up a few different times. First was a potential project (and grant) for repairs on the storm sewer servicing parts of Ontario st. Which should help that section of the village, which has had problems this summer. My former neighbor asked about her backyard. While she wasn’t told it would be fixed right away (which I’m sure is what she wanted to hear), she also wasn’t told ‘never’. My sense is that her particular issue is outside the village government’s jurisdiction, but that they were willing to help where they could. Nothing of the scale of hurricane swamped Texas/Florida, but no one wants ‘too much’ water at their residence.
One of the ambulances, that was out of service, is back in use. Not a service we should ever want to use, but one that I suspect we are glad to have when it is needed. Also they appear to be getting a grant for radios. In part because they serve parts of three different counties, so have to interact with multiple different communication systems.
The ambulance agreements/contracts with a number of neighboring towns were renewed. Almost not worth noting, as this happens every year. Except this year also amended the wording of the original contract. As the changes were discussed, it’s all good stuff. Removing parts of the original contract that are no longer applicable. For example: how a debt, that is now paid off, would be paid off. It works for tonight, but the approach of amending previous, if done over time, leads to unknowable agreements. If any of the pieces are lost, no one knows what was agreed to. If instead, the changes were made and a new ‘original’ contract was agreed to, the old one would no longer be in effect. Takes a little more overhead up front, but means you only ever need the most recent version (instead of all previous versions).
A new employee, hired over the summer, had her first review. The review itself was pretty straightforward, good things were said about this employee. The interesting part was that employee reviews used to be part of executive session, but now they aren’t (baring legal issues). Good change I think, nothing I heard seemed to be of a confidential nature. Also good that changes were made when a mistake was identified. We all make mistakes and the sooner we acknowledge them the sooner we can make any necessary corrections and move on. So good all around, for both this employee and the village.
But there was an offhand comment that I found a bit worrying. Someone stated this employee increased the ‘diversity’ in the staff, which was passed off as a noteworthy accomplishment. Presumably the diversity in question pertains to her gender (I believe this is the only female staff on the DPW side of the village). Or to put it another way, what should be inconsequential differences (to the job at hand) are applauded. It should not matter, or even be noticed, what the staffs gender, age, weight, favorite color, childhood pet, etc is. So long as none of that has impact on the performance of the job they were hired to do, who cares how ‘diverse’ they are. Any time/effort spent focusing on those (hopefully) pointless details, is time not spent focusing on how the staff should be effectively identical. Namely that they do amazing work. At the end of the day, that is all that matters.
On the other hand, I may be taking one minor comment said in passing and making too much of it.
I did learn a new word tonight: Cuomoism. Amusingly enough, the spell checker wants to make it “Communism”. From context, the definition is: an act taken by a municipality that does nothing of value, but is required by the governor. In particular the village took the first required step to have the option of exceeding the tax cap when the time comes. Not that they will, or are even likely to. Just that they have to take these steps so the option even exists. Pointlessly requiring governmental actions, to appease the governor: Cuomoism.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the August 21th, 2017 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
Link to agenda on Village website.
Link to agenda stored on this site, should the village lose their copy.