Tonight (2017-10-16) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
There was also a meeting of the Mendon Town Board. Looks like Columbus Day last week causes meeting shuffling. As I could only be in one place at a time (still working on that trick), I chose the Village meeting.
A little bit of a crowd tonight, with no immediately obvious reason. The various usual people, a student that presented on the benefits of composting, and three other people. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned, but usually it’s pretty obvious why someone is at this sort of thing.
A student board representative was approved. David O’Connell, which I’m sure I spelled wrong. He wasn’t at the meeting, there are still details to work out, but the board approved adding him. Hopefully he’ll be here next month.
A different student shared the benefits of curbside composting in the village. No one spoke out against the idea, but I didn’t see that much enthusiasm either. Perhaps because that’s how I feel. A nice idea, but I don’t think it’s the government’s place to handle it. If it’s worth doing, the young lady should make a go of it herself. I know the school encourages entrepreneurs. Although, if any level of government is to experiment on things that don’t really fit their proper functions, well this is the right level for it.
Yet another example of bureaucratic nonsense came up. Turns out the ambulance department had returned radio’s they had borrowed from another agency. As time has passed, and things have changed, now they are looking to borrow some of those same radios back again. Unfortunately, they can’t. Because the agency that has them doesn’t have a policy for lending out equipment that has been returned, from having been previously lent out. When explained during the meeting, this lead to some head shaking.
A local law was passed tonight to give the village the option of raising taxes more then 2% when the next budget cycle comes around. Not a law to raise them, but merely having the option. As this can sound rather backwards when the idea is first encountered, this led to some discussion tonight. I’ll give Rick (Mayor) credit. He took the time to answer questions and give a quick summary of the insanity that is the tax cap law. When does 2% never equal 2%? When it’s part of New York tax cap.
A number of times tonight, an audience member (not me) suggested the Village explore using ‘modern’ technology in various ways. In particular, Facebook for recording/streaming the meetings, and GoFundMe for accepting donations. While I have mixed thoughts on the details (facebook is evil), I do think the underlying idea is good. Useful tools should be leveraged for the benefits they can offer. Seems like government is always the slowest to take advantage of these sorts of changes. Or maybe it’s bureaucracies that are slow? Government merely being a ready example of one. Either way, change is inevitable in life. Time will tell whether it is good or bad.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 16, 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.