Tonight (2019-12-16) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
There was much good said about the recent Fire Department Christmas Parade. The weather might not have been great (which is nothing new), but the parade went well. And this Board acknowledged that and applauded the Fire Department.
As it’s that time of year again, there was an audit of the Village office. Not sure if this is annual, but it sure seems like it. So nothing new in that regard. One of the comments was how each new employee is a commitment to long term debt, through their eventual pension. This is true, and thus good to hear that acknowledged. Personally, I wonder how much pay would have to increase for the staff to be happy about no pensions. Would eliminate the debt issue down the road (not to mention the Village having a financial interest in their staff dying, which is never a good thing). But would the increase in wages make such a move unpalatable? Another case of ‘Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later‘, but either way you (ie us, the taxpayers) will pay. Personally, I’d rather pay now, for a variety of reasons.
There is a tree in the creek. This is not news, there is almost always a tree in the creek (often more then one). Of note tonight because there was talk about potential flood damage if/when ice builds up on the tree. Or doesn’t, as the ice could push it down stream instead. In any case, the discussion was around if the Village (as a municipality) has any obligation to remove a tree that fell from private property into the creek. And if such an action is even allowed by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. No conclusions reached, but at least one person in the room had an item added to their ‘todo’ list.
There had been a concern with pending ambulance policy being imposed on us (by the county? that detail was unclear). In essence, the concern was that if our ambulance was closer to a call then anyone else (perhaps because they just left the hospital, having just finished dropping someone off), we would have to take those too. Potentially creating the scenario where Honeoye Falls Ambulance is too busy in Rochester to serve Honeoye Falls. Well the reason I started this paragraph with ‘had’ is because that concern has been addressed. Not something I would suspect the average person to care about, but I suspect Ed (Ambulance Chief) will sleep a little easier now.
Episcopal Ave is apparently owned by the Episcopal church, and has been since at least 1956. A degree of logic there, as the names do match. Yet the Village has been treating it as if they own the road, although there is a deal about the parking lot. Was an interesting discovery that came up due to a recent subdivision with the churches property. Took time to confirm and such, but tonight there was discussion about what the Village wanted to do about this (if anything). My sense was the biggest concern was potential liability, since they have been acting as if it was owned by the Village for so long. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Which brought us to the last agenda item: Drug testing for Village staff with a CDL (ie DPW staff). It came up because of a national database of drivers. The idea being, if you got into trouble driving in say New Jersey, you shouldn’t be able to run off to say New York and keep driving. Decent enough idea, yet as I listened to them talk on it more, I wonder on the constitutionality of it all.
As the Village is a governmental entity, all those making decisions (and I suspect all those employed) took an Oath of Office. Part of which was to support the United States Constitution. Part of that was the 14th amendment, which applies all rights (ie restrictions on government actions) at the Federal level to all other levels (in this case, village).
When talking about searching the database, the word “query” was used (instead of ‘search’). Does the Village has a warrant for this? Do they have reason to believe a law is actively being violated? As a consent form is being used, I suspect the answer to both of those questions is ‘no’, and as such the 4th amendment is now an issue. It was said that refusal to agree to the consent form is treated as a positive test (ie guilty), so we’ve run a foul of the 5th amendment as well (not to mention the idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’).
So in the interests of making sure our drivers don’t have skeletons in their closets (which they do, as they are human), we are ignoring certain unalienable Rights, endowed by our Creator. If that last bit sounds familiar to you, it should. Adds yet more weight to the idea that government (in all it’s forms) is the biggest law breaker of them all.
To be clear: I am not criticizing the Village of Honeoye Falls. Nor any of it’s elected officials, employees, volunteers, etc. I am criticizing us as a nation. We had a decent system (note the past tense). Not perfect, but nothing made by man can be. Yet as time has gone by we ignore more and more of what made our forefathers great. The legacy they have left us, which allowed us to become (for a time) the greatest nation on Earth, is paid but lip service by far too many.
As wiser men then I have said “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.“. But that is a topic who’s scope exceeds tonight’s meeting.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 16, 2019 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.