The evening of 2022-12-12 was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
While the meeting felt a bit longer then the average meeting of this group, contentwise it was a standard meeting. Apart from approving three minutes from last year, which felt more like a formality then anything else. Probably an amusing story there, but that it all worked out is what matters.
An interesting comment was made about the Building department making sure applications for Boards are complete before going to the relevant Board (Planning in this example, but logic applies to any Board). This is good practice, as Boards need information in order to make reasonable decisions. I don’t think anyone wants to have a second meeting, in order to get the information that should have been available before scheduling the first meeting. Of course, this doesn’t mean the Building department should be denying applications. They should be informing the application that X is missing, and thus the application is incomplete. Which gives the applicant the opportunity to gather the missing piece, or request the relevant Board waive that requirement in this situation (which Boards can do, if they see the need).
To be clear, this is not a criticism of anyone. As far as I know, everyone is doing their job as they should be. The background of the comment appeared to be a need to inform the public of process. We should all want everyone to ‘live long and prosper‘. There are just times when the boxes need to be checked along the way. Which is a bit of a rambling way to say I found this discussion entertaining.
The Fire Protection Committee gained another two meetings on their schedule. While the group seems to be making good progress towards their goal, there is some uncertainty if they would be able to meet the deadline. Better to have a few more meetings then rush the work. In this case, the month delay shouldn’t have any meaningful downsides. And who knows, the meetings may not be needed. Buffer is good, as you never know what surprises will occur.
An Equipment Inventory Minimum Amount was set for the Highway Department of $500. It sounds like Andy (Highway Superintendent) already produces this list, but ‘best practice’ is to have the Board formally set a minimum amount. It sounds lie whatever amount they see fit, so they went with what he said was the effective amount of what he is already tracking. Personally, I would have gone a bit higher in order to provide some buffer. But I’m not on the Board, and I can’t fault this number. I just like margins, so I have someplace to store the surprises life tosses at me.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 12, 2022 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.