The evening of 2023-02-13 was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Must be merit badge time, as there were a number of scouts from Troop 410 in the audience. These scouts were girls, as opposed to being Girl Scouts. For whatever that distinction is worth.
There was discussion around the Governor‘s Accessory Dwelling Unit plan, which is part of the proposed budget. It sounds like the intended goal is to improve density for public transit. From that, the State has issued growth targets. Mendon’s portion appears to be 38 units. As Mendon includes Honeoye Falls, the ~120 in Wolfsberger Park would meet (and exceed) this target. To say nothing of any other development going on.
While this plan does not appear to be finalized yet, it feels like the same sort of central planning I would have expected from the now defunct USSR. The central planners assign arbitrary top down goals. Those at the bottom have to meet them, regardless of the situations on the ground. Thus some locations will find they can easily reach them, while others find it impossible.
The underlying reason appears to be the State’s population is going down. The Governor appears to have concluded this is because there isn’t enough housing. Instead of letting the market figure out where to best build, a grand Plan is produced which we will all have to live with. To her credit, if the problem is places to live, this may help. But if it’s something else, anything else? This will only make it worse.
Personally, if I was to leave New York, it wouldn’t be because I don’t have a place to live. It would be to get away from an oppressive State government. The kind that creates central plans in Albany that are then forced on the rest of the State. Much like we see in this example.
The section on Vacation days in the Town’s Personnel Policy was amended. This was a last minute Agenda change, so I didn’t have verbiage to look at. But listening to the discussion, this sounds to be substantially what was proposed last month. 14 days total vacation time. Actual days to be decided by the relevant department head (Supervisor or Highway Superintendent). Which seems reasonable enough, good to have the Board sort things out here.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the February 13, 2023 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.