The evening of 2025-04-22 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The Middle School has a new principal, although I didn’t catch her name. Regardless, I wish her well and hope she lasts longer then the last one.
Representatives from the Mendon Fire Department spoke during the public comment time. While I have nothing particular to say on their comment (same broad strokes as things I’ve heard about the Village Fire Department), the comment process itself was interesting. The Board tweaked their 3 minute rule slightly, which I thought was fitting. In effect, they gave each of the two speaking firemen 3 minutes, for a total of 6 minutes. I think it would be better to just ‘reserve the right to limit time‘ and then not bother most of the time. Most commenters either deserve more time (like tonight’s firemen) or are respectful of time. But I’ve talked about this before.
Gene (Superintendent) spoke on the budget, and to paraphrase ‘the sky is falling’, at least from an economic standpoint. To quote him “I know we’ll tax people, I hope they pay“. Which… seems to work out most years. So while the details are different this year, it sounds like business as usual overall.
As expected, the Board approved a budget. Appears to be the same numbers as last time. So the total budget goes up ~6% and the levy increases ~3%. On the plus side, Colin (Business) got a silver star award for prudent investing. While that won’t fund the budget on it’s own, every bit helps.
And there was a tour of the ongoing capital project. I enjoyed this, as I tend to find looking over construction sites interesting. Seeing the way things are put together, how engineering and logistical problems were handled, guessing what the next step will be. Also expands on what the pictures have been showing for the past few months. And a bit nostalgic, as I was once a student running around in some of these places.
After the tour was a workshop on reserves. Colin tries to make a game of sorts out of these things, while also being informative. I can appreciate the effort, even if the results are a bit hit or miss. This time, I think being directly after the tour helped out. Getting up and moving seems to have boosted everyone’s moods. I’m tempted to suggest that become a standard practice. Anytime a meeting exceeds an hour or so, take a two minute break to do a quick lap around the building. Conveniently enough, the building is built to support that. Everyone could leave the cafeteria out one door, go down the hall, take a few corners, and come back into the cafeteria by another door. Might look silly, but if it boosts attention and focus, could well be worth it on longer meetings.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 22, 2025 meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page. While a recording is also available.