The evening of 2025-09-22 was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Most interesting part of the meeting, at least from my point of view, was something that didn’t happen. Kim didn’t vote to give herself money. Instead, she voted to pull that particular voucher out of the group. Then the Board approved the large group. At which point Kim recused herself from the vote on the one item.
Realistically, this was going to come up at least once a year. In her day job, Kim manages the schools Community Programs. Which provide the Town (and Village) the Summer Recreation service. Thus creating a clear conflict of interest to have Kim vote on the Town’s involvement with that. But as that interaction is such a minor portion of her role with the Town, it only comes up a few times. All in all, I thought it was nicely handled.
Besides being entertained by that procedural element, the Tentative budget became the Preliminary budget. After some modifications where made. Most of them sounded pretty minor, apart from the one about health insurance. If I heard right, health insurance rates are going up ~20% for next year. At least the rates the Town will be paying. Regardless, Preliminary budget will likely be up on the Town’s website ‘soon‘.
Tying into that insurance rate increase, there were a number of comments at the end of the meeting. Comments that almost broke into a discussion with the Board. For the record, I think discussions between Board’s and the public are great things. Although I’ll acknowledge timing can be an issue.
In any case, I would summarize the almost discussion as highlighting various issues with the current health care system. I’m of the opinion the current model is not sustainable (have I mentioned I like to be wrong?). As wiser minds then mine have said, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Thus the question here is, can we transition to something that can continue, before we are forced to stop.
Unfortunately, I think too much of the problem is a higher level of government issue. In other words, until the State and/or Federal governments change the rules they have imposed on the rest of us, the structural issues can’t really be fixed. Until then, I’m confident the people working at the local level will continue to do the best they can.
On a more upbeat note, I find it interesting when I find content I produced showing up somewhere else. Was a little thing, but part of an email I sent ended up copied into the meeting’s ‘Supporting documents‘. Not the first time, probably won’t be the last. Apart from amusing me, has no real value.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the September 22, 2025 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.