The evening of 2026-06-01 a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board was scheduled. But it was canceled/postponed.
Rick (Mayor) formally announced the postponement, due to the size of the audience. The sign on the wall said occupancy by more than 73 people was no good. From what Rick said, they stopped counting at 100. So instead of holding the scheduled meeting, Rick gave a little speech, answered a few questions, and everyone dispersed (eventually).
The information that stood out the most, from the items Rick shared, was that this was going to be a concept discussion. So whenever this meeting is rescheduled for, Rick said the Zoning Board will NOT be making a formal decision that meeting. That would come down the road at some point. My speculation says maybe August for that? Time, as always, will tell.
From the audience, the suggestion was made to make the plans available online, instead of just in the office. Seems prudent to me. Emailing a file is probably easier for the developer then printing (and delivering) multiple hard copies. And if they are already doing that, and the Village office is doing the printing? Well website should be easier for them too.
The suggestion of recording, and making available online, the next meeting was also made. Which hasn’t been done for Zoning in a while. Which I think is a shame. Having solved the technical challenges to make it happen, continuing along should be trivial. The Village still has the hardware, I see it pulled out for Village Trustee meetings. Now I’m no lawyer, but Public Officers Law Section 103 (f) appears to require recording and streaming. With the caveats of ‘extent practicable and within available funds’. But thanks to the panic, those should have been solved. They were for the Town and School, who both continue to stream meetings (more or less, occasional technical difficulties aside).
To both of those suggestions Rick said he would see, but didn’t commit at the moment. Which I can’t blame him for. While we always want to hear ‘yes, I’ll make it happen’, in the reality of the moment, it can be difficult to properly evaluate. Better to say ‘I’ll look into it’, and then take the time to give the ideas due consideration. Rather then hastily agree, and realize later you have to go back on the agreement.
The size of the audience did remind me of the Dunkin Donuts meetings. While I have seen larger groups at meetings, it has been a while. Either way, here we are about a decade later and I think Dunkin Donuts turned out well enough. Just had to get through a lawsuit (or three) first. Hopefully this time it won’t be so contentious.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the evening is that they had already changed the location to the Ambulance Base in anticipation of a large number of people. Just not as many as showed up. Eh, we do what we can, but life happens. While it is unfortunate, better to reschedule then exclude interested people.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the June 01, 2026 meeting that didn’t actually happen, technically.