The evening of 2026-10-19 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
I will applaud Rick (Mayor). At multiple times during the meeting he asked if anyone had any questions. Not just the Board, but explicitly giving the public the opportunity to chime in. Normally that’s not how it’s done. The public has a time to talk early on, during Public Hearings (if on the Agenda), and at the end. Not throughout the meeting. Yet Rick gave that option tonight. While it was disruptive to the normal flow of the meeting, and acknowledging the Board was there to get their work done, I think it’s a good thing when the public servants serve the public.
The Village is having their own traffic study done. While I think Copperfield is the reason for the exact timing, the topic has come up often enough it likely would have happened before too long regardless. Because, as useful as it can be to have developers do their own studies, there is value in the Village having control of one of their own. One that looks at the Village as a whole, not just a particular project. Of course, there is a cost to that. ~$30k in this case.
As for the study itself, that would be done by deploying multiple cameras around the Village. I heard 13, to be active for about 1 day, and with a 480p resolution. It was said this is enough to identify a car as a vehicle, but not enough to read the license plate.
How to regulate E-bikes came up again. It sounds like local municipalities are being encouraged to adopt similar laws to each other. If only to make it easier for police to enforce, as they won’t have to learn a different law for each area. Indirectly, this would have us all following the first adopters. Which is fine if they got it right first try. But it’s not so good if we want to try different ideas. Compare results. Then evaluate which is the best solution. Or have a collection of valid solutions, which are better in certain situations.
The Village has been receiving a number of large FOIL requests. Which has been racking up considerable time and effort on the office staffs part. While I still think the long term solution is to make everything FOILable available online (and thus indexed by search engines to find easily), that is neither quick or easy to implement. Assuming the Village even liked the idea (I can see some potential negatives). Either way, they have to respond to the requests that come in. Although I wonder how much of the cost can be recovered by charging the requester. I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure FOIL allows that. At least in certain situations.
The DPW is into leaf season. As they prepare for winter’s arrival.
To highlight a point Rick made on the Waste Water Treatment Plant: Age, not capacity, is driving the replacement project. The existing plant is 85+ years old. How many of us would want to retire when we reach that age? Multiple grants have been, and continue to be, explored in the hopes of covering the entire ~$18 million project that way.
While the sale of 20 North Main was approved a while back, to assist with the closing process, the Board formally approved that again tonight. They are expecting to receive the payment ($225k if I heard right) for the property on October 21. And the new owner is exploring a PILOT.
To summarize the Copperfield discussion: See the Village website. No Zoning Board meeting in November, no Copperfield meeting currently scheduled further out. Waiting on the developer to digest the comments and discuss with engineers. Rick explained the process as it continues, and that the public will be informed when the next step occurs. Whenever that ends up being.
Rick again gave the public the opportunity to ask questions. I was tempted to ask ‘Where will the impacts of this project be in 10-20 years’. Which I suspect is what we all want to know. Rick included. It just happens to have an answer we can’t know until we live it. We can make our projections and guesses, but as ever, time will tell.
There was discussion about increasing how much new houses would have to pay for sewer hookup and parks fee. It was pointed out these increased fees wouldn’t be enough to discourage developments such as Copperfield. But I wonder if, in aggregate, they might be enough to offset things like the Village conducting their own traffic study.
CGI was approved to continue their ‘hello nation’ program. There is no cost to the Village as such. But CGI will apparently be asking local businesses if they want to be promoted. Yet another data point showing that there is no free lunch. Someone always pays.
Living Nativity event was approved for 12/20 (Sunday before Christmas Eve) in Harry Allen Park. Time is 6:30PM for the show itself, which will last ~20 minutes (with refreshments afterwards). But I’ll be there about 5PM for setup. Helpers are welcome, especially kids to act out the nativity story. Even if an audience to watch can be just as important. We all have our part to play, in His story.
Similarly, Menorah lighting ceremony was approved for 5:30PM 12/8 at the Pocket Park (formerly Totem Pole). I’m not Jewish myself, but I try to get to this event. It’s also an excuse to get out for a bit, to enjoy what will presumably be a cold winter night.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 19, 2026 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.