Tonight (2019-04-01) was the Honeoye Falls Annual Meeting.
As usual, Budget Hearing was before the Annual Meeting. While the budget was approved (no surprise), there was a surprising amount of discussion before that approval. In the end, a levy increase of 2.91% (ie at the cap) was approved, which should increase the Village’s revenue ~$12k.
Much of the discussion revolved around AIM funding and proposed internet sales tax. My take away was upstream government distortion of the market was causing downstream headaches. Or maybe my bias is showing again…
On a different topic, I did note there were extra chairs in the hallway. Nicely out of the way, but ready to move into the room as more people showed up. As they always do for this meeting. Good planning ahead on someones part.
As the Annual Meeting got going, it was amusing hearing one of the veteran audience members point out the motion rotation. For this meeting, as they have so many motions to make (second, approve), the trustees have a pattern where they rotate around the table. First person motions, one next to them seconds. On the next motion, the one that seconded motions, and the one next to them seconds. Continue until back to the start. Not rocket science, and not foolproof, but a simple system they have been using for years. Which made it amusing to hear it be explained to someone that didn’t know how it went.
When they got to appoint people/positions/etc, really only one stood out to me, and that was the Zoning Board. In particular, the way they staggered them. With the recent merging of the Planning and Zoning Boards, everyone is effectively on their first term now. As terms are usually five years, that would have caused issues down the road. Instead, each person was appointed to a different term length. Hence next year only one will need to be reappointed. Makes sense, was discussed previously, and good to see the plan implemented.
The January and February Village Trustee meetings will continue to be on Tuesday, not Monday.
As usual, while listening to the long list of appointments and official whatnots, I think about how to streamline it. Tonight I wondered if maybe the people involved (Mayor and Trustees) liked it the way it was, and that’s why it hasn’t been shortened. I asked Rick after the meeting was done, and his explanation was the state required it be this way. My initial thought to that was it would be crazy for them to do that. Then I remembered who we were talking about. Still, an explanation was nice to have, even if I don’t like it (which is no fault of Rick’s).
When the time for swearing in occurred, which is a normal item at these meetings, an amusing comment was made. As so many people in the room had to be sworn in, ‘everyone’ was called up. While I know this was meant as a joke, it actually should be taken seriously. The Oath of office is pretty simple: Support US Constitution, Support NY Constitution, do the job you are elected/appointed to. If you aren’t elected/appoint, then the third part wouldn’t matter, but the other two? Everyone in the state should be able to swear to that. Thus, everyone in the room should have had no problem taking the Oath. Just a few of us wouldn’t have had any positions to fulfill. For the Village that is, there is always the role of ‘citizen’.
All the Zoning Board members were there in person to take the Oath. Not that rare of an occurrence, but doesn’t always happen. But important tonight, as they met later in the evening. It would have been amusing if any of them hadn’t been sworn in, yet still met in their official capacity. I’m of the ‘no harm, no foul‘ philosophy, so I think it would have been fine either way.
Normally there are ‘Service Awards’ at these. Tonight they were renamed ‘Appreciation Awards’. The former Planning and Zoning Board Chairs received awards for their service (others did too, but only those two were in attendance). Always good to thank those who helped out, especially if they had done so for a long time.
Which brings us to the ‘State of the Village’, and Rick gave a nice enough speech. He did talk about needing to try new things, not do what we have done just because it’s what was done in the past. Generally good advice, but needs to be balanced with the opposite: don’t change for changes sake, things may be that way for a reason.
I also noted he referenced ‘Progressive’ a few times. As in, we are progressive. Which is one of those interesting terms. At first glance it sounds great, who isn’t for ‘progress’. But when you start looking at the details, well that is ever where the devil is. In this case, that words seems to be a synonym for ‘Socialist’ or ‘Communist’. Or not, as with too much of our politics today, it’s all a matter of opinions, there are no facts.
Still, the speech was optimistic and focused on the future, which was good. And afterwards we had cookies and conversation.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 1, 2019 Annual Meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
I could point you at the Agenda, but it was also effectively last years (and the year before, etc), and will most likely be next years as well.