Town Board reviews codes, policies
Town Board members spent more than an hour Tuesday reviewing changes to a 95-page employee handbook that will undergo more changes before being distributed to town employees.
Background checks are to be conducted for those whose town jobs would entail working with children or seniors.
Drug checks have been done with names being randomly pulled from the employee list, but if a person selected isn’t in the building, his or her name would simply go back in the hopper for another time, said Judy Meringer, confidential secretary to Supervisor Gary Gerth. At issue for the board is ensuring those operating vehicles or heavy machinery are checked from time to time.
A section meant to avoid the hiring of relatives is something hard to avoid in a small town, the board agreed. Those already on the payroll would not be affected, but for new hires, efforts would be made, where possible, to avoid relatives working within the same department.
Councilman Jim Colligan summed up the general thinking, saying hiring should be based on merit, not on family ties.
Those who have reason to interact with the public outside of the office — police, building inspectors, building department personnel and recreation employees — will likely be issued identification cards.
The Board began work on changes to Building Department procedures spending about an hour reviewing half of a 30-page document that will need revisions. The aim is to clean up Section 43 of the Town Code dealing with the Building Department to scrap redundancies and improve language of some sections.
COMING TO SHELTER ISLAND
Cablevision is bringing fiber optics to Shelter Island, initially to serve the town’s government, but plans call to eventually extend the fiber optic service throughout the town, Mr. DeStefano said. Cablevision needs permission to locate a generator behind the police headquarters and board members want to see a picture of the proposed generator before they vote.
