Town Board plans ahead: Roadways, holidays and recordings on the agenda

At the Town Board work session Feb. 23, Heights Property Owners Corporation General Manager Stella Lagudis submitted a request for a ban on heavy delivery trucks from two roadways in the Heights.

A full presentation will happen next week, but Ms. Lagudis told the board that problems surfaced during a generally dry summer on Sunnyside Avenue and Serpentine Drive with heavy trucks barreling along posing safety issues and causing dust to fly. Besides beating up on roads, with the warm weather, residents who wanted to enjoy an outside lunch were finding their plans spoiled by the dustup.

A full discussion will take place at the March 2 work session.

Another issue dealt with requirements for membership on the Water Quality Improvement Advisory Board (WQI). Town Attorney Bob DeStefano Jr. said, when the WQI was established, the decision was made to include a representative from each of three other committees — the Community Preservation Fund Advisory Board, the Water Advisory Board and the Waterways Management Advisory Council — and two other members.

With resignations and changes, the WQI was two members short until Albert Brayson was appointed earlier this month.

Now the Town Board will interview two candidates who expressed interest in serving on the WQI to determine which would be the best fit for the WQI.

In the recently completed new employee handbook, two holidays were listed that should not have appeared. One was a floating holiday and the second, an employee’s birthday. The Town Board said those dates had not been accepted as holidays and were to be eliminated from the list.

In addition, Supervisor Gerry Siller announced that in 2022, Juneteenth will become a national holiday. It is the oldest celebration of the end of slavery in the United States, celebrated initially on June 19, 1865. Rather than grant another holiday, the Town Board will likely replace the Lincoln’s Birthday holiday with Juneteenth, since President Lincoln is celebrated along with other presidents on President’s Day.

Another issue to be discussed next week is a proposed draft that could require landscape contractors to be licensed by the town. Mr. Siller said he will invite landscape contractors to join the meeting via Zoom to state their view on licensing.

The Town Board has been regularly recording its own work sessions and regular meetings, but until now, committee meetings have generally not been recorded. Members began a discussion Tuesday about recording more meetings. Decisions will be made in the future about whether all or certain meetings will be recorded and how long such recordings need to be kept.

A recorded session would generally be kept for four months, Mr. DeStefano said. Those recordings deemed to be more significant could be kept longer and those that are prepared to be televised for public access would be kept for a year.

Some committee sessions are being recorded now and it seems likely, at least during the pandemic, that more will be recorded.