$4.2 Million in Grants awarded to Town -- and Noise after 10 PM not wanted

The spectacular news for the whole town is that the town was awarded $2.7M to cover the full purchase price for the Central Park in Wappinger (Cranberry Hill) through a grant. Ths announcement was made by the Supervisor during the October 26 Town Board Meeting. Yea for the Town!

For those residents who are part of the Wildwood and Fleetwood Sewer Districts -- they got

the good news of grants which will cover system upgrades (needed since the 1990s) - approx. $729K for Wildwood and approx. $750K for Fleetwood Sewer Districts. This brings the total amount of grants awarded to the town this year to $5.1M. (Remember, the budget - for which a November 9th public hearing was set later in this meeting - 36% of the budget comes from property tax payers - the remaining revenues come from other sources, including grants like these).

Anyone who has dealt the the grant process -- these are not easily obtained. It takes a lot of research and initiative to get awarded a grant. So kudos to the team(s) who did the work and the work of the Town Engineer and Camo teams who developed the technical specifications required for the Sewer upgrades. And apparently the town is working on a solution to upgrade the Midpoint Sewer system.

This is a demonstration of leadership that the other taxing districts (here's looking at you School Districts, Fire Districts, Library Districts) should use to generate revenue needs rather than hitting the property tax payer. The grant awarding process is daunting, however the $$ are going to be awarded and the residents and businesses in the town deserve to have their fair share of those grants and the benefits that they provide.

The board held two public hearings on setting rates for the Special Districts (sewer, water, lighting, storm water etc.) - no one spoke... and the board passed the resolutions passing the assessments for 2027.

The Board also, accepted the resignation of a Motor Equipement Operator in the Highway Department, declared October Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Fire Prevention Month and Domestic Violence Month.

The Director of Strategic Planning - who was not present - also asked the board to consider a resolution updating the zoning code to address property maintenance issues - and regulation of placement of mechanicals (A/C, generators, propane tanks etc.) The board had a lot of questions about the proposed resolution -- and had the awareness to say that the definition of a front yard can be difficult - especially with corner lots, pie shaped lots -- and without more carefully worded language - a lot of residents could be facing requesting zoning variances & fees. Also, an awareness that those with smaller, more densely placed lots need to be managed differently than those residents who have more acreage and less visiblity to neighbors, roads etc. So the board tabled this resolution until a better understanding could be gained.

Then the Noise issue. This was a resolution that was placed in front of the town board after the agenda was prepared. Apparently in the Wheeler Hill/Tall Trees area of the town during the past weekend, an event was held that created enough noise to shake houses and vibrate household items (the bass was very loud) .... until 3 a.m. This generated enough concern by residents (expressed through emails and text messages) - that the board felt that guidelines governing the level of noise and the timing of noise needed to be made more explicit, and, if necessary, actionable by law enforcement. So - a public hearing for November 9th was set on this resolution.