New truck, Tribute Garden donations discussed at Town Board meeting

MILLBROOK — At the regular September meeting of the town of Washington on Thursday, Sept. 12, Town Supervisor Gary Ciferri opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and acceptance of the last minutes, and quickly moved on to announcing donations made by the Tribute Garden; $15,000 for a generator for Town Hall; $5,000 for a recreation department fee waiver; and $5,000 each for the Senior Citizen trip to Lake George and bus trips for the camp.

 Next on the agenda was the request and vote for Town Clerk Mary Alex to go to bid for the purchase and installation of new generators at both the Town Hall and the Town Garage.

This was followed by a discussion about a filtration project from a memo from Recreation Department Director Chelsea Edson. It was agreed that this would be looked into as it would need to be done at some point, and possibly sooner rather than later.

Reports were heard from Kelly Casselli on the Recreation Department program. All is moving along well and the summer proved to be very successful, especially the camp.

 Joe Spagnola gave his report on the highway department. The large truck, a four by four International Harvester, is on order but has not yet been received.

Bookkeeper Lois Petrone reported that 2020 budget request forms have been distributed to all departments, and a special meeting has been set for Thursday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. to present the tentative budget to the Board. This will be an open meeting.

She also stated that a Land Acquisition had been paid; there are two more payments to go at $34,000 each. She also reported that most bank accounts are reconciled as of now, and A/P and payroll are being worked on. Alex reported that all monthly reports were in from all departments. Van de Water was authorized to prepare BAN documents for the 2019 International HV 507 SFA in the amount of $231,236.

A resolution was requested, voted on, and passed, that marriage license fees would be waived for active duty members of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Councilmember Al DeBonis shared that a permit would be granted to the property owners on Woodstock Road who wanted to build on their property to replace a barn that had been standing but had been taken down previously and thus could not be grandfathered in. It was determined that the building meets the standards of the town building code and could not be erected on the property in another location without interfering with the wetlands code, and so permission was given.

At the public portion of the meeting, it was announced that there had been signs posted in the town and village of a white supremacist nature. It was later investigated.

Before the meeting was adjourned, Ciferri announced that his grandson, Cameron Ciferri, 16, was present at the meeting, learning about governmental procedures for a class at Dutchess Community College on Government. He is a student at Arlington High School.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:45 p.m. for an Executive Session.