Williston Park Village Mayor Paul Ehrbar, at last week’s work session, announced that the increase in this year’s village budget would be four percent.
He said, “This budget was started last year and we have worked diligently and very hard on it and there are many deductions. The largest deduction was moving the refuse to another location, resulting in the savings of quite a bit of money.
“All and all we have been able to maintain our services. We do a lot in this village. We do free work, we do concrete work, we do small road repair work. We have our own sanitation department and our own water department. We do a lot of things for a small village. As time goes on, and as money gets tighter, we may have to look at these services down the road, but right now we are able to continue offering all these services.”
The budget document, passed out at the meeting, shows the budget rates have fluxuated since 2009. The rates are listed as: 5/31/09-3.84 percent; 5/31/10-2.30 percent; 5/31/11-2.98 percent and 5/30/12-4 percent. After the brief presentation, the board voted to approve the budget.
A copy of the entire budget may be obtained at Williston Park Village Board, 494 Willis Avenue, Williston Park.
In other matters, at the beginning of the meeting, a very brief hearing was held with a representative of AT&T to issue the final approval of another cell tower on the top of Willis House. This was the third and final hearing for this cell tower and all the trustees, except Trustee William Darmstadt who voted no, approved it. Mayor Ehrbar said that the Building Department would now be going over the entire process before permits are issued.
A resident asked if there was a quota of the amount of cell towers that could be placed on one building and attorney James Bradley said as long as the same company was involved he did not think there was a quota on the amount of cell towers, but he is looking into the situation. He did state that federal law mandates that you can’t turn down one cell tower carrier in favor of another carrier. And since this involves four buildings, but one location, this does not apply. In other words you are not allowed to play favorites.
Toward the end of the meeting, a resident, who is also a resident of the Mineola School District, wanted to know if buses would be parked permanently at the Cross Street School now that it has been leased.
Mayor Ehrbar said that question had not been asked at previous meetings, but he said that question would have to be addressed to the Mineola School District since they own the Cross Street School property and are the ones leasing the property to the Solomon Schechter School which will be taking over the Cross Street School.
Mayor Ehrbar said he didn’t know, but did not think they would be parked at the school since they are all coming from different locations, but once again, he said, “That question will have to be addressed to the Mineola School.”
The work session came to a close and the next village board meeting will be held on May 16 at 8 p.m. at Williston Park Village Hall, 494 Willis Avenue, Williston Park.
