CLARENDON – Residents in Clarendon will see a drop in town property taxes in 2016. Members of the Clarendon Town Board Tuesday evening adopted the final 2016 budget, which includes a tax rate of $4.79 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. That’s a drop of 21 cents per $1,000 from the 2015 budget.

“That’s phenomenal,” Town Supervisor Richard Moy said of the decrease.

The budget includes $1.4 million total town appropriations for the General Fund and Highway. Special Districts (water) and Clarendon Fire Department appropriations total $772,715.30.

Moy said the tax rate comes in under the tax cap. Board members approved two revisions to the preliminary budget to accomplish that.

They removed $10,000 from contingency in the general fund, decreasing the line from $64,920 to $54,920 and removed $20,000 from highway funds for general repairs contractual expenses.

In other business, board members discussed amending the town’s zoning ordinance regarding building permits. Currently, no building permit is required if the structure is under 144 square ft. The town is considering changing that to include all new structures in Clarendon.

Moy said problems have arisen with structures being placed on property lines or over property lines. The smaller structures are also assessable, he explained, and requiring a permit would make them easier to find for assessment purposes.

Town Board member Paul Nicosia said bigger towns in the area do not require smaller structures, such as sheds purchased at “big box” stores, to have a building permit, but Clarendon Town Attorney Karl Essler explained that is because with larger populations, it would require more effort from those towns.

He said disputes between neighbors over smaller structures can become expensive for property owners and, “burdensome from a time standpoint for the town.”

Town Board members will work on drafting a proposal for the change before scheduling a public hearing.

HOLLEY – During the upcoming school budget process, Holley Central School District Superintendent Robert D’Angelo says he will work to make sure the cost of unfunded state and federal mandates are clear to board members, taxpayers and particularly local representatives.

D’Angelo presented a four-page list of unfunded mandates to members of the Holley Central School Board of Education during their regular meeting Monday evening. He said he will work with Sharon Zacher, Assistant Superintendent for Business, to “… attach approximate dollars to those mandates… I was surprised that there were four pages. We will then take that information and engage local politicians.”

D’Angelo mentioned State Assemblyman Steve Hawley and State Sen. Robert Ortt as well as Congressional representatives as politicians with whom he will share the information he collects. The school superintendent noted that unfunded mandates are a huge cost for school districts, and although school officials routinely complain, nothing really changes. He hopes his efforts will have an impact.

“Whether the politicians will bite the bullet is another story,” he said. “Those are real figures for us and are a burden on Holley and every other school district in New York State.”

D’Angelo and Board President Brenda Swanger said it would be helpful to involve other local districts as well as the New York State School Boards Association to make sure concerns are heard.

D’Angelo said he hopes the figures Holley compiles and reports to representatives will “solicit some sort of help. It will be interesting to see how it works out.” He added that the unfunded mandates coupled with the state tax cap, “really strangle us.”

Obtaining relief from unfunded mandates would help not only school boards, but also taxpayers, D’Angelo said.

Provided photo, Erika Thorn

HOLLEY – Holley Cub Scout Pack 3062 collected 559 items of food on Saturday during the annual Scouting for Food campaign in the Village of Holley. All of the food was donated to the Eastern Orleans County Community Center. This food will be used to fill the Thanksgiving Holiday food baskets for needy families in our area.

Scouts pictured include, from left: Front row – Dawson Arnold; Middle row – Aro Krueger, Hunter Sommerfeldt and Noah Patten; Back row – Destin Brown, Miguel Vasquez-Pulcino, Aaiden Smith, Ronald Thorn, Grant Smith and Marshall Rubens. Not pictured – Tyler Moore, Kaden Rheinwald, Steven Hein and Zachary Mrzywka.

HOLLEY – Village Board members are sending out a warning: two-hour parking and overnight parking restrictions in the Public Square will be enforced.

Village resident and business owner Dan Seeler spoke to members of the Village Board during their regular meeting Tuesday evening regarding tenants who reside in the Public Square leaving cars parked there overnight.

“It’s just in the Square,” Seeler noted, “but it does affect the small businesses.”

Beginning Nov. 1, overnight parking was prohibited in the Public Square and Trustee Connie Nenni related that Holley Police intend to enforce the restriction as well as the two-hour limit.

In other business, trustees approved the purchase of alarm systems for the Water Department and the Department of Public Works. The alarms will be placed at the pumping station, the Glidden well and the DPW building.

“This related to Homeland Security,” Trustee Skip Carpenter said of the alarms for the Water Department. “This is our water.”

The cost of the alarm system at the pumping station is $1,987; at the Glidden well, $1,390; and at the DPW, $1,900.

Trustees also approved an additional $29.95 monthly fee for maintenance monitoring for the Glidden well.

Additionally, trustees tabled spending $10,000 to purchase a mobile reading unit for the Electric Department, as Matt Campbell, superintendent of the village’s Electric and Water departments, was unable to attend the meeting.

Trustee Skip Carpenter reported that Holley has borrowed the same type of automatic reader from the Village of Churchville and the high-tech equipment has been a huge time-saver.

“Now, it takes us one-half to three-quarters of a day (to take readings),” Carpenter said. “This (the automatic reader) takes 15 minutes. We used Churchville’s this month and it works really well.”

Carpenter further explained the same reader can be used for water readings, but the village would have to purchase transponders for water meters. He noted the transponders are about $70 a piece, but a grant might be able to help with the cost. Reading water meters now takes two days, he said.

Trustee Connie Nenni questioned the need for the new equipment, noting the village hasn’t had it’s current equipment for very long.

“Maybe we should wait a month and talk to Matt,” she said. “This is a lot of money.”

Mayor John Kenney agreed. “We can wait a month to talk to Matt directly,” he said.

“I think this is where we should go,” Deputy Mayor Brian Sorochty said of the new reader, but also questioned what would be done with the readers the village currently uses.

Carpenter said the new mobile reading unit would be better and more efficient that the readers currently in use and the expense of the new automatic reader has already been budgeted.

HOLLEY – Members of the Holley Village Board are reaching out to state and federal representatives in an effort to convince the Environmental Protection Agency to drop its insistence that the eight “Diaz homes” in the village undergo certified lead abatement. The EPA wants that done as part of an agreement that would turn the homes over to the village for eventual sale.

Holley Mayor John Kenney said the village sent letters Monday to the Army Corps of Engineers/EPA, Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Congressman Chris Collins, State Sen. Robert Ortt, Assemblyman Steve Hawley and Orleans County legislators John DeFilipps and David Callard.

Members of the Village Board discussed the letters during their regular meeting Tuesday evening.

Talks between the Village of Holley Development Corporation and the EPA have been at an impasse for months over the lead abatement issue and now Mayor Kenney says the letters seek, “assistance in dealing with the EPA’s stance on lead abatement in the Diaz homes.”

The mayor said he is concerned over the insistence by the Army Corps of Engineers/EPA regarding the homes. Officials there recently requested

that the village shut off electric to the homes, a move village board members worry will lead to their deterioration.

The Village HDC has been charged with working to acquire the homes and then decide how best to sell them to get the properties back on village tax rolls. Dan Schiavone, president of the board of directors of the VHDC, has said the corporation is not a dumping ground. The expense of the certified lead abatement process would make it difficult to sell the homes, several of which are valued at less than $25,000, Schiavone said.

Deputy Mayor Brian Sorochty said during Tuesday’s Village Board meeting that the VHDC has worked hard to come to an acceptable agreement. “The LDC has done what they can do,” he said.

As of Tuesday evening, Mayor Kenney said the village has not received any response from the EPA.

Eladio Wattles

HOLLEY – A Holley man has been jailed on $20,000 bail after allegedly breaking into a Holley apartment and threatening a resident on Saturday night, Holley Police Chief Roland Nenni said this afternoon.

Eladio A. Wattles, 18, of 74 West Albion St. has been charged with burglary in the second degree (C felony), menacing in the third degree (B misdemeanor) and criminal mischief in the fourth degree (A misdemeanor).

Holley Police were dispatched at about 10 p.m. Saturday to 32 East Avenue in Holley for an unknown type of disturbance.

Prior to officers arriving on scene the Orleans County 911 Dispatch Center received additional information from the person reporting the incident that a person had forced his way into an apartment at the location and that a firearm had been discharged at the suspect, Nenni said.

Holley Police arrived on scene along with deputies from the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office and a trooper from the New York State Police. Wattles was observed exiting the apartment and was taken into custody.

The investigation revealed that Wattles came to the location because of an ongoing dispute with the apartment tenant. Wattles allegedly broke two windows at the location and then gained entry into the apartment via one of the windows.

Wattles then threatened the apartment tenant, causing him to retreat to a room inside the apartment, Nenni said.

When Wattles continued to threaten the apartment occupant, the occupant fired a shotgun at Wattles. Wattles was not hit by the shotgun blast and then attempted to run from the location, at which point he was taken into custody by Holley Police, Nenni said.

Wattles was arraigned in the Town of Murray Court and committed to the Orleans County Jail on $20,000 bail. He is to return to the Town of Murray court on Nov. 12.