Newly appointed member Len Bouren attended his first board meeting of the town planning board last week. He is taking over for Dan Weeks, whose term expired this year.
Bouren is retired from the New York Department of Conservation, where he worked in construction and maintenance for 36 years before retiring. He was based in New Paltz. ”I’m a little familiar with SEQRA [State Environmental Quality Review Act],” he said. “We took care of all the hiking trails, trucks, and when we built something we had to go through SEQR.”
Bouren said, however, that his work involved more actual construction than the planning aspects. “For instance, if the fisheries people said we’ve done all our work and now we want to put a fishing access parking lot there, my guys would build it.”
Since his retirement from the DEC, Bouren has operated a small agricultural business in town, including hay making and small-scale general farming. “I don’t make any money out of it, so I guess you can call it farming,” he said.
One reason for joining the board is “it’s nice to see what’s going on with the community. Also, you’ve got to balance keeping the good old nice town — quaint Saugerties — feeling with keeping your tax base. You’ve got to balance those two.”
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