“Some people are agnostic, and don’t care about the distinction between town and village,” Mayor Tim Rogers remarked during the September 14 board meeting. Those are not the people who wrote the laws for groups such as the village’s Affordable Housing Board, for which residency within the village limits is explicit. The rules have been relaxed for some other boards where the law isn’t that specific, such as the Planning Board; as long as the majority of members are village residents, the rest of the seats may be filled by any town resident, whether they are also a village resident or not. Every square inch of New York is either in a town or a city. Villages were made up later on in history, and residents of any village always also are residents of a town. In New Paltz, the town and village happen to have the same name.
A hearing on changing the rules for serving on the Affordable Housing Board was set for the first meeting in October. Should this become law, it’s hoped that agnostic residents will bolster the small pool of volunteers.
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