With four candidates running for three open Saugerties Village Board seats, newcomer Andrew Zink was the top vote getter in the balloting on Tuesday, March 21, with 254 votes. Incumbent Jeannine Mayer, who is also the Deputy Mayor, received 246, Brian Martin, also an incumbent, received 206. Marjorie Block received 158.
Mayor Bill Murphy, running unopposed, received 297. Write-in votes for mayor included two for David Minch, one for Zink, one for Nina Schmidbaur and one for Catherine Robeyear.
Votes were cast on paper ballots, which were hand counted, a lengthy process, with some 299 in person voters and 60 absentee ballots cast. “This is one time I wish we had a machine, said Suzanne LeBlanc, one of the poll workers. The hand count, with double checking to ensure there were no errors, took more than an hour and a half after the polls closed.
The only candidate who was on hand for the counting was Zinc, who was clearly happy with the result.
While campaign announcements on the village website and signage at the Village Hall announced the mayor’s term as four years, the term is actually two years. Absentee ballots listed the term as four years; in-person ballots corrected it to two years.
Zink said the results show that people in the village are open to new ideas. He said that while he expected to be elected, gaining the largest number of votes among the candidates was “humbling” and he thanked the people of Saugerties for supporting him. “I believe a lot of people voted in this election who have not voted in a village election before.”
Zink said he got a lot of feedback from a letter he sent to residents. “The feedback I got shows they are interested in new ideas.” Staffing in the village is a priority, he said, in particular at the sewer plant, where finding enough workers, including a superintendent, has been difficult. And, while he praised the current board for doing a good job, he believes the job can still be improved.
“I want to thank the Mayor for running with me and the board members. I thank Marjorie for running a good campaign and I want to thank the election inspectors; they had a really hard job tallying the votes. I look forward to working with everybody.”
Mayor Murphy said he was not surprised by Zink’s win. “He put in a lot of time and effort,” he said. “It will be good to have a younger voice on the board.” Murphy said he expects many of the same issues to continue in the coming term as they have in the last term.
Mayer congratulated the other winners and thanked Block for running and making the election a true contest. She expects to continue working with Mayor Bill Murphy to do the best for the Village of Saugerties.
Public hearing on proposed village budget is April 3
Keep feeding those parking meters. Last year the Village of Saugerties took in $48,000 worth of those quarters motorists paid to park on village streets. Revenue for the coming year is estimated at $50,000. That’s more than building permit fees, which were $28,000 or franchise fees, at $46,000.
The Saugerties Village Board is looking at a budget of just over $3 million and has set a public hearing on the proposal at its next meeting on Monday, April 3 at 5:30 p.m.
The $3,080,465 proposal represents an increase of $236,904 over this year’s budget of $2,843,560. The amount to be raised by property taxes, also known as the tax levy, is proposed at $1,913,973, an increase of $29,170. Total revenues are estimated at $2,763,673, $227,850 more than this year’s $2,535,823.
Mayor Murphy said the treasurer Paula Kerbert had done a great job in finding savings. “A lot of our general expenses have been reduced, but unfortunately when you get to the bottom of it, you see expenses you can’t control, like state retirement social security, workmens’ comp, unemployment insurance,” said Murphy. “What we have to do is try to offset those mandated increases. All in all we’re pretty close to even and we’ll have the public hearing in two weeks.”
“We’re over about $236,000; is that right?” asked trustee Vincent Buono.
That is the increase in expenses, Kerbert said. “That is balanced by increases in revenue,” Murphy said. “If you look at a lot of our standard expenses, year to year, many have gone down or stayed the same, but unfortunately there are certain areas we can’t control, so we’re doing our best.”
“I know we can’t control state retirement, but looking at the medical costs, have we looked into self insurance?” said trustee Terry Parisian. “The county does it; can we buy into the county’s insurance and maybe control some of our costs?” Parisian agreed it’s not something for this year’s budget, but something to look into for the future.
Overall, “we’re in good shape,” Murphy said, though there are areas where the village had to cut back.
Some of the larger anticipated revenue increases include state aid for highway improvement, state aid through the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) and sales tax revenue.
Increased expenditures included salaries for village justices, which increased by $11,126, from $72,000 to $83,126; street maintenance salaries, up $6,046 from $384,378 to $390,425; and the New York State retirement fund contribution jumped $14,000, from $113,000 to $127,000.
The budget showed many small and fairly large cuts in local expenses, of which some could be larger than anticipated and some less.
The mayor’s salary will remain the same at $10,200. Trustees’ salaries will remain at a total of 21,600 for the six trustees.
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