In both the village and town of New Paltz, leaders have been working on capital projects to resolve longstanding issues around where to put all the workers. The town’s justice center and the village’s firehouse, right next door to each other on North Putt Corners Road, were the first pieces put into place to solve these puzzles. On the village side, the fact that the September 28 board meeting was held in the former fire station #1 shows that there are changes afoot. Now, promises Mayor Tim Rogers, the next phase of that work can begin.
“This is now village space,” Rogers said during the meeting, and can be a permanent part of the space problems now that all the fire equipment and stacks of boxed material has been relocated. This means that the perennial accessibility issues at village hall will no longer hang over leaders. When the chair lift to the second floor broke and the repair estimate came in at thousands of dollars, the decision was made to find alternate spaces. These included the Plattekill fire station before the move, and then Elting Library while the move was ongoing. The mayor explained that meetings can now permanently be held in the old firehouse, even as plans are considered about how to most effectively use the entire space.
How much a similar process around town space will interconnect with village efforts are unclear. In the past, Rogers and Supervisor Neil Bettez have spoken about finding ways to create a joint municipal center out of the two adjacent buildings on Plattekill Avenue. With court personnel now in the justice center, the town building is vacant just on the other side of a wall from the old firehouse space. Public conversations about building needs have been largely focused on the two Putt Corners buildings, not on the Plattekill campus.
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