It’s rare for a board meeting in New Paltz to be cancelled due to lack of quorum, or a majority of members being present, but it did happen in Village Hall on June 28 due to a last-minute cancellation. Elected officials would be entirely within their rights to take that opportunity to have some time for themselves, but mayor Tim Rogers and deputy mayor Alex Wojcik chose to linger and talk with the members of the public who had shown up. The business agenda, however, was rolled over to a special meeting that was called for the morning of July 3.
“Light trespass”
Misha Harnick spoke to the two elected officials in the room about “light trespass,” noting that a bright light from a neighboring residential property and also lights from nearby college athletic fields are a continuing problem. Harnick confirmed that conversations with that residential neighbor had been unsuccessful, and that college officials have in the past claimed that the responsible party forgot to turn off those athletic field lights. College officials are not legally beholden to any local law, but individuals in those leadership positions sometimes opt to work with neighbors, such as when light from a science hall stairwell was disturbing neighbors across Plattekill Avenue in 2017. John Shupe, at the time the assistant vice president for facilities management, worked to get those lights dimmed until landscaping planting the following spring could resolve the issue in the long term.
Cannabis farmers’ market
Rick and Tricia Weissman, farming under the name “High Falls Hemp NY,” came looking for support in setting up a cannabis farmers’ market. To hear the Weissmans tell it, creating a state bureaucracy to oversee a legal cannabis market is proving much less efficient that texting a dealer for a drop-off. Farmers who now have licenses to grow the plant — such as the Weissmans — put crops in the ground right away, rather than waiting to make sure that there would be sufficient dispensaries for moving it to the people. At the moment, said Rick Weissman, there are not; the farmer speculated that this is due both to the slow speed of state officials and the lack of business experience among licensees. By design, state law has prioritized individuals who have been incarcerated for cannabis crimes in the past.
A stopgap solution to the problem of farmers growing without knowing where they were going to sell is the creation of farmers’ markets specifically for cannabis. Weissman explained that three farmers and one dispensary licensee are required, and that while the rules around siting one of these markets are not yet finalized, public property appears to be favored. Rogers and Wojcik alike agreed to send personal letters of support for holding one in the village hall to state cannabis officials.
Cooling station
Ron Turner has been unsuccessful in securing a certificate of occupancy for a mobile home in the village, a topic which Turner addressed, at times obliquely. Turner’s primary concern is the inability to get electricity hooked up due to the lack of that enabling document. Issuing those permits and certificates falls to building inspectors, but Turner explained that it was a village building inspector who suggested this particular venue. Perhaps as a way to avoid the summer heat without electricity to power cooling, Turner was trying to gain access to the social space in the firehouse, and provided opinions from the state’s comptroller to bolster the claim that such a space must be available to the public at all times. Village attorney Will Frank interpreted those opinions differently, Turner was told. The text of a copy of what Turner provided showed that opinions that appeared to ban the barring of particular groups of people from firehouse social spaces, but was silent as to requiring particular hours of operation. Turner had previously appeared at a town council meeting, asking about the operation of cooling centers in the community.
Turner also read from a separate text, asserting that it was evidence that village officials cannot restrict the use of trailers using zoning. Mayor Rogers agreed to forward it to the village attorney for review.
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