Town of New Paltz reorganizes the local government

It’s a new year in New Paltz, and one of the first orders of business in the town hall is to reorganize the local government. That involves passing a slew of routine resolutions to affirm policies, declare where funds are saved and how invested, present a schedule of public meeting dates, and giving the town’s supervisor the power to make a variety of decisions between meetings, among other issues. Together with supporting documentation, the paper form of everything needed to be done this year was close to 100 pages. At least one past supervisor in New Paltz wanted each and every one of those resolutions read aloud in full at the first meeting in January, perhaps in a desire for full transparency. With the ability to upload all of that text to the town’s website, more recent reorganizational meetings have been much shorter. Supervisor Amanda Gotto clearly felt comfortable allowing residents to read the text at their leisure; as a result, the meeting on January 2 was just 28 minutes long. 

Some of what was decided: 

• Anyone tapped to serve on a jury in the town’s court will be paid a dollar for the summoning, and five for serving. 

• Kitty Brown will continue as deputy supervisor, a position that pays $10,127 per year. Other council members receive $7,709 per year and the supervisor earns $56,400. 

• While the tax collector, town clerk and employees at Moriello Pool are authorized to have a modest amount of cash on hand, the court clerk has none because the town justices have determined that cash is not an accepted form of payment. For fines paid by credit card, the individual is responsible for the extra cost. As federal reserve notes are legal tender for all debts, public and private; this continues an illegal policy that has not yet been challenged. Pursuant to a state-level policy, town justices are personally liable, should any money be stolen. 

• Matt DiDonna has been reappointed to the town’s planning board and Gotto, a former member of that board, will be its liaison. Gotto will also serve in that capacity for the zoning board of appeals and the assessment review board. The role of liaisons was a contentious topic last year, with the outgoing supervisor staking the position that being attentive to the business of each committee and available for communication was sufficient, while Brown argued that attendance at meetings is to be expected. In the past, planning board members in particular expressed a preference for the latter approach. Each council member will be the liaison to at least two groups. No liaison has yet been identified for the library or rescue squads, two nonprofit organizations that receive hundreds of thousands of tax dollars each year. 

• Juneteenth is now a town holiday.