Hurley’s town board is busy going into 2025. It has approved a contract for a natural-resources inventory, took one last legal step to create an ambulance district, addressed complaints about the town planning board’s handling of cases and listened to praise for the town highway department.
A contract with Hudsonia will create the habitat and wildlife portion of the townwide inventory that has been in the works for almost a year. The fact-based resource can be used for all sorts of purposes within the town and the community at large, said conservation advisory committee member Greg Tetrault.
“Specifically, we’re looking at topography, geography, geology, water resources, the habitat and wildlife. Land use and cultural resources are all part of what we’re going to be introducing in 2025 and then to the community,” he said. “It’s a set of maps that visualize all of the resources of the town. It is the data sets and sources for all of those maps and the data that’s used to produce them.”
The data will be used to help create the town’s comprehensive plan, also in progress. The work on the project, funded by a grant from the Hudson River Estuary Program, is being done with a team of volunteers.
The town board unanimously passed a final order and determination to establish a town ambulance district and board of commissioners. Seats on the three-person board will be filled by the town board. Its members will be appointed to one-, two- and three-year staggered terms.
Complaints about planning board
Zoning board of appeals liaison to the town board Debbie Dougherty read a letter from ZBA chair Josh Vogt noting many of the ZBA’s recent cases had been related to planning-board issues. “At times, the nature of these applications and reasoning behind them have caused our board to question the planning-board processes,” the letter stated.
Applicants felt they were not treated justly or given non-valid determinations in regard to their projects, Vogt wrote. “We, as a ZBA collectively ask that the town board take a deep look into the planning board, their process and what is causing these issues. In my personal time with the ZBA since February 2017, issues such that this have never come so rapidly in succession as they have this year,” he wrote.
Supervisor Mike Boms said he has received five complaints about the planning board in his first year on the job. Building inspector Paul Economos has provided Boms an additional ten names of complainants.
“So in one year’s time, and basically eleven planning board meetings, there were 15 complaints against the planning board,” Boms said. “And a lot of the complaints, when I spoke to the applicants, were really heart-wrenching on how long things take to do. We have a guy that has a solar-panel array. He’s going into his 18th month toward getting approval. We have a subdivision that’s taking ten months …. I understand in talking with other municipalities, maybe two months. So something has to be done here.”
Highway crew gets kudos
It wasn’t all complaints. Orchard Street resident Nanine Funicello thanked highway superintendent Mike Shultis and his crew for fixing drainage issues that have been plaguing the street for a year and a half.
“I’ll tell you a little bit about what’s going on since this project has ended, and that’s that I’ve had no problems with my septic system. I’m able to use as much water as I need without having to worry that it’s going to cause a backup somewhere,” she said.
“They worked in the rain,” Funicello continued. “They were at my house with huge machines and sometimes shovels, some days before all the members of my household were even awake. The only time they didn’t come and work was when they couldn’t because it was too wet. And in the areas that were completely fixed before the bad weather came you can’t even tell that they were there. The grass was returned. Everything was done so beautifully. We had a disastrous situation, and it’s a thing of the past now. So Mr. Shultis, thank you, and to your crew, who I’m going to be a fan of for the rest of my life.”
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