by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Organizational meeting began with an executive session, and when the Board returned to regular session, they appointed Gerald Russell as Town Constable and as Veterans Service Officer. Town Constable is a new position – it will be paid at $10 per hour on an on-call basis. Supervisor Siegfried Krahforst said the Town Board is still working on a job description for this position.
[private]Agreements
The Board approved a new annual agreement with Pond View Kennels for dog boarding as needed by the Dog Control Officer. The daily rate is a tiny bit higher than last year. The Board also approved a new annual agreement with the Highway Superintendent, giving the Town Board oversight of some of the Highway Department operations.
The Board approved the usual appointments and salaries, detailed on page 2. They also appointed members of various volunteer standing committees – The Board of Ethics, the Water District Committee, the Alternative Energy Committee, the Economic Development Committee, the Town Law Committee, the Youth and Recreation Committee, the Highway Liaison Committee, the Cemetery Committee and the Personnel Committee. Supervisor Krahforst said he would like to establish one more committee, an emergency response committee, and asked anyone who is interested in serving on this new committee to contact the Town Clerk.
New Highway Hire
After passing these resolutions, the Board got into discussions of several other issues. Highway Superintendent Rob Cottrell said he had found a man willing to work part time for the Town, Pete Miller of West Hoosick. Cottrell said he is a good mechanic a good driver and he has his CDL license. Cottrell asked on what basis and at what rate of pay he should hire Miller. The consensus seemed to be that the part time worker is paid $10.50 per hour, but there wasn’t much guidance on how much or how regularly he should work. Krahforst said he should be working on a regular basis, not just on-call, but nobody had a clear idea how many hours would fit into the budget so the Board suggested that Cottrell discuss this with Town Bookkeeper Charles Guntner.
Garbage Again
Somehow the Town’s garbage arrangements came up again, and although the Board quickly steered away from this discussion, Supervisor Krahforst said the garbage fees don’t come close to covering the Town’s garbage costs, and he made a motion that the fee for a transfer station permit be raised from $15 to $25. It passed unanimously.
Fees Rising
Code Enforcement Officer Martin Conboy then started talking about how low Petersburgh’s building permit fees are compared to other towns. He estimated that Petersburgh’s fees are about 60% of the average for surrounding towns. No action was taken, but Conboy said people should expect the fees to go up sometime this year.[/private]