All’s Quiet On The Stephentown Front, For Now
By Thaddeus Flint
It was a short, quiet Town Board meeting in Stephentown last Monday, August 19, with Celebrate Stephentown! and garbage being the only hot topics on a warm night. However, expensive storm clouds might be looming on the Town’s horizon.
Another Celebrate Stephentown is over and it all went well, reported organizer Scott Menhinick. Unlike music festivals, attendees at the August 19 meeting were there to say how happy they were with the whole thing, and no police chases were reported. Menhinick and other organizers received a round of applause for all their hard work, as well as somehow making sure the weather cooperated. All the events were well attended, said Menhinick. “It was great to have the whole community come together,” he added.
“It was fun…most of the time,” agreed Town Supervisor Larry Eckhardt, who still appeared a bit frazzled from his event, Rensselaer County’s second annual Farm Day Out. The Supervisor said as many as 500 people came to his Kinderhook Creek Farm for hayrides, food, and to learn a little bit about agriculture.
According to an article in The Saratogian, Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin said that Celebrate Stephentown showcased the Town as being a “growing, vibrant community with a bright future.”
With comments like that, people might be flocking to Stephentown to see what’s going on there. Or maybe not. But either way, the Board would like to keep things tidy in case unexpected guests of any number arrive. First of all, take down your temporary roadside signs, said the Supervisor. The Town has asked this before but some people don’t seem to understand that you can’t just leave signs in the Town’s park and along its roadsides after an event is over. Unless you are dead or in prison, there is really no excuse for not cleaning up after yourself. The Town is now hinting that if things continue as they have already continued since previous warnings, they might have to do something about it. “There is no policy, but there could be a policy,” said the Supervisor. The possibility of going after such scofflaws for littering was brought up. The fact that most signs list addresses would make it easy to track down offenders, unless they had died, in which case the joke’s on them, or are in prison, in which case a $300 citation for littering is probably the least of their problems.
The second idea to get the town spick-and-span will be a Town Clean-Up Day. According to Councilwoman Pam Kueppers, who is organizing the event, Stephentown’s Clean-Up Day will be more relaxed than New Lebanon’s, which was the initial model for the idea. Instead of everyone showing up at the Transfer Station the same day, Stephentown’s Day will be held over three weeks (New Lebanon doesn’t have a Transfer Station). Residents will need to go to the Town Hall and pick up a ticket around the second week in September. Tickets will be for a Wednesday, a Friday, or a Saturday. So choose the one that best fits your schedule. Then on your day during the weeks of September 25 to 28, October 2 to 5, or October 9 to 11, you can appear with up to two pickup trucks full of junk. So if it’s raining or snowing, or you just don’t feel like it, residents can decide to wait until the last minute if that’s the way they best do things. Residents will just need the ticket, they do not have to have a Transfer Station permit. No garbage will be allowed, but up to four tires will be accepted. Councilman Bill Jennings made a point to stress the number “four” when it comes to tires, in case the Supervisor decided to see if he could get his collection of a thousand silage tires in under the radar. No hazardous waste is allowed. Councilwoman Kueppers also said that someone took down and brought an entire house to New Lebanon’s Clean-Up Day. Don’t do that, she said.
Residents visiting the Transfer Station should notice the nice new digs there to keep the employees out of the elements and in front of the television. They should because they paid for it. While the shed cost $6,000, for some reason wiring and hooking up the electricity cost “more than it did to buy the shed,” reported Councilman Jennings. Quite a bit more, in fact, at $9,925. Of that amount, $5,425 was spent on just bringing electricity to the building. The old building still stands, basically “a museum of tchotchkes,” said Jennings, until it “falls into the ground.”
The night ended with the expensive storm clouds possibly looming. After a recent story in the Times Union reported the Town might be sued for allegations of long-past events now coming to light, Town Justice John Meekins asked if any papers had been served yet. He used no names of any entities involved. Town Clerk Stephanie Wagar, reported that as of that night, nothing had been received. The Supervisor added that as far as he knows the Town’s lawyers have received nothing either. “I don’t know what’s going on,” said Eckhardt.