Community Update

Monday 5/13/13 the Patchogue Village Board of Trustees will be meeting. While a video will be taken documenting the events of this meeting by a resident citizen group that will plainly show how proceedings did occur I thought it would be useful to give the public a refresher so to speak about just how this meeting is organized and in some cases why as per law and practice things occur as they do.

I do so out of a sense that practically speaking the vast majority of the residents of the village do not attend these meetings and in a representative democracy leave to their elected officials the job of doing the public's work. That said however I also think that how the elected village officials actually govern should not be a mystery to the public and to that end some helpful facts and yes some opinions are offered below.

First off the Board consists of the elected Mayor and six trustees. All are elected by vote of the entire village and each elected official represents the interests of the entire village. The Mayor is of course the chief administrator of the village with day to day duties to manage village government. Trustees do have special duties, with the exception of Trustee Crean, all are designated as various Commissioners of different parts of the village operation such as Zoning, Public Safety, Public works etc. Collectively they decide on various policies of the village that can become law, and each has a duty to report on their activities and do so during the course of a meeting.

The public sometimes participates directly by way of comment when public hearings are held prior to the adoption of some specific laws by the village. And as a regularly scheduled feature of the meeting, its final act so to speak, a Public Portion is held as the last part of the agenda. At that point members of the public may address the Board on any issue of their choosing and can expect some responses from elected officials to their questions. This part of the meeting is the closest model to what usually is called a "New England Town Meeting". This a proud American tradition that traces its roots back to colonial America. It embodies the idea of common citizens addressing their elected officials and seeking from them, face to face, information, facts, offerings of praise for work well done, constructive criticism and accountability when truth needs to speak to power.

In very broad terms that is the format for a meeting.

Now I am going to attempt something I do not believe anyone has ever done: look at these general concepts in terms of a real agenda namely the agenda for this Monday 5/12/13. So here goes.

After the salute to the flag and emergency evacuation rules announced to the public by the Mayor (i.e. fire exits procedures) the first real item of business appears under item 3 Village Clerk for tomorrow "approve Board minutes of 4-22-13". This allows any Board member to offer any corrections to the draft copy each has gotten prior to the meeting. The minutes are actual records of spoken comments made at the meeting with the exception that the comments of members of the public that are made during the Public Portion are no longer recorded but are summarized. Members of the public have no avenue to add, delete, or correct any such summaries. Once approved the meeting moves to its next section.

Village Treasurer Krawczyk then presents "top" bills to be paid. He may take into account other financial trends that need to be explained. He may report as well on other aspects of the village's financial state for example Standard and Poor's has just completed a very favorable report of the state of the village's finances and that report probably will be shared by him with the Trustees and the public.

Item 5 of the agenda is Public Hearing of which none are scheduled for this Monday. Public hearings are often associated with a proposed law that does require some public comment before being decided. Members of the public may address issues relating to that specific topic and their comments are recorded word for word and become part of the permanent record leading up to the decision regarding whatever issue is the subject of a public hearing.

Item 7. Mayor Pontieri. The Mayor is a full member of the Board and has taken on the role of introducing major pieces of legislation. Monday he will be calling for a public hearing date to be set to discuss a zoning change on behalf of an assisted living facility whose owners wish to site it in downtown Patchogue Village on main street. The Mayor will probably provide some details about that proposal but no votes will be taken about the proposed change until the public hearing has in fact occurred. The Mayor also has another proposal he is suggesting: payment for an environmental study that must occur before the sewer district can be extended to the bottom of River Avenue which when it occurs will allow 55 residences to hook up and as well the Dublin Deck and I am only speculating perhaps as well Fairfield on the Bay, rental complex and the Fair Harbor co-op complex which are both located in the same area. The gains to the village are new hook up fees which in the case of the Dublin Deck could be considerable and of course removing waste from the ground water table via a sewer connection rather than accumulation via cesspools in this area plagued by a low lying water table near Patchogue Bay (extremely subject to flooding take it from me a former resident of the Fair Harbor co-op complex).

Next item 7: BID report made by Executive Director Dennis Smith. This is essentially a special district that provides support for the businesses in the village. The BID has been extremely successful obtaining grant money for upgrading building appearances on and off main street. It also has other functions for example it assessed parking needs for the village and has made recommendations concerning parking issues and has taken on role promoting a new signage project for the village that will help direct any one in a car to quickly find any one of the more than two thousand parking spaces that do exist in the village at the present time.

Item 8. Chamber of Commerce Report. The Executive Director of the Chamber reports on its activities for example new store openings and from time may bring up specific issues to the Board for action for example parking situations that may be negatively effecting a particular business or a large group of businesses.

Item 9. Trustee reports. Each trustee is provided a chance to report on their area of responsibility. They may also offer resolutions for adoption by the Board. Some trustees may report in a global sense on various departments of the village for example Trustee Ferb recently reported on the activities of the Building and Housing functions of the village. Trustee Krieger will do the same about Public Safety at another time. Following the village election of 2012 Trustee Crean was unassigned from his previous roles and given a single assignment: he relates on behalf of the village to the Chamber of Commerce.

While I am tempted to go into each Trustees report with more detail I have to be mindful that this has been a rather long blog and today I am going to settle for just some broad strokes.

Last item: Public Portion. Members of the public can address the Mayor and through him other members of the Board and at times Village attorney Egan and Village Clerk Seal about issues of interest. Comments can be praiseworthy, they may seek information or offer information, they may be critical as well and call for changes in the operation of the village as needed. Under new rules recently adopted members of the public can speak for a reasonable amount of time but the Mayor now has the power and has said he will use that power to limit speech speech by any one person to a three minute time period. The Mayor has indicated that he will use that power when there is a large turnout for an issue and it makes sense to equalize the chance to speak by giving a larger number of persons the option of speaking for a shorter period of time instead of letting just a few speak while others may not get that chance or not do so until late.

While most jurisdictions that have public portions usually schedule them as one of the first agenda items Patchogue Village which did so in its past, does not do so now. As a result anyone coming to a meeting and wishing to speak should do so knowing that while they will be allowed to speak it may be some time before they will actually get a chance to do so.

Lastly a copy of the agenda for Monday's meeting is posted on line. As well copies of past minutes are also posted online at the Village's website and there is a calendar too that charts out all future meeting dates and times for the meetings: http://www.patchoguevillage.org/

In the future I will provide some more guides to how village laws are passed, trends in governing, anything I think will help tax paying citizens to better understand their village government: suggestions for topics welcome.