Montour meeting 12/09

Meeting:  The Montour town board met Tuesday, Dec. 9 for 50 minutes.

Attendance:  David Scott and Robert Brown were the only board members absent.  There were two members of the public present.

Action:  The board made an amendment to the budget, decreasing the amount of snow removal funds and giving it to machinery.

Discussion without action:  Tom Bloodgood, from Schuyler County Real Property Tax office, told the board the county’s plan for replacing Randy Deal once he retires.  The real property tax office wants to consolidate the number of assessors they have and build up the support staff.  The board had some questions about how the assessment costs have gone up over the years.  Bloodgood said they would see the benefits of using a county assessor after the county wide reassessments are completed.  he added that costs would go down as they consolidate their staff.

• Jennifer Mehta, from Schuyler County Public Health, also spoke to the board.  She gave a report on the number of rabies cases from this year, none were in the town of Montour.  The New York State Department of Health collected 90 ticks from Watkins Glen State Park and will be testing them for Lyme Disease over the winter.  Mehta also talked about the public health office looking into county wide emergency preparedness.

• The board decided that it was not an oversight on Utica Mutual’s part, not catching that they had the wrong deductible for so long.  The deductible is $500, but the board was told it should be $5,000.

• The Schuyler County Environmental Council is still looking for a representative from the town.

• The town is now under a temporary operating authority with Time Warner after they tried changing their contract time to five years.  The board discussed looking for a new cable provider.

Bids/purchases over $1,000:  None.

Appointments/resignations:  Robert Franklin has resigned due to health issues.

Upcoming meetings:  The year end board meeting will be Dec. 30 at 7 p.m.