January 8th Town Board Notes

This site will attempt to keep you updated on the Union Vale Town Board meetings, the first of which was held on January 8,2017 due to snow on the prior Thursday.

         All present participated in the Pledge of Allegiance.

  • Then followed the swearing in of those present who will assume office.
  • Ms. Maas then thanked Town Highway Supervisor  Richie Wisseman and his department for doing a good job with snow removal.
  • Ms. Maas then thanked Town Clerk Andrea Casey and her assistant,  Elizabeth Panco, for their fine work enabling residents to pay their 2018 state taxes early.

          New:  Ms. Maas has rearranged the seating of the Town Board. The new arrangement places  Ms. Maas at the head of the table as the only board member whose face is fully  visible to the camera and audience.The other board members look across the       table at each other.

           New: Ms. Maas announced that although the Town Board will continue to hold two monthly meetings, only the second will be televised. Taxpayers may attend bo meetings, but public comments will be accepted only at the second. Ms. Mass said that the first meeting of each month is for signing vouchers and “getting work done  and that “where the money is coming from and who had what bill” to submit is something that the public is “not interested” in.

            Then came the still- in- existence first meeting public comment session.

        Anne McCabe from Darren Rd. ( the author of this page) came forward to ask for the restoration of 13 minutes of video tape of the Nov. 9, 2017 board meeting on the Youtube site. Mrs. McCabe said she was troubled by this editing because she had addressed the topic of the abuse of printed matter on the Republican Facebook site prior to the Nov. 2017 election. Also, Mrs. McCabe indicated that missing from this section was the reading by then supervisor-elect Maas of a letter Maas said was anonymous but which was filled with harsh language.

       Mrs. McCabe followed this comment with two on the innovations of Ms. Maas. First,the table setup did allow the council members to see each other, which  was probably helpful, but since each council member was an elected official who had a constituency and the only person fully visible to Mrs. McCabe from her seat in the assembled public at the meeting was that of Ms. Maas, it seemed that the other elected council members were not being given proper focus. Mrs. McCabe suggested an A formation.

    Secondly, Mrs. McCabe took issue with the idea that the first monthly meeting would not be televised. Mrs. McCabe stated that any meeting of elected representatives which dealt with taxpayers money and the payment of vouchers would be something she felt needed to be televised. At this point Ms. Maas thanked Mrs. McCabe and asked for other public input.

Mrs. Elfrieda Tillman rose to support Mrs. McCabe’s view on the televised meeting.

   The meeting ended.

    And now you, another taxpayer, get to have your say.

If you would like the first and second town board meetings to be televised, please email ALL of the following town board members: councilmanfrazier@gmail.com  mcmorris.uvny@gmail.com corrinakelley2015@gmail.com      councilmanjohnwelsh@gmail.com and supervisor@unionvaleny.us

   Thank you. Please do so before this Thursday, the second town board meeting.

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