LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — “Even a non-rocket scientist can put this up in five minutes.” Cochecton Supervisor Gary Maas was reading aloud from a product brochure at the January 23 Cochecton Town Board meeting. “Well then, we may be able to handle installation by ourselves,” he said.

He was talking about a battery-operated “speedminder” radar unit, a flashing sign that lets drivers know how fast they’re going. If they’re under the posted speed limit, their speed flashes in green. If they’re at the speed limit, their speed flashes in yellow. And if they’re over the speed limit, their speed flashes in red.

Maas thought this could be the answer to frequent complaints about speeding on local roads. This model also records traffic data, including the number of vehicles using the road at any given time and the speed at which each is traveling. Although it does not have a camera and cannot read license-plate numbers, Maas sees it as the perfect anonymous tipster. “We’ll just pass the data on to the sheriff’s department, so it will know exactly when drivers tend to speed,” said Maas. From the gallery, someone wisecracked, “When high school lets out.”

The current sale price of this model is $3,200, but Maas plans to research comparable products before charging a purchase to the town’s unused public safety budget line.

The town board, in conjunction with the planning board and town attorney Karen Mannino, then moved to the meeting’s main agenda item: further refinement of a summer-camp zoning ordinance drafted by planning consultant Tom Shepstone.

Planning board member Neil Halloran’s true story of a local camp’s trespass into the barn of a nearby working farm to “pet the animals” ended with campers learning the hard way that farm animals are not pets. That cautionary tale was used as rationale for requiring camps and private schools to put up walls or fences between camp/school property boundaries and those of adjacent properties.

Other provisions include prohibition of outdoor public-address systems; the shielding of adjacent properties from floodlight illumination; a 25-acre minimum lot requirement, a minimum requirement of 10,000 square feet of lot area per cabin, cottage, or living quarters and all other principal buildings. Additionally, the camp/private school must complete a full environmental assessment form that will contain a visual impact study, a fire protection and emergency response plan, and evidence of potential impact on neighboring property values compiled by a licensed appraiser (based on experience at other locations), that evidence to be used for analysis of potential impact on property values near the site.

Camps and private schools will be permitted only in the town’s rural development areas.

Although the draft already addresses all issues encountered by neighboring towns, Maas said he’d hoped by now to be further along in the process. Mannino’s several language change suggestions will be sent to Shepstone, and a revised draft is expected back from him before the town board’s next meeting on February 14. Maas hopes to unveil a final draft at public hearing before expiration of the summer camp moratorium in July.