Keeping order in Lumberland

DAVID HULSE
Posted 8/21/12

GLEN SPEY, NY — By a unanimous vote, the members of the Lumberland Town Board on August 12 approved a strict new set of “rules of conduct” to govern their meetings.

The rules’ …

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Keeping order in Lumberland

Posted

GLEN SPEY, NY — By a unanimous vote, the members of the Lumberland Town Board on August 12 approved a strict new set of “rules of conduct” to govern their meetings.

The rules’ appearance coincided with the arrival of a new sound system for the board and public comment.

The rules, according to introductory comments, were designed to protect the public’s right to speak at hearings, to limit public input to designated comment periods at regular board meetings and “avoid outbursts and slanders.”

In part, the 14-point rules limit comments to three minutes, to be timed by the supervisor; require recognition of and identification of the speaker and topic before comments are allowed.

They require “decorum,” allowing no personal slanders or attacks. In conducting the meeting, “slurs directed at the supervisor,” will not be allowed, nor will any signs or banners.

Bad actors will be asked to stop and will be removed if disorderly conduct continues.

Supervisor Nadia Rajsz said she asked the town attorney to produce the rules in response to recent “unruly actions and comments” by a board member whom she would not name.

She said that kind of behavior could not be allowed to continue.

Rajsz said that the council member in question “has an obsessive compulsion about acquiring a certain piece of equipment and we cannot plow snow with that piece of equipment.”

Councilman James Akt has for some months outspokenly pressed the board and Highway Superintendent Donald Hunt to acquire a highway paving machine, which he said will reduce annual road repair costs.

The town has instead moved forward with the purchase of a new dump truck/snow plow to replace a truck which has been deemed unsafe.

Akt had pressed for the truck to be repaired, rather than replaced and the differences between the two officials have led to at least one heated post-meeting verbal exchange.

Rajsz said an insurance risk assessment led to the older truck, which had already been damaged in one accident, being taken off the road.

In other business, the board considered resident complaints about the noise created by a helicopter recently providing rides for seriously ill children staying at Camp Simca on White Road. It also heard Rajsz report “spot repairs,” ongoing state road-repair work, now expected to continue through the remainder of the construction season, on state Route 97 covering some 23 miles in the towns of Lumberland, Highland and Tusten.

The board heard Rajsz respond to undefined criticism of fire department bookkeeping by reporting that a new state law raised the financial reporting ceiling for the Lumberland Fire Department to $300,000 as of 2013, that the current I-90 filing form is online for inspection listing $249,000 in 2014 revenues, and that department books are available for inspection at each Monday evening meeting.

The board also scheduled a 7:15 p.m. public hearing on a proposed code of ethics and ethics board, on September 9.

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