LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — Year-end town board meetings usually tie up fiscal loose ends, develop reorganizational meeting agendas, honor outgoing board members, and pass the torch to incoming board members. So it was with Cochecton’s December 27 meeting.

Funds were allocated for a technology upgrade that replaced outdated town hall computers, server and software. Recently received consolidated local street and highway improvement program (CHIPS) funding in the amount of $157,882 were applied to the town’s 2020 highway department budget, as supervisor Gary Maas explained that the unspent portion of last year’s $177,000 CHIPS award will also be applied to this year’s budget.

Subsequent to the board’s December meeting, appointments to all unelected town offices were announced at the 2020 reorganizational meeting Friday, January 3 at 6:30 p.m., as were the upcoming year’s public meeting schedule and the board’s selection of official contractors, including auditors, vendors, suppliers and servicers. Officers were also elected at the January reorganicational meeting, and board members (and former board members) assigned to specific responsibilities and liaison work with other government agencies.

Among those assignments of former board members is the reappointment of retiring board member Anna Story to the town’s website administrator position, a job she has held since joining the board. Story will be succeeded on the board by Michael Walter who, since 2014, has been the town’s wastewater treatment plant operator.

Maas began a tribute to Story by saying she has made a unique contribution to the board, doing one thing no one else on the board could do. “Really, one thing in nine years and two months on the board,” shrieked Story, in mock indignation.

“Well, if you would just shut up and listen to what I have to say,” yelled Maas, feigning exasperation. He went on to tell the public what Story, the only woman to serve on the board since Daisy Smith’s 15-year tenure ended in 2009, “gave us a woman’s point of view.”