2
Wallkill Valley Times, Wednesday, January 2, 2019
IN THIS ISSUE
Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Crossword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Montgomery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Police Blotter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
School News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Service Directory. . . . . . . . . . . 27
Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Walden.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
PUBLIC AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2
Town of Crawford Re-organization
meeting. 7:30 a.m. Town Hall, 121 Route
302, Pine Bush.
Valley Central Board of Education, 6
p.m. Administration building, 944 Route
17K, Montgomery. It is anticipated that
the board will move into executive ses-
sion and that no action will be taken.
Crawford Zoning Board of Appeals,
7:30 p.m. Town Hall, 121 Route 302, Pine
THURSDAY, JANUARY 3
Montgomery Town Board, 7 p.m. Town
Government Center, 110 Bracken Road,
Montgomery.
Shawangunk Town Board, 7 p.m. Town
Hall, 14 Central Ave., Wallkill
Gardiner Town Board. 7 p.m. Town Hall,
Route 44-55, Gardiner
MONDAY, JANUARY 7
Town of Montgomery Planning Board,
7 p.m. Town Hall, 110 Bracken Road,
Montgomery.
HOW TO REACH US
OFFICE:
300 Stony Brook Court
Newburgh, NY 12550
PHONE: 845-561-0170, FAX: 845-561-3967
Emails may be directed to the following :
ADVERTISING
[email protected]
CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS
[email protected]
TO REACH THE EDITOR
[email protected]
FOR THE SPORTS DEPARTMENT
[email protected]
PUBLIC NOTICES
[email protected]
WEBSITE
www.timescommunitypapers.com
The Wallkill Valley Times, (USPS 699-490) is a weekly
newspaper published every Wednesday at Newburgh,
NY 12550, with offices at 300 Stony Brook Court,
Newburgh, NY. Single copy: $1 at newsstand. By mail
in Orange, Ulster or Sullivan Counties: $40 annually,
$44 out of county. Periodicals permit at Newburgh, NY.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wallkill Valley
Times, 300 Stony Brook Court, Newburgh, NY 12550.
Walden thanks Larkin for his service
By TED REMSNYDER
Just in time for Christmas, Walden
received a present they’ve long been
waiting to find under the tree. But in
this case it wasn’t Santa delivering the
gift but outgoing New York State Senator
William Larkin, who provided the
village with $300,000 in funding for its
long-desired community center. Larkin
secured the money as part of the State
and Municipal Facilities Program (a SAM
grant) and presented the funds to the
village administration in the form of an
oversized check at a ceremony on Dec. 13.
At the Village Board meeting five days
later, the group expressed its gratitude
towards Larkin, who is retiring at the
end of the year, for obtaining a sizable
chunk of the funds needed to make the
community center a reality.
“Very grateful to Senator Larkin for his
gift of $300,000 towards the community
center,” Walden Mayor Susan Rumbold
said during the meeting. “Someone asked
where the rest of the money is going to
come from, and I guess my answer to that
is that Christmas is coming and if some
kind soul would love to give me a diamond
necklace I’m taking it even though I don’t
have the money right now to buy the
earrings that match. So if somebody’s
going to give me a gift like that, I’m going
to take it and be very grateful for it, and
we will work on the rest of the funding.
But thank you to Senator Larkin for his
gift, I thought it was wonderful.”
The village has been working for years
to procure the necessary funds to build
a new community center in James W.
Olley Community Park that would serve
as a gathering spot for local residents.
The grant from Larkin should cover
nearly half of the money needed to build
the proposed center. “The senator has
discretionary funds and he used part of
those to give us the grant towards the
community center,” Village Manager John
Revella said. “We know that the budget for
the community center is around $650,000,
so we wanted to try to get around half. We
know that we have some projects at work
in the village that would be contributing
parkland use funds towards the village,
which should be enough to match and
complete the project. It’s not a matching
grant, so if we can’t we may have to bond
for some of the funds towards it as well.”
The village requested the funds from
Larkin’s office, and this time it came
through after previous attempts to get
state funding over the years have not been
granted. The plans for the community
center date back nearly a decade,
Retiring State Senator Bill Larkin visited Walden on Dec. 14 to announce a $300,000 grant for
a recreation center. He was greeted by Mayor Susan Rumbold.
though the final details still have to be
crafted. “We proposed it in our 2010-2012
comprehensive plan, it was in there in the
park section,” Revella said. “There’s no
final blueprints because we haven’t spent
that kind of money on it yet. We have the
preliminary information of what it would
be, what it would cost and the location.”
The timeline for getting a shovel into
the ground to start building the center still
has to be hammered out, but according to
the terms of the SAM grant, the earliest
start date is still more than a year away.
“The grant monies won’t even be available
until probably the spring of 2020,” Revella
explained. “So we’re looking at a project
in the spring or early summer of 2020.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, the board
set a public hearing for its next session
on Jan. 15 for Local Law No. 9 of 2018
to amend the Village Planning Board
and the Village Zoning Board of Appeals
mailing protocols. Under the current code,
applicants must mail a notice of every
appeal for a variance to the owners of
certain designated properties by certified
mail and also publish a notice of the
appeal in the newspaper.
Under the amended law, which is still
being crafted by Village Attorney Dave
Donovan to meet the board’s requests, the
village will take over the mailing process,
as residents will no longer be obligated to
send out the mailings themselves.
“Such notice shall be by first-class mail
in envelopes which have been addressed
and on which required first-class postage
has been paid for and affixed by the
applicant, to be mailed by the Board
Secretary or other employee or of Officer
of the Village who shall complete and
file with the Board listing each address
to which the notice was sent,” the
amendment to the code reads. All costs
associated with the mailing shall be set
forth in the Village Fee Schedule, as may
be amended from time to time, and shall
be borne by the applicant.”
By streamlining the process and
putting it under the village umbrella, the
law is designed to save applicants time on
money. The notices will be mailed at least
15 days “before the date of said hearing to
the owners of all property abutting that
held by the applicant in the immediate
area and all other owners within 300 feet,”
the law states.