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Wallkill Valley Times, Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Shawangunk looks to refinance town hall bond
By TED REMSNYDER
A decade after issuing bonds to fund
the construction of its new Town Hall,
the Town of Shawangunk is examining
the possibility of refinancing the bonds in
order to save a sizable amount of money.
During its May 16 meeting, the board
heard a presentation from Noah Nadelson
of the Munistat financial advisory firm
regarding their options for refinancing or
paying off their bonds.
The municipality has approximately
$2.45 million in bonds between the Town
Hall funds and the water district, with
$1.15 million in bonds out for the sewer
fund. The Town Hall bonds were issued
in 2009 with a 10-year call, and the sewer
bonds were issued in 2010 with a nine-
year call, so the town has options this
year in both cases. During Thursday’s
session, the board unanimously adopted
a resolution to pay off the 2010 sewer
bonds this year with fund balance from
the sewer fund.
All of the bonds can be prepaid or
refinanced in November. “If you want to
refinance them, you can do that 90 days
in advance of the call date, so we can
refinance the bonds as early as August
1st,” Nadelson told the board. Investors
have been collecting interest payments on
the bonds every six months for the past
10 years. “What you could do is sell the
bonds towards the middle or end of July,
and then you could close after August 1,”
Nadelson explained.
If the town chooses to refinance the
Town Hall and water bonds, Shawangunk
could save between $17,000 to $20,000 per
year from 2020 to 2034, for a projected
total of $279,428 in total savings.
“We’ve been eyeing the sewer bond
because we wanted to call those and pay
them off,” Town Supervisor John Valk
said. “So I scheduled an appointment with
this gentleman (Nadelson) and he did the
numbers, and when he brought them in I
was quite impressed with how much we
could save. So that’s why I invited him
to the board, so we can proceed and have
time to think about it.”
The town will monitor market
conditions over the next few months
before a decision has to be made on the
potential refinancing.
“If interest rates go up, we’ll just freeze
it for now and wait,” Valk said during
the meeting. If the refinancing moves
forward, it could provide the town with
a fiscal boost. “We could use another 20
grand a year in the town coffers,” Valk
told the board.
Slow ambulance response time
During Thursday’s meeting, resident
Ingrid Malloy informed the board about a
scary situation that took place on May 11
when a local boy became pinned under an
ATV. While the sheriff’s department and
fire department responded immediately,
Malloy explained that it took an hour for
an ambulance to arrive on the scene after
the local team did not arrive.
Eventually a Pine Bush ambulance was
called to tend to the young victim, who
was not seriously injured. Malloy said
the situation wasn’t tenable for residents
who may face life-or-death situations and
need an ambulance to respond promptly.
The Mobile Life firm handles the town’s
ambulance during the day, while the
Wallkill volunteer corps responds to calls
on nights and weekends.
“Mobile Life covers 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Monday through Friday, because that’s
when people are working,” Valk said.
“Then the locals cover evenings and the
overnights and weekends. They’ve only
been responding to less than 50 percent
of those calls. So gaining volunteers
is difficult. There’s only four or five
members that respond to calls. This is not
just ours, this is all over. It’s a big issue.”
Shawangunk Police Chief Gerald
Marlatt said that he’s noticed a dwindling
number of volunteers signing up to man
the ambulances. “It’s probably been the
last 10 years I’ve seen a rapid decline in
volunteers,” Marlatt told the board. “Not
only for Wallkill Ambulance, but Pine
Bush Ambulance as well.”
Valk said the town would have to
raise taxes significantly to contract
an outside firm to cover all the shifts.
“This ambulance corps wanted to hire
EMTs, which the payroll would have been
$300,000,” Valk said during the meeting.
“They wanted us to raise the taxes from
$80,000 to $300,000, which we would far
exceed the tax cap then.”
Malloy noted that she would pay for
the peace of mind to know an ambulance
would show up when one is desperately
required. “I don’t mind paying for a
service, because someday I may need it,”
she told the board.
“We have no control over making
people go to an ambulance call, they’re
volunteers,” Councilman Robert Miller
said during the meeting. “If they decide
not to go, we can’t do anything about it. “
Montgomery residents fight auto facility
Continued from page 1
& Polidoro, LLP, George Rodenhausen,
who represents the Browns, said.
In a letter to the ZBA, Rodenhausen
stated the proposed action is a junkyard,
which is prohibited in the I-3 zone.
Rodenhausen references BHT project
engineer Ross Winglovitsz’s Oct. 16 letter
to Schmidt, which requests confirmation
that the use is a permitted special
exception use.
Winglovitz states in the letter the
vehicles brought to the site will be
inoperable because of accident or flood.
Rodenhausen references the town’s
zoning code, which defines a junkyard
as “Any land or structure or part thereof
exceeding 300 square feet in area, used for
the collecting . . . [or] storage . . . of . . .
vehicles not in running condition.”
Rodenhausen stated the project does
not fit the definitions of auto sales
because auto sales usually means cars
can be driven off the lot, the opposite of
the proposed project outlined in planning
board documents. The project does not
fit automobile recycling facility because
that requires the dismantling of vehicles,
which will not be taking place on site.
Winglovitz said the property is not a
salvage or junkyard because there will be
no dismantling of vehicles on site.
Rodenhausen stated the proposed
action would threaten the survival of
the Brown’s livelihood. Under the law,
an appeal may be taken by any person
aggrieved by the determination.
Rodenhausen referenced the Orange
County Department of Planning’s letter
to the planning board, which stated the
project could have negative impacts to
water quality. The Tin Brook adjoins the
site, and it lies in a floodplain district
which contains about 53 acres of wetlands.
Rodenhausen also referenced the
Orange County Agricultural and
Farmland Protection Board, which states
the project would have a negative impact to
farming by taking viable agricultural land
and potentially polluting groundwater
which livestock would drink.
BHT project attorney John Cappello
could not be reached for comment.
Town of Montgomery
Memorial Day Service
The Town of Montgomery will be holding
a Memorial Day Service
on
SUNDAY, MAY 26
at the Town Government Center,
110 Bracken Road, Montgomery, NY 12549.
Line up is at 1:30 p.m. for a short parade,
which begins at 2:00 p.m.
The ceremony will start after the parade.