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Wallkill Valley Times, Wednesday, May 29, 2019
IN THIS ISSUE
Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Crossword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Letters to the Editor. . . . . . . . . . 8
Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Police Blotter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
School News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Service Directory. . . . . . . . . . . 31
Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Walden.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
PUBLIC AGENDA
THURSDAY, MAY 30
Montgomery Town Board Special
Meeting, 12 p.m. Town Government Center,
110 Bracken Road, Montgomery.Special
meeting to appoint interim Highway
Superintendent and Deputy.
Town of Gardiner Planning Board, 7 p.m.
Town Hall, 2340 Route 44/55, Gardiner.
Organizational meeting.
TUESDAY, JUNE 4
Montgomery Village Board, 6:30 p.m.
Village Hall, 133 Clinton Street.
Gardiner Town Board. 7 p.m. Town Hall,
Route 44-55, Gardiner
Town of Shawangunk Planning Board, 7
p.m. Town Hall, 14 Central Ave., Wallkill.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5
Climate Smart Gardiner Task Force. 7
p.m. Town Hall, Route 44-55, Gardiner.
THURSDAY, JUNE 6
Montgomery Town Board, 7 p.m. Town
Government Center, 110 Bracken Road,
Montgomery.
HOW TO REACH US
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WEBSITE
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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,
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Franco Carucci named to Gardiner Town Board
F
ranco Carucci is bringing his
experience as project manager and a
member of Climate Smart Gardiner
to the Gardiner town board.
Town board members appointed
Carucci at the May meeting. Carucci is
filling the seat left by Micheal Reynolds,
who informed the board he was moving
to New Paltz on March 11.
As a member of Climate Smart
Gardiner, Carucci would bring his
expertise in environmental issues
to the table. He led or co-led several
projects with Climate Smart, including
a community solar project in which he
procured a grant from the New York
State Energy Research and Development
Authority and helped bring clean-energy
options and education to Gardiner
residents.
Carucci and his wife, Rebecca, also
recently completed the Riverkeeper
Sweep, in which volunteers picked up
trash along the Wallkill River, and Trees
for Tribs, in which volunteers planted
trees along a tributary of the Wallkill.
Carucci has a dual B.S in Biochemistry
from Upsala College in East Orange, NJ
and B.S. in Medical Technology from the
University of Medicine and Dentistry of
NJ in Newark, NJ.
Carucci has worked for Siemens
Healthcare for almost 20 years, originally
as an Operations Manager and currently
as a Project Manager with a focus on
management of high impact projects,
process improvement and efficiency, and
Franco Carucci
change management.
Carucci said his experience as project
manager has taught him how to bring
many different people working on many
different levels together.
“As a Project Manager, I often must
work with many groups that do not
directly report to me,” Carucci said.
“Some might find this challenging,
however I see it as an opportunity to
understand other’s viewpoints and work
towards common goals for the betterment
of the project and the community.”
This is a valuable skill for the town
board, in which members must work
with different departments and people
and consider multiple viewpoints.
“I pride myself on being a good listener
and will focus on the concerns and goals
of all residents of Gardiner,” Carucci
said.
Carucci is also a founding member of
Move Forward New York, a citizen action
group of over 2,000 members committed
to promoting social justice, preserving
civil rights, and ensuring environmental
conservation
by
encouraging
participation in the political process
through education, collaboration, and
activism.
He heads Move Forward New York’s
environmental action committee, which
recently completed another bi-annual
adopt-a-highway cleanup on NYS Route
208 in Gardiner.
Town Supervisor Marybeth Majestic
said she is pleased to have a young person
to the town board who can bring a fresh
perspective. She is also impressed by his
commitment to Climate Smart Gardiner.
Carucci will serve until the term
expires on Dec. 31. He said he is planning
to run for the position in the end of year
elections; if he is elected his new term
would begin Jan. 1 2020 and event Dec.
31 2023.
Majestic said the board appreciates the
volunteer service John Friedle, the other
applicant, gave on the town planning
board, open space commission and
assessment review board.
- Laura Fitzgerald
Split vote on PB capital plan
Continued from page 1
meet to discuss what urgent needs might
need to be addressed.
“We’ll need to determine another way
to address the urgent needs athletics
present,” Mains said.
Voters passed the $44.9 million base
proposition. It includes safety features
and much-needed building repairs, such
as secure vestibules, roof repairs and
replacements, boiler replacements,
emergency generators, parking lot
repaving, window and brick replacements,
water infiltration remediation and more.
Mains said the school will break
ground on phase one of the base bond
proposition in summer of 2020. The
project will be broken into three phases,
and one phase is to be completed per
construction season of 2020, 2021 and
2022.
The state aid for the proposition
is approximately $41.2 million, with a
contribution from the capital reserve of
$7.5 million. This leaves $5.3 million, plus
borrowing costs, for the local portion,
which will be bonded out for a total of 18
years.
The projected average annual increase
to taxpayers is 1 percent. If you have a
$3,000 tax bill, your average monthly cost
is $2.50 more. If you have a $10,000 tax bill,
your average monthly cost is $8.33.
However, the local share could shrink
further as more money is deposited in
the capital reserve fund over the next
four years, according to Assistant
Superintendent for Business Michael
Pacella.
This version of the capital plan is a
reduction from the $76 million facilities
modernization plan (FMP), which
included both building improvements
and athletics. Voters defeated the FMP in
December.
“We took out everything we could to
get it down to a price point we thought the
voters could accept,” Mains said.
All aspects of the passed base
proposition are either urgent or
important, and all aspects are critical to
the health of the buildings, Mains said.
The CDC and school board removed all
non-critical elements from the original
FMP and moved some items to the
building and maintenance budget so some
construction elements could be done
in-house.
Voters also passed the $118.77 million
2019-20 budget, an increase of 2.23 percent.
Pacella said the tax levy for the
budget—the amount raised by taxes—
increased by 3.07 percent. The tax levy is
$60.05 million, an increase of $1.78 million
from last year.