T IMES
WALLKILL VALLEY
Vol. 35, No 47 3 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2017
Fire
safety Hoops
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Page 20 Page 40
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Pine Bush Library update
Residents voice opinions at ‘We Heard You Meeting’
Fire
protection
Walden conducting
safety inspections of
apartment buildings
By TED REMSNYDER
Pine Bush residents cast their votes on what they’d like to see in the Pine Bush Area Library during last week’s “WHY” meeting.
By JASPREET GILL
[email protected]
Two big white boards were placed in
the middle of the Pine Bush Area Library
Community Center last Wednesday. One
by one, Pine Bush residents went up to
the boards and placed five circle stickers
in different categories on the boards.
Those categories included library space,
safety and access, resources and library
programs.
This interactive exercise was a part
of the “We Heard You” (“WHY”) meeting
with architect Paul Mays where people
voted on what changes they would like
to see in the Pine Bush Area Library.
Votes echoed the library’s initial
October 11 meeting where members
of the Pine Bush community came
together to create a new master plan for
the library.
In the library spaces category, 15
people voted to include more quiet
reading areas, small intimate seating
areas and indoor reading niches. Larger
meeting room spaces closely followed
with 13 votes. For the safety and access
category, nine people voted for more
parking access. Currently, the library
has 25 parking spaces. In the holdings
and programs category, there was a
tie between expanding traditional
collections (books and media) and
expanding traditional programs (story
hours, book clubs, local history) with
ten votes each.
In the resources category, 19 people
Continued on page 2
Walden is ramping up its efforts
to conduct fire safety inspections of
apartment buildings in the village, and
the municipality set a $65 per unit fee
during its Village Board meeting on
Nov. 14 to cover the costs of the safety
examinations. The board previously
passed a local law in March amending the
village code to stipulate that all multiple
dwellings and nonresidential buildings
in Walden will be inspected at least once
every 24 months.
The $65 fee will compensate for
the cost of hiring a part-time worker to
help the building department carry out
the inspections. “I think that protecting
the residents in the Village of Walden
is paramount,” Walden Village Manager
John Revella said. “It is going to cost us
because we do have to get more personnel
to cover those inspections. It’s going to
take time and effort to get through more
than 900 units in the village. We tried to
make sure that the fee is commensurate
with what has to be done. I don’t want
to charge too much, but I don’t want to
charge too little whereas the taxes are
supplementing it.”
When the board passed Local Law
No. 5 of 2017 this spring, the legislation
stated that the law was intended to
Continued on page 2
SERVING CRAWFORD, GARDINER, MAYBROOK, MONTGOMERY, PINE BUSH, SHAWANGUNK, WALDEN AND WALLKILL