TIMES
WALLKILL VALLEY
Vol. 34, No 39 3 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
3
ONE DOLLAR
Bushmen
bounce
Bears
Page 48
www.WallkillValleyTimes.net
If at first you don’t succeed....
Walden Fire District again proposes expanding fire house
Walden
orders
troubled
house
vacated
By TED REMSNYDER
Two years after their plan was rejected by voters, the Walden Fire District is putting a new proposal to enlarge their facility up on the
ballot.
By JESSICA COHEN
[email protected]
On their way to a fire, fire fighters
should not have to wend their way
around gear and vehicles crammed
into a firehouse, says Walden Fire
Department Commissioner Chairman
Roy Werner. So Walden Fire Department
has a new plan to build an addition to
the fire house without increasing taxes,
unlike a plan voters rejected two years
ago, he said. A consultation with H2M
Architects + Engineers in White Plains
resulted in a plan for a “bare bones”
two bay addition for about $830,000 that
would be covered by the department’s
regular operating budget.
The department adds money annually
to two reserve accounts, one for
buildings, one for apparatus, Werner
says. The building account now has
abour $900,000.
“We want to take $500,000 from that
account and a bond for $400,000,” he
said.
The loan payments would be paid
with money previously allotted to pay
off the fire house and vehicle bonds,
which have been paid off.
“We owe nothing now,” said Werner.
“We’ll put that proposal out for a public
vote. The project is a different scope
from what was rejected two years ago.
The taxpayers would pay nothing. The
question is whether to pay off the bond
in 10 or 15 years. We could pay it off in
four,” he said.
That decision will be made after
the vote, since consultation with an
attorney would cost additional money,
Werner said.
The failed proposal included an
office and classroom and two or three
standalone bays that would cost $500,000
from the reserve account and a bond for
just under $1 million. But soil boring in
the back property revealed the fill to be
sidewalk concrete that would be costly
to remove.
Continued on page 3
In early August, an impassioned
group of Walden residents showed up at
a Village Board meeting and called for
the administration to take action against
the landlord of a house that they felt
was degrading the quality of life in the
neighborhood. Nearly 70 residents signed
a petition asking for the foul conditions
at 14 Riverview St. to be cleaned up,
and numerous locals complained about
disruptive tenants living in the residence.
After weeks of steady progress on the
issue, the Walden board unanimously
passed a resolution at its meeting on
Sept. 20 which declared that the building’s
residents must vacate the premises by
Oct. 4 in order for the landlord to fix
dozens of code violations found at the site.
The resolution was an addendum
to a measure passed by the board two
weeks prior, which labeled the building
dangerous and unsafe. Since then, a
structural inspection performed by
Steven Deutsch identified a handful of
serious structural deficiencies within
the dwelling. The engineer discovered
that three floor joists in the basement
had “serious dry rot powder post beetle
damage.” The report also revealed that
Continued on page 4
SERVING CRAWFORD, GARDINER, MAYBROOK, MONTGOMERY, PINE BUSH, SHAWANGUNK, WALDEN AND WALLKILL