The Community Budget Advisory Meeting scheduled at Valley Central Middle School is canceled due to snow.
The meeting is rescheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 23 at at the middle school.
At the second meeting of the Coldengham Preservation and Historical Society, you’ll find out why such a nonprofit is forming at all.
Following the business meeting, history buffs will discuss the Colden legacy.
Did you know that Dr. Cadwallader Colden’s history book about Native Americans transformed conventional thought and propelled Benjamin Franklin toward colonial unity and, later, American democracy.
Or that Colden’s physics theories transformed conventional thought about the nature of matter?
Or that Jane Colden, a botanist, was the first female of her kind in the country?
Find out more, and join this organizing group at 3 p.m. Feb. 21 at the Wallkill River School, 232 Ward St, Montgomery. Snow date is Feb. 28.
The Walden Local Development Corporation laid their plans for the Packaged Lighting Supply building on Tuesday at the village board meeting.
Offering a list of current members, pictures and maps, engineer Tom Olley said the WLDC wants to create a multi-use property. The plans include commercial and office space, apartments, parking and a new location for the bus stop. The plan would leave room for a potential Metro North rail line into Walden.
The group is asking for $50,000 from a redevelopment fund that was generated by a previous affordable housing project. The group is also applying for a matching grant, with a March 10 deadline, that would double that money, said Stephanie Faso, who sits on the LDC board.
Faso said the project will use volunteers and grant money to make an abandoned property viable.
“This is a group of very talented men, and now a woman, that’s willing to take this on,” she said.
Five people have already thrown their hat in the ring for the three seats up for election on the Walden board.
Board members Susan Helstrom-Rumbold, Bernard Bowen and Roy Wynkoop will try again for their seats, while Jose DeJesus and Randi-Lee Penney will challenge them.
Penney, Bowen and Rumbold are running together under the party name New Voice.
A group that some thought was defeated will be back at the Walden village board tonight.
The Walden Local Development Corporation will make about a 15 minute public presentation to the board, Mayor Brian Maher said. The group has been retooling both its membership and its ideas for the Packaged Lighting building at 29 Grant Street, Maher said.
Last September, the group which had been inactive for several years, was holding executive session meetings with the village board, to talk about a building on the market for $750,000. The Packaged Lighting property sits smack dab in the center of a village proposal to expand commuter rail to Walden.
Tom Olley will give the presentation tonight. Maher said he isn’t opposed to seeing the property redeveloped, but he won’t favor a proposal that relied heavily on taxpayer money.
“I hope they can put a proposal together that can benefit the village and that area,” Maher said.
The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.
The district Wednesday said that all future Community Advisory Budget Meetings will be at Valley Central Middle School, instead of Berea Elementary School as originally advertised.
The meetings are Feb. 16, March 1 and March 15 at 7 p.m.
Those concerned about the budget in the Valley Central School District are looking closely at salaries and questioning whether the district really is ‘very cheap.’
At Monday’s budget hearing one speaker questioned Superintendent Richard Hooley’s recent pay raises. Hooley responded by saying he was the only administrator he knew of who had ever taken a pay freeze, adding that the freeze wasn’t last year.
Here’s a look at Hooley’s salary history:
2007-2008: $154,120
2008-2009: $182,188 (18.2 percent increase)
2009-2010: estimated $190,000 (est. 4.2 percent increase)
You can compare Hooley’s salary with other local school superintendents by checking out the state’s administrator salary reports. (NOTE: these are only estimates and not actual figures)
The Times Herald-Record salary database has actual figures for 2007. We are currently uploading the 2009 figures.
Valley Central School District seems to be on the Gov. David Paterson’s radar lately, as evidenced by an unsolicited call from spokesman Morgan Hook Wednesday.
Hook said he called to “remind readers of the numbers out there.” He reiterated the governor’s talking points on the proposed state budget: that school aid has increased 42 percent since 2003-04, that New York’s per pupil spending is 61 percent above the national average, and that districts statewide have rainy day funds to tap into.
He questioned why the district would have to raise taxes and close a school because of a $3.6 million state aid cut. “They’re saying they have to shut down an elementary school,” Hook said. “That has nothing to do with the governor’s office.”
Superintendent Richard Hooley has spelled out several reasons why he believes consolidation is needed: the state aid cuts, a 30 percent increase in pension contributions, and additional mandates that increase the budget by 6.3 percent. Consolidating schools would allow the district to save money by cutting support paraprofessionals and administrators, in an attempt to minimize the impact on classrooms.
Valley Central business superintendent Steve Bangert said Monday that it will tap into rainy day funds as much as practical to preserve programs.
Hook said the governor doesn’t like cutting state aid but there’s no other choice.
“During an historic fiscal economic crisis the governor and the people in state government have had to make difficult choices and have to budget responsibly, it is incumbent on the school district to have to do the same thing,” Hook said.
Remember kids: adults are just pretending they don’t hear you.
Then, there are those moments where you realize that they’re in on the joke you’ve been telling behind their backs or on social network sites.
One such “ah-ha” came when Valley Central Superintendent Richard Hooley was explaining to parents at Monday’s budget committee meeting that he’s really stingy. The heat’s turned down, there are no color copiers in schools, and teachers practically have to beg for new textbooks.
Then he said it (we didn’t) and echoed the name of a recently-formed group on Facebook. “VC really does stand for Very Cheap.”
Find out about energy assistance
Maybrook homeowners can find out about a new weatherization grant available to help make homes more energy efficient at a meeting Tuesday, March 23.
A Rural Development Advisory Corporation spokesman will talk about Weatherization Assistance Program funds available now to income eligible households.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the Maybrook Senior Center. For more information, call village trustee Gina Bradshaw at 494-6815.