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Big New Things?
New Manufacturing Getting Proposed At Ellenville Site...

ELLENVILLE – For those who thought not much was going on in Ellenville besides a lot of crossed fingers for a casino, think again. According to village mayor Jeff Kaplan, two applications before the Ellenville planning board paint a different picture... one of future growth.

"They're big things," Ellenville building inspector Brian Schug said.

One, the proposed construction of a 12,600 square foot storage building for steel, is an expansion to an already thriving business at 28 Canal Street, Optimum Windows. The second — is a proposed specialty tool dye cutting shop at the former Gillette Consumers Oil site in the village.

In simplest regard, it could mean more specialized, highly-skilled jobs for the area — and a sign, the mayor said during an October 15 meeting, held concurrent with a village planning board meeting, that the village was not just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Instead, they were actively pursuing, or at the least supporting, old and new commercial applicants.

While that proved uplifting, various town correspondences regarding the proposed village's financial responsibility for the town-wide property revaluation and changes to the village's emergency management system left the trustees, and mayor, concerned.

"Neither one were discussed with the village board. We did not agree to pay for a portion of the reval," Kaplan said, noting that the last town board administration had acknowledged that a town-wide expense should be paid through their general fund, and not as a shared cost with the village.

The board did pass two local laws at the meeting — numbers two and three of 2014 — for a three-way stop at the intersection of Ann and Warren Streets, citing speeding as a concern; and for a no parking zone on the right side of the Roslyn Street extension, where parking had become problematic for village employees attempting to reach the pump station there.

Speaking of signs... Steven Krulick, former village trustee, handed a lengthy "to-do" list to the board before heading south for the winter months. The projects ranged from replacing preexisting no-parking signs on Hickory Street and looking into speeding solutions on the same road to adding a no-smoking sign outside village hall. He also suggested the board look into updating their website and add microphones to the court room.

While agreeing to look into traffic infractions on Hickory, Ellenville police chief Phil Mattracion shared good news with the board; his department was able to secure multiple grants, one for $6,000 and another for $2,500 grant, from Ulster County Operation Crackdown and Ulster County Stop DWI to aid the department in the crusade against drinking and driving. A separate $2,700 state grant will provide for additional resources enforcing seatbelt use and other traffic violations.

As time goes on, Mattracion said, the department will be looking into possible funding for cameras, a nod towards the nation-wide increased attention on officers' conduct. Additionally, the chief said, part-time officer Tania Dempsey is resigning, having secured a position on the NYC special narcotics division.

During his regular report, village manager Joseph Stoeckeler explained that $3 million in NY Rising monies will be coming in soon, and then special attention can be paid to problematic stream banks in the area.

Additionally, Stoeckeler said, a problem with the new Hickory bridge has been found... Through a gap designed to aid in bridge inspections, a problematic beam was found. Although not hindering the structur of the south west corner of the bridge, the beam does lay below the top of the flood wall. In theory, if water levels rose considerably water could spill over to the ARC building, defeating the purpose of the flood wall.

The DEC recently noticed the gap, he said, despite having approved the Barton & Laguidice design, along with NY DOT.

According to village officials, water has never come up that far to cause a problem, but the board is looking into cost-effective solutions.

In other news, the board approved the expenditure of $330,000 for the purchase of heavy equipment and authorized, subject to permissive referendum, the issuance of the same in serial bonds.

In addition, there will be a public hearing on November 10 regarding eminent domain procedures against the estate of Howard G. Backman for new transmission lines. And, in answer to a residents' concern during a previous meeting, Kaplan said it has been found that the lands of Osterhoudt Mining are currently being assessed as vacant lands, and not as commercial. These things happen, he said, when "specific documents" are not required of a project and thus give no indication to the assessor's office that a change is necessary.



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