Town plans for future

The town of Whitehall prepared for 2009 at its Jan. 14 organizational meeting.

Town councilman James Putorti and town clerk Julie Millett were sworn in as elected officials at the meeting. Both had been appointed to their positions earlier in the year.

 

Town supervisor Vernon Scribner said that the town will continue to look at some of the key issues, including the cleaning of the former Troy Shirtmakers Guild property and a potential new home for the town offices.

Scirbner said that while the town waits for design companies to enter plans for the work at the Tory Shirt site, the town did find out that the project would be submitted by Washington County to the Federal Government for funding.

“I wouldn’t say that the project is on hold because we have been working on it and we put the project in for the potential stimulus package plan,” said Scribner. “We submitted it and we do not know if it will be accepted by the federal government, but we do know that it was accepted by Washington County and we will have to wait and see where it goes from there.”

The design plans and bids are supposed to be delivered to the town by their February meeting, with a decision to be made on who will get the project in March.

“It’s going to be something that we will be playing by ear once we get the bids out,” said Scribner. “As it stands now, once the plans are decided on it should only take a couple of weeks max to clean the property.”

Scribner added that he was not aware of any plans and bids that had been submitted at this time.

Along with waiting on plans for the Troy Shirt property, the town is also waiting to sit down with the Skenesborough Volunteer Fire Company, which is the latest suitor to offer a possible new home for the town hall.

“There is no time set yet for us to sit down and talk about it,” said Scribner. “I imagine that at the February meeting, this will be something that we will be getting into more.”

Other options that have been discussed over the past year include the Troy Shirt property and moving into the former Garden Time and Off-Track Betting site on State Route 4.

Along with town duties, Scribner was named to a number of committees at the county level, including being tapped as the chair of the health committee for the second year.

“We are looking at our hospice program to see if it would be more economically fit to take that out of the hands of the county and put it into private hands,” said Scribner. “We are also looking at the possibility of privatizing Pleasant Valley. Those are the two main things we will be looking at.”

Scribner was also named to the public safety, agriculture/planning/tourism/community development, finance/personnel and public works committees.

“Public works is a new committee for me,” said Scribner. “It’s something that I wanted to be on as we work with the county and towns to find a way to save plowing time and money.”

Dresden town supervisor Robert Banks was picked to serve on the Adirondack Community College, health, human services, public safety and public works committees at the county level, while Hampton supervisor Don Sady was tabbed for the audit, government operations and public safety committees.