NEW SCOTLAND — The town board voted this month to take out a bond anticipation note up to $77,500 to repair the community center entry, update town communications systems, purchase the town’s leased car, and improve the entry and parking at Town Hall.

“There’s a diverse number of things involved here,” Supervisor Douglas LaGrange told The Enterprise. “Our telephone system is 20 years old. A lot of the units are failing. We didn’t even have Caller ID.”

LaGrange said that the board had previously approved funds of $22,500 to update phone systems in town buildings and security cameras in the buildings and in town parks, and to change lighting at both parks and in the highway garage.

On the advice of the town’s financial consultant, accountant Darryl Purinton, the town board voted to finance a BAN that absorbs the already approved $22,500, LaGrange said. The money that was approved would be used, instead, to pay off the lease for the town’s Nissan Rogue — used to transport seniors to appointments — at $13,000, and to pay $8,000 toward the first year of the BAN, LaGrange said. The remaining $55,000 of the approved $77,500 is slated for repaving the lot at Town Hall and exterior upgrades to town buildings.

“We’re trying to make the best with our fiscal situation and still take care of the residents’ property,” he said of the BAN. Financing the capital projects and the other improvements together, he said, gives the town a consistent budgetary figure and gets work done at once, rather than having large projects year to year.

The “medical vehicle,” as LaGrange described the Nissan at the May town board meeting, is three years old and has 12,000 miles on it.

“Everybody likes it,” he said. “The people that use it, the people that drive it.” With the $13,000 buyout, the town will have paid approximately $25,000 for the car, for which LaGrange said, “I don’t see a reason to get rid of a vehicle with 12,000 miles.”

Resident Saul Abrams, who volunteers as a driver, said that the Nissan “provides good quality transportation at a low cost.”

Improved safety

Other communications improvements include creating a way to send an emergency signal from one end of Town Hall to the other, he said. If staff members were “in a risky situation,” they might not be able to call, “but they could push a button,” LaGrange said. Upgrading security cameras in the buildings and in the parks will offer a better sense of security to employees, act as a deterrent for mischief makers, and offer the opportunity to use the cameras for prosecution for illegal activities that are recorded, LaGrange said.

At the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in New Salem, used for events and as a polling place, the front entrance has dangerous steps that have been cordoned off, he said.

“Everyone is entering the rear of the building, which is handicapped accessible,” he said. Costs to repair the entryway are estimated at $15,000, he said.

Other changes being considered include making the rear entrance of Town Hall only for employees, based on a recommendation by the Workplace Violence Committee, he said.

In the front of the building, plowing has ripped off asphalt damaged from frost heaving, LaGrange said. The town plans to have the lot repaved and lined, but the entry area with handicapped parking and the mailbox will be changed.

Resident Gary Glath, a landscape architect, volunteered a plan two years ago to redo the front of Town Hall, LaGrange said, at the behest of the Workplace Violence Committee. Glath spoke at the town board meeting in May, saying that the plan calls for removing the parking in the front of the building; adding flowering trees and inexpensive, immature plant material that grows quickly; and adding two-foot tall berms between the road and the building.

“The first thing you see when you come in is a parking lot,” Glath said.

Town Clerk Diane Deschenes asked the board to consider placement of the existing “big, blue mailbox” in the front of Town Hall. “People like to drive up and drop mail. The post office does, too,” she said.

“We have spoken to the post office,” LaGrange told The Enterprise of the Slingerlands United States Postal Service office. “They’ve been very helpful. We’re probably going to build a little curb and platform.”

The box may be placed on the left side as cars enter the parking lot, along the property line of Our Family’s Harvest, on an island taking up five or six spaces, LaGrange said. The post office may also provide a box with a slot for drivers to place mail without getting out of their vehicles, he said. The island would allow the post office access to the box, he said.

“It’s well used,” LaGrange said. “We certainly want to keep it here.” The town wants to make it more accessible and “clean up traffic congestion,” he said.

The cost for the curb was not included in the upward estimate of $77,500, LaGrange said, but the cost will be minor.

“Wayne LaChappelle, with our department of public works, does things,” LaGrange said, describing the platform as a simple concrete pad. LaGrange also expects the project to come under budget for landscaping, he said.

Glath told the town board that electrical wiring can be seen in the front of the building, but that, as plants grow, the wiring will be screened.
Changes to the front of Town Hall will include a new walkway, and security aspects, LaGrange told The Enterprise. The plan may include strategically placed stone “so you couldn’t drive a car in the front door,” he said.