Board votes to override levy cap
The Nelsonville Village Board on Monday (April 21) approved a $377,540 spending plan for 2025-26 after voting to exceed the state’s 2.77 percent cap on levy increases.
Expenses are projected to be 6.6 percent higher, and the adopted levy rises by 5.21 percent to $326,697. Taxes for the average property owner will increase by $68, said Mayor Chris Winward.
Anticipated legal spending will increase by 20 percent, to $15,000 annually; Keane & Beane has had to defend the village from multiple lawsuits while also reviewing contracts, Winward said. Electricity bills are expected to be 33 percent higher and Nelsonville allocated an increase of 13.6 percent, to $28,411, for insurance for its buildings (including the one leased by Putnam County for a sheriff station) and court actions against its elected and appointed officials.
An additional 9.42 percent was appropriated for employee benefits. The court and village clerk will receive 3 percent raises and the deputy village clerk will receive a 2.55 percent boost.
Winward’s salary will remain at $4,500 annually and the trustees will continue to receive $2,650.
Court changes
The Nelsonville trustees voted to appoint Philipstown Justice Angela Thompson-Tinsley as the acting village justice in place of Stephen Tomann, who retired.
The board also renewed a $150-per-hour contract with Kevin Irwin, a Pawling attorney who prosecutes traffic tickets and other non-criminal violations for Nelsonville, and approved the use of a credit-card reader given to the village by the state’s Unified Court System.
Melissa Harris, the village clerk, said she hopes the machine will increase revenues from fines. “A lot of the time, people will say, ‘I only have a card; can I have a week to pay and mail it in?’ And then they don’t,” she said.
New meeting day and time
The board voted to move its monthly workshop and regular meetings to the second and third Wednesday of each month, respectively. The meeting time will also change, beginning a half-hour earlier, at 7 p.m.
Mondays present a problem because many holidays fall on that day, and compiling information packets for trustees by Friday afternoons has proved difficult, said Winward. “This will give us a lot more time to be able to prepare for meetings,” she said.
No parking
A sign prohibiting parking on Spring Street should be installed soon. Nelsonville approved a ban on Spring Street in December in response to drivers parking along the side of Blacksmith Wines, leaving only one lane.
Trustee Dave Moroney said the installation of a no-parking sign had to be postponed because of equipment problems. There are new no-parking signs on Secor Street. Winward said the village anticipates more hikers parking there to use Nelsonville Woods because Breakneck closed for two years starting April 21.
“It’s only a matter of time until people figure out that they can just have the same view going up Bull Hill,” she said
