The big news from the Malta Town Board meeting was the resolution regarding the Dunning Street fire station, which I highlighted in my story for tomorrow's paper.

Though the Malta Ridge and Round Lake fire companies have been looking at a four-acre, town-owned parcel for the last few months, they may now shift their focus to a nearby plot on Hemphill Drive with all the convenience of being in downtown Malta without all the red tape.

I asked Town Supervisor Paul Sausville why the fire companies should be expected to spend thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on meeting the conditions of the sale if there's no guarantee that they'd be allowed to purchase the property once the conditions were met.

This quote didn't make it into the recap, but needs to be shared:

"As Yogi Berra would say, 'if you don't know where you're going, there's a good chance you're not going to get there.'"

He slightly paraphrased the quote, but I don't necessarily think that's applicable. The fire department knows where it wanted to go — Dunning Street — but they received neither the support of the town or the community. When that kind of thing happens, you inherently second guess yourself.

Had they not found this parcel on Hemphill Place, I think the fire departments would have been a lot more likely to forge ahead with the Dunning Street plans. But that just seems like a bad public relations move now. I think you're going to start seeing them seriously pursue that parcel as an option.

It's appraised at $200,000, which is about $300,000 cheaper than the Dunning Street parcel, and it doesn't require any of the studies.

After the jump, more resolutions.



The shared fire station is a core need for Malta, Sausville said, as is a new highway garage, which I've written about before. On Monday, the garage project took a step forward.

The Town Board authorized two contracts: one with Clark Patterson Lee for schematic design in an amount not to exceed $25,500 and with Chazen Engineering for survey work in an amount not to exceed $12,740.

The board also created a capital fund for the expansion project, the initial $40,000 investment to come out of the town's surplus fund balance.

This is the direct result of the committee work I referenced in my last story, which is trying to reduce the overall bonding cost of the project to less than $1 million.

The ongoing attempt to revise Malta's noise ordinance will be revisited March 5. Here's the formal announcement:

PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that the Town Board of the Town of Malta will hold a public hearing concerning said proposed amendments to Chapter 115 (Noise) of the Town Code concerning the regulation of certain noise-producing activities within the Town of Malta, on the 5th day of March, 2012, at 6:55 P.M., at the Town Hall of the Town of Malta, 2540 Route 9, Malta, New York 12020, at which time and place all persons desiring to be heard thereon will be heard. 

Board members have told me they wouldn't want to go to a public hearing until they had a proposal they were pretty confident was a.) practical b.) fair and c.) enforceable. Previous versions were not.

I have requested a copy of the current draft of the proposal, but haven't yet received it. When I get it, I'll post it here.

Until next time,

MC