001[Music] good evening Mr ler good evening everybody well excuse me I throat I had some spinal surgery a few weeks ago and my was not yet back to normal so well we be doing that a lot fortunately um thank you um I try to come here every year or two and have an update on something that's going on in the village that either has a direct or indirect impact to the to the school and the school Community as a as a greater whole and U I don't think I've been here since Co so good to see you all in person um some things that the village is working on uh that will be happening in the near future um we have a comprehensive plan for the town and the village and that plan has been
002in place now for about 15 or 16 years and they say you should update it every 10 years um we have g into another partnership with Green County I in town Kaki and the village and that plan is going to get updated probably starting sometime later this year I'm sure there'll be people from the school who will ask to be a part of that like steering committee uh to come up with that new plan um it's if you want to see what it is on our website I've used it quite a bit over the years as a guiding document for you know how we move the forward village Village forward and how the town you know has moveed forward obviously as you know we've had a lot of growth in the last several years so
003there's really been an emphasis on getting starting to get that up one of my favorite least favorite subjects is n mobile homes uh M saate project uh it is moving forward um there is 360 homes planned on the old sh hor harsh Farm area um the point that they're at right now is they have submitted what they believe to be as their final supplemental draft environmental impact statement that is in process being reviewed by our attorneys and our Engineers everybody in line asked the $25 billion question when are they going to start building the rate they're going right now I wouldn't expect until maybe the end of next year but the plan the project they believe is still economically viable and that they will will go forward with that um their plan is is to
004build approximately 60,000 each phase but we don't know when those phases how long those phases will be phase could be two years a phase could be you know one year we'll have to see um we do have what we hope is the last large waste water project coming up um we have a lot of sewer lines that are what are called the combined sewers so they're sanitary and storm together and we don't like that DC doesn't like that that's where you're collecting rain water as well sending it to the sewer plant we don't need to treat rain water so over the next I think this summer we have a lot of streets in the village dug up um it's a $6 million project and we got $6 million in Grants we good shape there the
005other project which I think schools addressed a long long time ago but now there's going to be a focus out in the community is lead water lines lead surface lines we are under mandate from the EPA um to survey every single structure within the village and determine if it's got oring at what type of water line it has we have the document we have the database and we made our first admission to that database last fall what's going to happen what we think is going to happen eventually is there's going to be a lot of money available and we apply for Grants somebody's going to replace these light water lines or whatever other water line you may have that's not appropriate we estimate that to replace the lead lines that we found so far in
006the village is several million dollars not to mention if you have one street where you have to place six or seven water lines and that waterline happens to be right down the middle of the street now you're really messing out that street as well so now you're going to repa that street you've got that cost as well it I think it should have been done many many many years ago um we we have had situations of light poisonings in the village but that's been through pain in Old buildings um still so that's coming down the road one that really affects the school and youth folks we have made a lot of improvements in the water system and the water lines over the last 16 years that I've been there as mayor the one thing that
007we still lack is the ability to store water so we can make a lot of water we make all the water we need but we can only store about 400,000 gallons and in the course of the day that's about a half a day supply so as you know when we did a big water break and a month ago we had water break and we're losing 12200 gallons a minute and that's when they just watch the level of the the well underneath the pl just continue to go down and down the last thing you ever want to do a water system is run a drive because if you run a drive it takes days to bring it back up because you get air locks and you get stuff in the pipes this is just just a
008mess plan right now it's been six years in the making they're going to get struck two 1 million G water tanks stainless steel up by the water plant the property that we we bought hopefully be done by the end of the year or early 2026 we'll then have 2 million gallons of sorage capacity so we'll have at least two full days maybe a little more if there's conservation but so we get that big water break we should be able to just leave everything on we hope or reduce the number of times that we have to shut people off or shut the school off I know we're good for at least one sometimes two days off for you guys each year so we're trying to cut that down um Riverside Park U as you know it
009was redone a couple years ago uh the biggest complaint I've had since then is is a good Wi-Fi it's coming this summer we signed a contract with ar money uh about $30,000 project put Wi-Fi all throughout par in different nodes so no matter where you are in part you should be able to get live Wi-Fi that will help our weekly farage Market where all the vendors have to step out from underneath the big Pavilion in order to get some type of signal and conduct their sale so that will also help when your folks go down there with your you know the different grades and stuff and have activities and stuff like that so that'll be a big big Improvement building dog park um right kind of right behind here over we in the old American
010Val property uh we had obained 6 Acres of that 12 wer site about last year at this time through ENT domain when you do ENT domain you have to have a stated purpose and we stated our purpose in DG Park the Champlain Hudson power line expresses coming through we were able to get a public benefit donation from them they scirt it under about this much or should I say we're supposed to scirt it under about this much of Fireman's Park well as you all may know that the road there isn't in such great shape well they hit the uh Force sewer M and when they did that the rad ke then they had to redone and the road he and haded done again and will get redone again sometime in the spring but when I
011got there when they we did that I looked at them and I said what are you guys doing here you're supposed to be 100 ft over there by our Park oh no we never knew we going there so we don't know what happened but I got my $50,000 so that's what we're using to construct the dog park um that will not construct the entire dog park um we will be able to get base in and the fencing which is going to be about $35,000 we'll have a small dog area large dog area the rest of it we're going to form a group and they're going to have the flood race so Sunday March 9th at 6:00 p.m. I'm going to host the public meeting at Village wall anybody that's interested and I I'm I'm pretty
012sure it's going to be safe REM because the last time we had meeting about a DA we had 45 people there um so I'm hopeful that if a group of form raise money to put some that structure up people could stay on the sun seating and then all the features that they want to see for dogs um I don't want the village to do it I want the dog owners to say this is what we want to see and make it happen so that's that's in that's in the works um hopefully we'll get the basic do Park open sometime in summer midd summer so um you all know we have a lot of word rates uh we were very fortunate uh last summer we got $100,000 from the county through Ark money we used $100,000
013bars and the C the town matched that and we replaced th000 ft of waterline up y Street and also replaced a bunch of private lines that were there and these private lines were nightmare they would break almost once a month and they weren't marked so we didn't really know which one which of which house and so you had just go shut them off and turn them on until fig out where where went we replace that we reduce the number of water breaks by 40% just with that one section of line we were averaging 10 years ago around average averaging 20 to 25 water breaks a year now we're down to about 10 12 so significant progress and we'll make more progress we'll get even further down there you may recall we got 45 million your
014for Grant two years ago right about two years ago all those projects are in progress um The Village projects uh redoing downtown with better lock ability better sidewalks lighting things like that that's getting going 14 South River Street the one that's next to the deli that's going to be uh Welcome Center in the bottom uh Museum on the top and it will be open to any groups that want to have meetings like the Historical Society um uh the chamber you know things like that will be available that also be kind of a base of operations for the farmers market each week or side Festival things like that um if things go according to plan may get that open by the end of the year but we we'll see um part of that also is um
015better self-service for dat and we got that money through the village I State telephone got $300,000 and I've been act actively engaged both Horizon and AT&T we're both committed to do cell towers down there not cell towers like you think big called structures Verizon's going to go on top of the state to building with a small Unit A TMT does whole mounted units so they will be at the corner of Reed and Mansion so basically across the street from my office we're going to go on top of that that poll right there long get commission next week so some point this year we should have much improv s in this downtown and that's going to that's going to improve Public Safety but it's also going to be a convenience because you know you ever seen
016people walk walking around Street looking for service you know 12 um we continue well our continues to operate our summer rec program each year um free charge to any uh kids that live in the village of Pak um she's been program over two years ago right two years ago do great job with it um we use school facilities we appreciate partnership from you to to use the facilities here um it's a very successful program um far more about than I but I think on average during the day it's about 9 95 kids a day so they they do great stuff great activities and stuff and it's uh I get great feedback about the program and uh and the fun that the kids have um last two things we have a new Pavilion over at McQuay
017Park uh available to everybody um it's a metal one so it's going to last a long time we're able to construct that with $100,000 Grand from C to hinchy um had some hiccups with the original contractor we expected to have it up about a year prior you guys are familiar with stuff like that I'm sure but um we did get it up last fall and we dedicated it and uh it's all paved underneath and it's available to anybody now um last project we did I'm sure coach W really appreciate this uh we got some additional uh ARA money from the county like fall and it basically said um use this for a public benefit your parks recreation Etc so we end up uh if any of you have ever played baseball or had kids to
018play baseball in the qu you know if you're standing behind third base or first base you're taking your life in your own hands right for the other so last year we put up a bigger fence behind first and then with this money we were able to put that on third as well so when you stand there now the fence is going to be well over your head you're not going to have to worry about watches that throw the third basement and mes that almost cut you off plus plus a lot of kids Traverse through there and those overthrows and you turn around and be like okay didn't hit the k um one last thing we have is we we use that money as well and we got uh skate park equipment and believe it or
019not it's it was worth $100,000 got will to Let It Go for about 5 grand and we made a deal with war we and trucking green they brought it all the way from South Dakota so if you drive through mqu you'll see all this yellow box type stuff accumulated over behind the basketball court that area was orally designated for a state park and we just we've made some pretty poor attempts over the years put just wear out quickly this is really solid stuff so once the weather breaks um we're going to get people there and uh get get going get it set up and we'll have we have opening day or something and I think Dr J I think he wants to yes be involved yes and got some people that can do some lessons
020and stuff that so yeah oh yeah yeah absolutely um so that's it lots going on lots of projects and things um we're looking forward to you know another good year of improvements and and suff in the community um I know you folks are doing great job so keep doing good work I answer any questions great question um are we F stay no is that still no still a problem still an issue um we have we do have a she had Co so she wasn't there last week I think at the church quers we do have something that's kind of there down when they're they're not there we try to S the police officer down down on an emergency call um we could still use somebody at the end of the school path here um we
021raise the amount that we pay we advertise we don't know what else to do really um if anybody happens to come up with any ideas love you love to love to get that solved else okay talk two different things so the first one um is about our library accessibility project um this is St Athens um the Athens library is called the Ever library and that's because Mr Evers he grew up in Athens he made his Mark elsewhere and he never came back to Athens uh but he left estate to the Athens in order to build a library uh he and his wife had two children who didn't survive to adulthood and so they gave all of most of their money to build a library the library was built in 1907 it's similar to a Carnegie
022Library but it's not a car Library it's car Library they paid for us to become accessible um it takes stairs to get in it takes stairs as soon as you get in in order to go up stairs in order to go down absolutely not accessible whatsoever um in the early 2000 the downstairs was transformed into useful space before that it was a dirt floor and yet it was a dirt floor never assuming that you would use it and at the same time it is 8ot ceilings so they made it with uh they filled it in with concrete and it became we were able to start using the downstairs in the early 2000s um oh in July 1990 uh President George HW Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act and no public building is exempt as
023for most of you know that includes start buildings it wasn't until 2017 that we actually got started on making our library accessible 2017 is a long time ago but our first Library construction Grant application those libraries have uh Construction Grants just for libraries that are put into the state budget every year uh we were eligible for 75% match because of the economic condition of our community we received 35% and we said well we can't even do much this at all how we ever going to do this and we used up all the money that we had ever saved um I reached out to all of our Representatives at the state level the federal level and said I don't know how to do this how are we ever going to get here when we just use
024up everything and all we're getting is 35% I don't see how we're going to do it a week later I got a phone call from um Senator Amador and he said so how much money do you need and since I wasn't born yesterday I'm like well let's see skip there and I said uh $100,000 and he said well that's a lot of money but let me see what I can do and two weeks later he said okay I got you the money and so we had the $500,000 we had the original um grant that we got for the 35% we cut back on what we were going to do for that 35% so that we could actually use it and still have some left over because we were eligible for 75% so we could play
025with some things there um and then we started the application process for that $500,000 Grand the application process went until February 2020 which sounds really close to something else that happened right after that and so sure enough they approved our grant and then they froze it and they froze it for 21 months and after the 21 months because of Co we went to bid and suddenly things weren't the same as what they were before instead of 500,000 it was 1.2 million you know about that and we said well now what are we going to do we thought we couldn't do it before now we really can't do it besides which during Co that first Grant had an expiration date so we said well now we can't wait so if anybody has been past the library
026in Athens what you notice is we have a ramp to nowhere and that's the reason people always pumped about why do you have ramp to nowhere because we had to get going we had to use this up and by the way that Grant expired on June 30th 2022 2022 and on June 30th 2022 the state gave an uh an extension for 6 years but of course it was too late so here we have all this and what are we going to do Senator Amador had resigned had retired and so he said well let's start in with um Senator hinchi and let's go for another construction gr and see what we can do and so went to Senator H and started asking I she said what do you need and I said well we can cut
027back on a few things but it looks like instead of a full elevator we'll put in a lift we'll go to all these things I'm still going to need about 600,000 and her staff said you're never going to get another 600,000 she doesn't have the political col Al that Senator Amador him he had for he couldn't call her fingers she doesn't have that so I kept calling every week and um last June her staff said well we were in a meeting and she said is there anything else outstanding and then she said well one of them said yeah this is woman that calls us like every week um we think we can get her to go away if we can get her $300,000 and they did so we had four grants total now our poor
028architect is trying to keep track of everything but we were able to get started we went to bid it was still a little high but we were negotiating with all the okay maybe we don't quite need that and we can cut this back and maybe we don't need c we can use wood maybe we could do and so we got started in the fall and at this point now um we are well what it is it's a small addition in order to hold the elevator the library looks really impressive from the outside and even um construction people who seem to know what things should look like walk in and go oh it's co and it's really pretty small on the inside um but we do have I can show you diagram sorry um so this
029is the main part of the library and here's the addition with the elevator right here and we can attach the ramp to the building itself so that's the small addition that we have and it's downstairs as well because we do have a lot that goes on downstairs and I'll talk about that in a second um we've had very few surprises during the construction of this car which is really great because when we did the uh ramp that was the year that never stopped Greening and so they built it or they dug it and got done and people kept passing by going are you making an inground pool cuz they completely filled with water um so that didn't happen this time things were really went really well we some of the funding didn't materialize it was
030one of the grants that we were looking for was the Athens Community Foundation Grant uh we've always gotten everything we've asked for from that because is for the people of Athens um they gave us zero this year for some reason they were under the impression that oh we had enough money we wouldn't have asked if we had enough money um and so that one has really hurt us we are down to we're right now at about 98% of the full funding for everything that we need we have added in some naming opportunities uh for different rooms in the building so the adult room is now called the Friendship room it's named after uh someone who's been local to lives and someone who moved in during Co and the friendship that they created and so they
031they gave us a large donation noted the name of the Friendship room um people wanted to do the same thing for the children's room and well now we started that kind of name so they called now the children's room is called the family room um downstairs there was a family who said um they had lost their child's SS and a whole bunch of people did some fundraising and she said we really don't need this money we'd like to do something for children um and it had been and I have talked about it for a long time that around here um if you look at Children's Museums those Hands-On museums that you could do all kinds of stuff the closest ones are either skincity or pipy and if you have young children and you get them
032in the car for that hour and you get there more than likely they're going to have it down we get there and it's $20 each just to get in and that's adults and the children we thought you know how many parents are going to actually do that around here and how often when it cost that much and it's so far away we should do something to that that family gave us a large donation and we now have a children's museum small one in the basement of the library in our program space we have a magnet wall with all the tubes that you can do ball runs we have a Lego wall we have some LCD displays and we are constantly changing the theme in that room and so that's some of the things that we
033did with that money as well so we are working with experts in the mobility Community because in Athens we have quite a few who live in the apartments that's not just the senior apartment complex it's also for those who are permanently disabled and so we've been bringing them well we can't bring them in yet but we have been talking to them about getting their ideas on how to do things and what we can do so at this point now we are at the part where we are targeted to be opening like late spring so this has been going on from 2017 and I'm except I can't imagine life anymore we were not doing this spr but it should be interesting for there any questions about what we do that we empathize with your perseverance and
034[Music] persist Y and people and there people and also how people don't understand too that uh was in the late fall when they were just getting started and there was a concrete machine trying to get around because they of course the construction workers all said that ramp is in the way that's the main reason we're doing this so well we had a a a concrete truck putting some things and and people who lived in the village like their whole lives raised their kids and all came along and said so what is this thing and what are you doing and we realize oh my goodness people still have no idea what this is and I'm sure you can have that as well so it's that whole um getting the MD out which is why I also
035wanted to speak with you and any other groups in the area that you can think of who need to hear the story of what it is that we're doing and why Kathy who's your architectural firm that you're dealing withm Butler R and M they are we interviewed like four and they came along and said first of all we just do libraries and second of all we'll help you with the grants ha that was the bigy that was the big and they've been phenomenal in that and when you've got four grants like that too figure out when you get the bill okay this part of the bill should go to that Grant they've been handling that for us I get paid so this is that's a huge been benefit us any other questions the other thing
036I just wanted to talk about quick was um the half days so we started the half days oh I'm going to say it was close to seven years ago maybe um it was the December half days that there's two of it was a year when one of those half days was a snow day and it got moved instead to the following week and on that day that was the snow day the snow had been in the morning and then it stopped so the library was open I was walking in behind family and it was a m three kids and I said wow didn't you look out first you get now you get the whole day off and now you get the half day next week and Mom turned around and she started sobbing in my
037arms and said I'm going to lose my job they can't keep doing this I have to put in for these a month in advance they can't just do this and they said okay we one of your kids just come to the library we'll do something with them don't don't worry about it and so that started it and then kids were walking to the library and we would do things for the half days in the afternoons that they could just you know come and we would do projects and stuff like that uh once Co happened we noticed that kids didn't walk from the school anymore I think there's two things one is crossing Third Street right at the school there's no crossing guard I've even asked from the officer that's on could he do that and
038he said no I'm trying to stop the cars that whip around in the parking lot um so there's no nothing for them to cross their so kids don't walk um from uh eja as much anymore there's very few I think there's only two told me that do um and I think actually now they're middle schoolers so I don't think there's any from DJ with it too uh at the same time we had talked about partnering with things and we said well for the half a if we could just get the kids to the library um by bus then we could be all set and the first one of those we put out a flyer and said hey if you do there's a bus that'll take you and I have to tell you that was a
039March one and I'm think we'll ever forget it kid was not the director there was somebody who was temporary director and I thought we were going to lose it right then because 45 kids got off us we're like oh they're not stopping and so they luckily it was a nice day and so we we BR we always divide group into three and we kept one group outside so that because we do not have the space for that many so since then we learned and so we have a Max of 25 so we've never had 25 we've always had close to 30 or 35 so the need was huge parents come when they come to pick them up we just make sure so we really appreciate the collaboration and getting the bus to do that I
040had asked Mr Martino how prowed are the buses before we started asking about it too and he said a lot of parents are just picking up their kids the buses really aren't that crowded for E okay good then I'm not asking for something that extra um we started collaborating with the ethens cultural center because we were doing what we do is it's 25 kids gr 24 so it's eight kids in each of three groups and we rotate them CU 3 and 1 half hours we're not teachers so we're trying to do our best in providing programs but they for about 45 minutes to and then they have a snack and then we move them to the next one and kind of the thing of a school kind of thing um but parents are when they're
041picking them up are showing up in uniforms they're showing them up with their Hospital badges um they have their retail worker uniform they don't have the opportunity to take their kids to work with them they don't have the opportunity to say oh I need to have me and December is a really tough one because also you get all the holidays right so now they've got two half size all that so they are constantly lenting that this is really hard I'm so glad you're doing this because I don't know what I would do so I wanted to pass that along that to realize these do have effects one of the other things that really they've talked about is the sudden dismissals um a couple of parents talked about we work in Albany you have a sudden
042dismissal we can't get back on time uh there was a parent also she actually worked at the library who had her preschool schooler at eja and her second grader at kak elementary and she said I have 15 minutes to pick up my kids and I don't even know which one to pick up first so the sudden ones are something that they've asked can there be an alternative pickup location with other community organization involved that says okay you can't keep them in the school got that there's something about water RS or whatever that there's no water you've got to do something but something that creates an alternative location for them to pick up when they can't pick them up fast and so it was how else can we collaborate this one's working really well we really
043appreciate it hope it's appreciated as well that that says hey we are trying to do this I understand that the Kaki library has been asked if they could do a little bit more of this kind of thing too uh where when it's the half days because it is so difficult the last thing is it is so difficult to find after school hair for kids there's like nothing available anymore uh the ones that I talked to too said when I do after school care I can get a college student but they can't start at noon they can start at the 3:30 time when class gets out and so finding places where kids can go safely um in the elementary levels after school is really difficult and so I just wanted to pass along what we've been
044hearing about the half days any questions and you've got two more coming up this coming up thank you thank you for what you do with the library for the kids that come to you yeah awesome 45 yes and if you want to see our children's museum by all means we're open Wednesdays after school and Saturday mornings just some quick little information here this is from our mid year I call our winter climate serving scho middle school high school something for several years now um and so one of the questions aligns right with our specific goals we have is we want at least one adult Ally in the district so you can see 75% City so that's kind where we are see a big group of M so the principles and C they're going to go
045in you know who they are right wasn't anous so you know you know set the we're going to check out with each kid some may just be that check in on that so they know exactly so that is their charge if you will next I did also include in your slide back there I'll share updat it's just the overall time survey results which is kind of stry see questions are asked like with my work know information right now we Circle back around talk about information discuss the budget so those are the two big right there that's what the incre dollar increases are those lines that's our gge right there so uh one of lot good that working on that try to figure some of that upol side of things as well uh 2025 26 calendars
046here's early draft of this for that teacher Association looking at as well right now you know kind of going through um question one thing was asked this year they had a couple 2our delays so teachers could have a chunk at time to look at data get kids lined uption and stuff like thatter sem we're going to take a serious look in offering some Child Care here in the afternoon wonder I don't know number half one day parents I don't know I we start made parents a couple years ago what what's what's the least [Music] what library what is so early Miss are staff yes so they're still here full day half conference I was confused because you had very very different words this year and I was lost still this a little bit I didn't
047see a lot of them you can you can take make so kid been here that's what I as aent the [Music] half that well [Music] St and then only other thing I have which maybe it's just me so the entire other board you guys not I can stop being annoyed about every but the budget day as a half day I do not see that on there if everybody else is fine with kids being here and the school being open I will stop comom compromis if I were to cross my heart and say we're going to have law enforcement station are allow just me I stop annoying you every year but not [Music] there the to n they go to your point maybe the nurse get stationed somewhere else possibly but also like make it after
048everyone's using the cafeteria right not until almost 2:00 at C it's like 1:40 the other option is we can check talk ouring locations oh the middle schoolrooms I I say the teacher wouldn't have to be in [Music] there last years and 1th so we have to keep those to do two different [Music] December that's but that I could see being just listening to Cathy speak this just hard it is I just wor like you know the door is being onl and people just being it cuz the kids do use the corridors to get that's that main area to get to the nurse if there's an C that spot is used a lot for students who are behaving in their classrooms a lot of times the staff can get them to there and they use that
049to calm them down but whatever the option be change the policy which is not that hard so usib Po in the middle school that much bigger what about is [Music] it conf like confence November December and meet with everybody and then they have like at 8 to9 time that we're in without kids like we have concerns about you really need to have that conference contract says have have conferen that's would rather take away from March and put it [Music] keep one you know they can't get them all here still work take a half hour bring back [Music] V well I just know like this year a lot of parents are like why the heck is April break the week before it's never been that way ever I was like just get over it it might
050just be for one year and they're like [Music] like previous life used to be third week of April didn't matter when us was yeah so the year said it wasn't [Music] that'll bring it backe I [Music] also is it the is the it one I don't it might it doesn't there no it falls on the T of certain isal so [Music] that just evance talking up Saturday girls are at at Boysville they play for sale boys uh State wrestling tournament tomorrow on Saturday hopefully uh three up there I think [Music] that's it's March 1 I already bought the ticket coach sent out the link they don't accept cash if you go up [Music] there conference AAL conference lot our together College across the region EXC spring sports with it this is a great night start
051turn to host green count festiv on Friday the 21st kids from all schools in green count also participates uh they they will practice one night and they come early on Friday and and like holy cow like two days of practice what we do it's amazing so I don't off like which groups it is like jazz concert B some you sent us an email about the tax cap and stuff he's got some things on is SC okay [Music]