GLEN SPEY, NY — Unusually cold weather and word that the town highway department would not be getting to any ordered cleanup until spring helped prompt the Lumberland Town Board to a second extension of a rubbish cleanup for a Mohican Lake property owner on January 10.

In December, the attorney for the town confirmed that a certified letter to property co-owner Cheri Bodnaruik had been returned undelivered, prompting the town board’s decision to recess a public hearing on a rubbish complaint at the West Indian Trail home of her late mother-in-law and former town clerk, Christina Bodnaruik.

Last week, code enforcement officer David Sparling said the cleanup was not finished, and Cheri Bodnaruik admitted that was the case. “The rubbish was to be cleaned up before today,” Supervisor Jenny Mellan said. Cheri Bodnaruik said she has been working on the cleanup. “I do it when I can. I go to work in the morning in the dark and get home in the dark. Some of it is frozen to the ground,” she said. Bodnaruik asked for an extension until the end of the month.

Attorney for the town, Danielle Jose-Decker, said the deadline was extended 30 days already and the town had the authority to order the cleanup. Noting the “exceptionally” cold weather and snow, two men in the audience suggested that Bodnaruik be given more time, “before we spend town money.” Highway Superintendent Don “Bosco” Hunt noted that the Farmers’ Almanac is predicting more snow. “Let her go a bit longer. It’s not in my way,” he said. Sparling noted that the rubbish problem was not new. “It’s been going on for a couple of years, not last week.” Hunt said the highway department would not be getting to a board-ordered cleanup until spring. Councilman Joe Carr said he would rather that the highway department weren’t involved. “They have enough to do.”

Mellan suggested and the board agreed to an extension on a decision of four weeks, to the board’s next workshop meeting on February 7. Mellan said she wanted the work done by the sixth, “so we’ll have pictures to show on the seventh,” she said.

Following a second public hearing, the board also agreed to make an open-ended extension on the local law providing a 2% exemption on the assessed values of the home of Cold War Veterans. The existing exemption was to expire this year.

The board had no new resolutions on its agenda. They approved 34 resolutions, mostly re-appointments and re-designations at their January 3 re-organization meeting. One exception of note was that no town delegate or alternate was named for the Upper Delaware Council. Two new planning board alternates were named: Chad Martell and Steven Kosmacher. Laurie Terry was named as tegistrar.

At the December 27 yearend meeting, Michele Myslinski was named deputy town clerk, and Christy Flynn was named as the buildings department part-time clerk position, which also includes clerk duties for the planning board and zoning board of appeals.