HORTONVILLE, NY — Town justice Charles Nystrom got the ball rolling at the Delaware Town Board meeting on June 12 with a letter addressing various security issues in the town.

The letter’s first request was for the board to modify its town employee handbook to allow town justices to carry firearms with them into the courtroom. Nystrom argued that the clause forbidding town employees from carrying firearms or weapons on town property is an infringement of his Second Amendment rights and that it should not apply to him.

Supervisor Edward Sykes was hesitant to the idea of making an exception, correcting Nystrom that the policy didn’t only apply to town employees but to everybody on town property. “We don’t want anybody with firearms,” he said.

Town attorney Kenneth Klein confirmed that the no-firearm policy did in fact apply to all residents, not just town employees, though he also agreed with Nystrom that exceptions could be made.

 “I don’t know why you couldn’t make an exception for the two town justices... I don’t know of anything that precludes you from making an exception in an appropriate circumstance,” Klein said.

Councilman Alfred Steppich wanted to either keep the policy intact or do away with it totally, but not anything in between. The issue was ultimately left undecided.

Later that night, Harold Roeder of the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) reported on the state of the reservoirs in relation to how much rain the area has experienced. He said this April that there was almost double the historical average amount of rainfall for that month. He said the amount of water in the reservoir—three billion gallons over the median—is actually stunningly low, compared to how much rain they’ve gotten.

Roeder also said that the UDC is still feeling the financial burden of the last government shutdown. Between January and April of this year, the UDC received no money from the federal government. At the end of May, the federal government somewhat reimbursed the UDC for those missed months, but as of June 12 was still behind on payments for May.

The board later discussed the progress of several projects currently underway. William Brown of Delaware Engineering reported that the project to install a new generator is expected to get started in July and that it should then take a week or two to complete. He also said that an archeological firm that the town hired to evaluate the site of a forthcoming wastewater treatment plant has found Native American artifacts and submitted a proposal to remediate the site. The remediation will cost more than $36,000 to complete. The board reluctantly authorized the proposal, pending approval from the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), deciding that it would be far more costly to try and find a new site for the plant.

The board also approved the resolution to adopt a sexual harassment prevention policy, which all municipalities in New York State are required to have.