ELDRED, NY — It was a full house of political candidates at the Highland Town Board meeting on October 10. District 1 candidate Matt McPhillips, supervisor candidate John Pizzolato, council candidates Jim Sallusto and Tom Migliorino, as well as highway superintendent candidate Jim Akt were in attendance. 

The board made quick work of the meeting’s agenda, clocking in the meeting at 38 minutes. 

Supervisor Jeff Haas announced that budget season had started and that weekly budget workshops were scheduled for Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. through the end of the month. With various departments requesting funds, the budget increase now stands at a 9.87 percent increase, which will be pared down to two percent through the budget process, he said. 

Haas also explained that the board is negotiating a new highway contract through a team consisting of former town councilman Jim Gutekunst and town attorney Michael Davidoff. The contract will be ratified by the rank and file of the union and the town board. Haas said he did not anticipate any problems.

Pizzolato asked why an outside team was negotiating the contract, as opposed to the town board. Haas said that in the past the board had hired an Albany firm and that cost a lot of money. “Jimmy G. and Jimmy Hanson were the last ones to negotiate the highway contract with the Albany law firm. Jimmy G. felt that he was able to negotiate [the contract] and Michael Davidoff stepped forward and said, ‘I would like to negotiate that, too.’’

Haas said that normally the board would wait until after budget season to participate in the negotiation, but that it was easier for all concerned to have Gutekunst and Davidoff negotiate on the town behalf and to include the highway contract into the budgeting process rather than making adjustments to the budget later.

In other business

As part of the youth committee report, councilmember Kaitlin Haas reported that paperwork had been submitted to the county for the youth program, and that Camp Koinoinia, the town’s partner in youth programming, is being certified as an afterschool and day-care provider.

In speaking about the emergency management committee, Kaitlin Haas also said that there has been a significant concern in the county about the shortage of Advanced Life Support (ALS) services. With the marked increase in need, there are challenges to getting coverage for the rural parts of the county, she said. 

“There is a staffing issue; there is an equipment issue. ALS is a large problem,” emergency management committee member and Highland Ambulance Service president Chris Tambini said. The Highland Ambulance Service only provides Basic Life Support and depends on services such as Mobilmedic and Hatzolah Ambulance to provide the more advanced services needed.

In other business, the board accepted the resignation of Scott Reed as a Highland Planning Board alternate and decided to fill the position as part of the reorganizational meeting. Jeff Haas announced that there was a training opportunity for the code office that would afford points in Highland’s classification as part of the New York State Climate Smart Communities program. The training will be held in Kingston. Tambini will follow up with the code office.

Kaitlin Haas announced that the Town of Highland received a 0.0 score for the second year in a row from the state comptrollers office monitoring system, indicating no fiscal stress. The state rubric measures budget, budget expenditures, account balances and revenues, as well as highway equipment replacement plans and other metrics.

Jeff Haas announced that the highway department is finishing the paving and chip sealing of six-to-seven miles of town road, and will wind down its work schedule to concentrate on snow plowing. 

The board instructed Tambini to investigate the delay in the assembly of the 2024 Silverado, and announced that the one-ton mason dump truck will be available soon. 

In speaking about the senior citizen center, Kaitlin Haas thanked two volunteers who spent two weeks repainting the sign, and heard Highland Seniors president Peter Carmeci ask that a light be installed near the entrance of the parking lot, to help with safety after evening meetings.

The town will hold its annual Veteran’s Day service at Heroes Park on Saturday, November 11 at 11 a.m. with refreshments in the town hall afterward.