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Ramsey Civic
Association General Meeting Minutes of the past general meeting (June 5th) and last executive meeting (July 30th) were read and approved. Financial report was made available to members. Reports: Chairperson Jim Keeney stated that the RCA is getting more recognition by the mayor and council -- not always positive recognition but even the mayor’s rejection of our offer of help by participating on the train station committee can be seen as a positive because we were acknowledged as an organization. The RCA has also been asked to make a statement regarding the heliport. By-Laws Report: The By-Laws committee recommends making an amendment to the Quorum law. The desired change is that a quorum shall be a majority of members present instead of the majority plus 1. Some discussion followed included the suggestion of setting a fixed number for quorum votes, but the board opposed setting a fixed number because we never know how many members will be present at meetings. The vote was taken and by-laws revision was accepted as proposed by 29 to 2. Proxie votes will be kept in the by-laws as is. Planning Board Report: Heliport: The next planning board meeting will be September 17. Judith Zelikoff, an environmental expert and member of Ramsey’s Environmental Commission, has serious concerns for safety, the environment, toxic waste and sound in regards to the heliport. She feels that the town should demand to have an environmental impact study done. She also stated that the Environmental Commission is also opposed to the heliport but serves at the pleasure of the mayor and council and their report is not always considered. Members are appointed by the mayor and have only the power to advise and raise concerns. Their recommendations are not mandated. Candidates Night Report: The RCA and League of Women Voters will hold a debate between candidates on October 28. This is the only date that there are no other town meetings going on. The location of the debate will be decided at a later date. The RCA will call all the candidates and follow up with letters. Debates monitored by the League of Women Voters are very structured and candidates are timed in their responses. After the leagues questioning is over, the debate is opened to the public. If held at the library, we may run into a time problem as the library closes at 9pm. The RCA encourages all members to attend the debate and to get as many people as possible to also attend. Ramsey Day Report: The next meeting has not been set yet. Ann will have voting registration forms available. The beenie bears are in and they were displayed with their RCA hearts. The hearts will have RCA plus our web address on them. Council Meetings Report: Not much to report because of summer. Other Ramsey news included a discussion of the Ramsey Council's recent rejection to hire Klause Stewen for the Ramsey police force. Stating they are changing the requirements to include a 4 year college degree or 2 year college and honorary discharge from the military. In conclusion, it was felt that having a college degree is not a bad thing to have, but experience should play into it. The town previously offered Klause an opportunity to take the police test over a year ago with the understanding that he would be hired as soon as the town started hiring again. Several members felt that he should have been made exempt from the new ruling. Also mentioned was the fact that Police Commissioner Delaney will not be renewing his contract at the end of this year. Board of Adjustment Report: Paul Schultz gave a report of past meetings. Highlights include variance requests for a U-Haul rental on Rte. 17 North, and a car wash on Franklin Tpk. A church wanting to build behind the Macaroni Grill needs a variance to build on wetlands and also to reduce the number of required parking spaces. It is felt that paving over more wetlands will cause further flooding on DeBaun and other streets in Ramsey. The church is also requesting a height variance. Another topic covered
is the request by Sprint Spectrum to build a cell tower at 500 Franklin
Tpke. Three meetings have so far been canceled by Sprint. There will be
a special meeting on September 4th. If we are to oppose it, Judith feels
we should stay away from the health aspects as they will tell us that
there are no proven health hazards from cell towers. We should look unto
other reasons to oppose. Board of Ed Report: JP Tristani gave his report. It should be stressed that finding fault with the way the school board runs the BOE does NOT mean that you are anti-education. We have a right to question their motives. Ramsey is way above the state mandate for thorough and efficient standards, spending $10,703 per student. The school board says that part of the high cost is insurance and the cost of educating special ed students. The town council states that they have no control over school taxes but when the budget failed this year and the BOE went to the council or resolution, the only thing trimmed was the elimination of an assistant superintendent and secretary. $164,000 was already cut because of the Willow School not opening. We should be questioning why insurance is so high. A 40% increase is extreme. Other companies, when faced with a huge increase in cost of insurance, shop for other companies or pass along the costs to employees. What is the BOE doing? We should also closely monitor the BOE plans for needed addition space. Seven options decided by the Space Needs Facility Planning involves additions to several schools at a cost of $12-15 million. Two options include tearing down Dater School and building a new school on the same property at a cost of $25 million. Other Committee Reports: No report was given from Membership, Auditing, Communication and Press, Historical, Citizens Assistance, and Voter Registration. New Business: Michael Lonier has worked very hard on getting the website up and running. It should be finalized sometime this week. Michael was thanked for all his hard work. The costs of setting the website up generously paid by Victor Sakal. If anyone wants to contribute, send the info to mlonier@bellatlantic.net. Anything to appear on the website needs to get pre-approval by the board before going on line. The RCA should go on record to oppose the train station even though we feel it is a done deal. We will form a committee to see if there is anything we can do. The committee will consist of Victor Sakal, Judy Zelikoff, JP Tristani, John Jordan and Jim Keeney. One argument against is the fact that the ambulance does not fit inside the garage. We will have a petition against the heliport available on the website and ask that every member get at least one page filled with Ramsey residents opposed to it. Signers must be 18 years of age but don’t need to be a registered voter. The next Executive Board meeting will be held August 27th. Next General Meeting will be October 15. The general meeting
was adjourned at 9pm. |