Talmage's state of the Town Address

This Address was sent to Milan United by Team Talmage's Editorial Board. For the benefit of our readers we had to do a little editing.

Supervisor Talmage’s Address to the Town on February 17th. The big news, covered by the local press, is that the court ruled in favor of Red Wing in the lawsuit wherein they challenged Local Laws #1 and #2 of 2006. The judge's decision effectively overturned law #1, which was the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan 2006. The reasons were major technical problems simply, Williams and the Gang of Four blew it at the taxpayers’ expense

A required letter to the Dutchess County Planning Department was late because Councilman Williams missed the boat by 8 days The Comprehensive Plan itself was considered by the Courts to be a joke on the people of Milan. And since Local Law #2 had been superseded by Local Law #12, the judge indicated that the question on local law #2 was "moot" and stupid.

The Board has discussed the case with the Attorney for the Town Board (which will cost another chunk of change) and is considering whether to re-enact the Comprehensive Plan. The formal vote on this action will be at the March 12 meeting. Town Board will hold another of their secret meetings making sure that the citizens of the town are kept in the dark. The process of re-enactment will take several months unless Williams decides to go full speed ahead again and get the town into another quagmire.

The Gang of Four still must decide on certain questions related to SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review). The Gang has also passed a resolution to file a notice of appeal to the decision of the court which will cost the Taxpayer more Big Bucks.

In a related matter, the DEC has called to indicate that the Draft EIS for Red Wing's application before the DEC for a mining permit is nearing completion. The DEC permit process is separate from any town actions. Once the DEIS is complete, Williams will be up and running before the DEC can schedule public hearings on this. Watch for this, “Good Ole Boy” Supervisor Talmage will give another song and dance, but the tune is getting a bit stale.

More information on the whole Gravel Mine and Red Wing question will be available at a later time if we ever get out of this mess. In other actions, the Wetlands Law has been revised and is available online. On 3/3/07 the Board held a public information session to discuss and answer questions about the law. About 10-15 people attended the session. Ross Williams led the discussion as usual trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the few that were there. At this time, however, final passage of the Wetlands Law will await the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan.

Note that the other major land use initiative, the Rural Space Overlay will also have to await the re-adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. And lastly, the Poughkeepsie Journal ran an editorial on the Milan initiatives and basically had good words to say on the work of Milan United.

The town board and the town clerk have been in discussions to resolve the Deputy Town Clerk situation. It is expected that the situation will be taken care of at the March 12meeting.The Highway Department has responded admirably to the February and March snows.At the board meeting in February, the board adopted the No Kiddies Selling Lemonade Law.

On February 17, Supervisor Talmage spoke to about 10 people on the State of the Town. In general, things are good except for the monthly overdrafts and the lawsuit about the Plan which he said is a "bump in his head".