Orangetown Council Discusses Tax Settlements, Justice Court Position

Tax settlements were a key topic of discussion at Tuesday's Orangetown Town Council meeting.

There were only four council members attending as Supervisor Paul Whalen was absent due to the illness of a relative.

One of the questions raised in the public portion of the meeting was whether the council was acceding too quickly to requests from local
businesses for settlement of tax certioraris that would result in refunds of town tax dollars. 

"Sometimes it is the most prudent thing to settle even if it is the most painful," said Councilman Tom Diviny.

Diviny also commended Whalen for his negotiations that helped lead to a settlement with Pfizer. He pointed out that the town can gain concessions in negotiation that it would not get in a tax challenge that goes to court.

“Our assessor does a very good job," Councilman Michael Maturo said. "If businesses leave Orangetown, that affects property values.  It is alsoimportant to negotiate when it makes sense. Businesses are not always the bad guys.”

Representatives from the law firm of O’Connor, Davies, Munns &
Dobbins presented the council members with an audit report, which are expected to be available on the town's website this week. Councilman Dennis Troy said that the budget would be discussed in more depth at the workshop meeting next Tuesday.

Regarding the Justice Court vacancies, all the council members
in attendance concurred that operating the enforcement arm of local
government under strength by two court administrators has severely hampered its ability to expeditiously process traffic citations and there fore cost the town important revenue. 

The only contentions note of the evening came during this discussion as Maturo said that he thought that the absent Whalen had not moved quickly enough to fill these positions and that he wanted to
address him directly on the matter.  Troy, who ran the meeting in Whalen’s absence, told Maturo that he did not think this was appropriate behavior under the circumstances. Maturo responded with an apology.

Items on the agenda included:

• $50,000 for maintenance and minor repair of vehicular
  traffic & pedestrian control signals was awarded to Verde Electrical
  Maintenance, Corp.
• $32,000 was approved for the Pearl River Downtown Revitalization
  project.
• $12,000 to Divine Construction was approved for removal of asbestos
  on the Blue Hill Golf Course renovation site.
• $9,900.00 was approved for the Employee Assistance Program at  Nyack  Hospital
• The Pearl River Junior Little League Girls Softball won the New York State Championship and came within a victory of the Little League World Series was also honored at the meeting.