Goshen holds public hearing on preliminary budget

The town of Goshen’s preliminary budget for 2025 is under the state tax cap, as the town is seeking a raise of 1.94% in taxes for town taxpayers. Village taxpayers in the town will see a slight reduction in their town tax bill.

Supervisor Joseph Betro said the requests from department heads for the budget would have required a 27% tax increase, but through the budget process he was able to whittle the raise down to 1.94%. He noted the town has a AA+ rating from Standard and Poors and is in good financial condition.

Resident Chris Healey spoke at the October 24 public hearing about the budget. He said, “Thank you for doing a great job of keeping it down.”

Solid waste facilities law

The public hearing continued for Local Law No. 10 of 2024, which was designed to grandfather IWS into town code, as it operates a solid waste facility on a town road and the law states solid waste facilities can only operate on town and county roads. A resident spoke up, expressing concern that the “existing facility” clause in the local law opens a loophole whereby new projects are opened on existing sites. The board acknowledged the concern and said they would keep the public hearing open.

In another agenda item, the town also explored signing a host community benefit agreement with IWS. Betro noted the town has received $200,000 in fees that IWS had been in arrears for and signed a new agreement at $1 per ton moving forward. Councilman Philip Canterino expressed concern about IWS wanting to change its commitment to recycling 70 tons of waste per day, in addition to the 600 tons of municipal waste it processes, as per its permit with the DEC. He said he wants the company to continue recycling.

Other business

In other news, the town board authorized the town attorney to prepare a draft resolution of conditional approval for a special permit for the Lightstar solar array. A public hearing was set for Thursday, November 14 for information about the water and sewer districts.

The town has received a $730,000 grant from State Senator James Skoufis for the creation of a public pool in the town. The town agreed to hire an engineer to explore the costs of the project and help decide whether the town wants to accept the grant or if a pool would still be too expensive.

The issue of license plate readers came up at the end of the town board meeting. The town had installed license plate readers after receiving a grant from the state based on a law passed in the state legislature. Betro said the town did not have to pass a law for the license plate readers because the state had passed the law.

Resident Bob Smith expressed his concern about civil liberties and the fact that license plate readers have a 10% error rate. That’s the error rate cited by Northern California Regional Intelligence Center Executive Director Mike Sena in a 2019 article with Fox affiliate KTVU. However, a controlled study conducted by the California-based Vallejo Police Department in 2018 found a misread rate of up to 37%.