Richard Joel Tapped to Take Ex-Planning Board Chair David Nicholson's Seat

Council members may have been making sure they get the rest needed for their appearance at graduation on Thursday, as their work session lasted but 15 minutes and had few items of note.

But in the interest of public transparency, here's a recap of what was discussed at the Wednesday night meeting.

• Nicholson's planning board seat filled

On consent agenda, the village was quick to move planning board alternate #1 Richard Joel to take 's unexpired term, ending in 2014. The second alternate, Jane Shinozuka, will move up to take Joel's spot (ending in 2012) and the council will still need to appoint another alternate member. Until the board votes on positions, Vice Chairman Albert Pucciarelli will serve pro-tempore and preside over meetings.

Also on consent agenda, the council passed the annual renewal of a liquor license for the Upper Ridgewood Tennis Club; appointed Judge Phillip J. Sheridan as the municipal court judge with a term expiring in 2014; and authorized another three-year renewal of the Community Development Block Grant Program and Home Investment Partnership Act Program, which allows for grant possibilities to the village and village non-profits.

• Committee reports

Council members Paul Aronsohn, Steve Wellinghorst and Mayor Keith Killion did not have committee reports on Wednesday night.

Deputy Mayor Tom Riche, however, encouraged the public to purchase tickets for what he called "the best fireworks in the tri-state area." Tickets are $8 if bought in advance (they can be found at The Daily Treat and other places as well) and there are skydivers, music and all sorts of other fun stuff, Riche said. The parade ceremony starts at the train station for the 4th. If you grab tickets on the day of the event, they're $15.

He also reported that the Open Space Committee has been diligently working on upgrading its website to include what assets the village has in Open Space. Representatives of the committee will be at a September council meeting to discuss private fundraising initiatives to eventually develop the properties the village has acquired, Riche said.

The committee, according to the deputy mayor, would also like to schedule some open public forums to see if one or more development plans can be presented to the council.

In other committee report news, Councilwoman Bernadette Walsh said she and Mayor Killion have been requested to meet with the school board and school officials to answer some questions regarding the Fields Use Policy.

• Habernickel house demolition

Councilwoman Walsh said the Parks & Recreation Committee is pushing the idea to bundle in the demolition of one of the houses at Habernickel with the other demolitions.

Walsh said there are deferred maintenance on the house, landscaping is becoming overgrown in some areas [of the house], and it would give the contractor a "jump start" on being able to work on the entire area, which is located near planned walking trails. "It might be prudent of us to go out to bid with the other houses," she said.

Riche asked Village Manager Ken Gabbert if anything was standing in the way of accomplishing the removal of the house, to which Gabbert said there was, but did not publicly disclose the issue, only saying it had been mentioned in closed sessions. Killion said the council should further discuss the unknown matter (to the general public, anyway) in closed session with the intent to put it back on a future agenda.

• Manager's Report: results of bond anticipation notice

Gabbert also discussed the results of a bond anticipation notice (BAN) the village recently put out. Last year the village went out into bid for annual refunding as opposed to long term serial bonds, he said.

"We took $11.73 million in bonds back onto the market at a level of .55 percent," he said. It yielded a savings of $230,000 this year as opposed to the option of long-term bonding, according to finance officials. Gabbert said he thinks there's at least one more year the village could avoid serial bonding, but it's not without risks and would have to be done again for 2012.

A one-year annual BAN means a higher payout rate for the village–approximately a 10 percent payoff of the total 11.7 million and additional capital funding during the year, over the 2.5 or 2.6 percent required on serial bonds.

[Editor's Note: The price of the fireworks tickets were incorrectly cited; the correction has been made.]