Town Board Discusses Police Side Jobs and School Resource Officer

Here are some of the matters the town board members discussed during their Tuesday, August 10, work session meeting:

Siegel announced the town has concluded negotiations with the Yorktown Stage. The new lease is a 3-year contract subject to permissive referendum.

"The Yorktown Stage is an important institution which serves as an amenity for town residents." Siegel said. 

Alice Roker, town clerk, and Ed Zebzda, supervisor of election inspector coordinators, demonstrated to the town board members how the new voting machines work. Roker announced education/demonstration forums would be held at the end of August.

New York State will mandate that all dogs are licensed and the law will go in effect in January. Roker said right now there are 900 licensed dogs in Yorktown, while many other dogs aren't licensed. Licensed are supposed to be renewed every year. Roker said now is the time to renew or license your dog. After the law goes into effect, unlicensed dogs would be taken to a pound and the town would have pay for the time the dog stays there until it is euthanized or adopted, Siegel said.

The town board discussed revising a local law for taxis to go through town. The county is offering to inspect the vehicles, and do background checks on all drivers at no charge to the town. That would mean that the town would have protection when taxes drive through town. Siegel said the need for taxi service has increased. The last law was adopted in 1975 and she said it needed revision. The board decided to put together their version of the local law in September.

John Tegeder showed a map of a possible acquisition of a land along Route 118 and the town saw the proposal for the first time. He said he came to the town board to see if there was any interest in the land. This was a wetland and nothing could be built on it, he said. All board members were in favor to refer it out.

Ray Arnold, former planning director, gave a status report on the Zoning Map project. He wanted to bring the zoning map up to date, which currently dates back to 1991. He said he went through local laws and checked those that have to do with local zoning. He said he wanted to produce a map that the town could adopt by local law. Siegel said this discussion would continue in the next work session.

The town discussed a policy about police officers taking on side jobs. If police officers wore their uniforms and used town police cars, then the town would be liable if something were to happen to the police officer while working at his side job. Siegel said there has been an issue in the past and said that police officers cannot provide security on private property while wearing a Yorktown police uniform and they cannot use a Yorktown police car.

"The town has a responsibility to do what's best for Yorktown," Siegel said.

Chief McMahon said he wanted a contract with the company that will pay overtime to the police officers.

The matter was put off for another discussion during the town's September 14 work session.

Town board members and Chief of Police Daniel McMahon discussed the status on the school resource officer at Copper Beech Middle School. The police department provides one SRO at each of the schools- Yorktown High School, Mildred E. Strang Middle School, Lakeland High School and Copper Beech Middle School.

The cost for the officer is split between the town and the school district.

With Copper Beech Middle School, where students from both the towns of Yorktown and Cortlandt attend, the cost is split 25:25 percent between Yorktown and Cortlandt. The total estimated cost for the SRO for 2011 that needs to be split between the two towns is $76,000 (or $38,000 each). Right now Cortlandt is paying $35,000 and after negotiations their town board has agreed to pay for the anticipated 4 percent increase, which would still leave them $1,600 shy of the projected costs, Siegel said.

"Our times are just as tough as theirs," Siegel said. "Why should we take a hit?"

"It's more about the safety of the children than the cost," Siegel said. "But it's about fairness."

The town approved Highway Superintendent Eric DiBartolo's request to withdraw $100,000 from the highway department's budget reserve line to purchase stainless steel truck bodies. He said he could not go another winter without the trucks. He also received approval for $30,000 to pay for piping, catch basins and gravel for drainage work.

Councilman Terrence Murphy announced to the board that he would like them to join the efforts of several counties and towns in the lawsuit against the MTA Payroll Tax. He submitted a resolution to be passed, and its passage would make Yorktown the first municipality in Westchester County to join other leaders in the fight. The discussion was put off to the next work session on September 14, so board members could have more time to carefully reviewed it.

The board approved the following resolutions- to increase contract expense amount for the John C. Hart Library boiler replacement capital improvement project, wetland bond release on Canterbury Crossing Condos, and authorize Siegel to sign a contract with Marshal Alarms for alarm monitoring services.