MONTICELLO  —The Village of Monticello adopted Local Law #9 during its regular Village Board meeting Wednesday night. This Local Law Amends Chapter 252 of the Village Code “Vehicles and Traffic”, Article IX subsection 19, which is entitled “Parking prohibited at all times in certain locations”.

This will now include a “no parking” restriction on the right side of the street from Bennet Street to Mill Street.

During the Public Hearing session, one Monticello resident inquired why the parking was being limited, to which Trustee Theodore Hutchins answered that it caps how people can come through.

“You’re not able to get two cars to come through,” explained Hutchins. “[With] cars parking on both sides - it’s so narrow. You can only get one car through. It creates a jam.”

During the public comment session, it was noted that there is a Section in the Village Code that lists every street this affects.

With no voices for or against the Proposed Local Law, the Board unanimously approved the Adoption of Local Law #9.

Buckling down on seatbelts and speeding

Village Attorney Michael Sussman detailed of two issues that he’s observing which he finds “very alarming.”

The first of these was the remarkable amount of cases in which children are not seat-belted in.

“That’s not something that we’re going to be giving any mercy to,” stressed Sussman. “I’m asking every police officer to write such a ticket. To write a ticket and come prepared to support it in court.”

He also noted of how shocking it is of how many people that are driving on Village roads over 60 miles per hour.

“It’s a Village - a village is a small sub-unit of people who live in a compacted area,” said Sussman. “That’s the nature of a Village. It’s not the same as a town, it’s not a rural area generally.”

He also stressed that this kind of excessive speed is inappropriate, giving way to risk of injury and death.

He wanted the community to be clear - from a prosecutor’s point of view - he doesn’t feel that a lot of mercy should be extended to people who are driving at those rates of speed in the Village.

The first defense will be reducing the number of points placed on a license from six to three. However, if it’s a repeated offense Sussman said, “The book’s going be thrown at them.”

“Just so everyone is very clear - and I really hope the message gets out to the community broadly - but this is what we’re doing,” assured Sussman. “It’s not a joke, and we have these laws for a reason. I was in court today and I had someone saying ‘it was 12:30 at night’ [as an excuse].”

“If you’re in touch with people who seem to think they can just flaunt these kinds of rules, please advise them that the Village is taking this seriously.”