WURTSBORO  — The Mamakating Town Board held an open public hearing in regards to amendments for Zoning Code penalties, to which Town Supervisor Michael Robbins declared that after some discussion, the Board will not move forward in moving Amendments to the Local Law.

“We’re just going to keep it open for now,” stated Robbins. “We are going to wait until we get the Short Term Rental Law together and then we’ll go from there.”

However the public hearing session was still open for residents to come up and speak. One of the individuals to offer their thoughts was village resident Cathy Dawkins, who said that she had been reviewing the Local Law after it had been discussed in the last meeting which she thought was great.

However, her concerns arose over “delaying it” due to its affect on certain other people who are actively and knowingly violating current existing Zoning Laws.

“So it feels like we’re saying one portion of the population is going to be held strictly to the letter of the law,” explained Dawkins. “Though we’re not going to move forward for this because if we did, we would have to hold another segment of the population strictly to the letter of the law and we don’t want to have to do that.”

Robbins responded that the Law is not new and is an Amendment to a Law already in existence. He also later explained that the Board will discuss with the County about adding more things into this Amendment.

Perrello 

addresses community

For the Supervisor’s Report, Robbins invited four Sullivan County Legislators in attendance to come up and speak. These Legislators were Terry Blosser-Bernardo (District 9), Amanda Ward (District 8), Nick Salomone Jr. (District 4) and Joe Perrello (District 7).

Perrello talked of his work during his tenure at Sullivan County Public Works.

The transportation service, Move Sullivan, was expanded into the Village of Wurtsboro, in addition to expansion around the whole county. 

“We’re also building a new airport terminal this year,” stated Perrello. “When I first started eight years ago we were mandated to build a jail. Governor [Kathy] Hochul was kind enough to give an $18.5 million grant to build.”

“Our airport is a hidden gem. People don’t realize how much traffic our airport gets. We have a lot of traffic in Sullivan County Airport.”

Perrello also stated that he wanted to “clear the air” with the Nursing Home situation.

He stated that the Legislature is not looking to close it, and they’re not looking to sell it.

“We’re just looking to get a provider to maintain the place and give good support to the residents that live there,” stated Perrello. “We have a certain amount of people that come to our meetings every week. There’s about five to 12 of them. We’re not looking to hurt nobody, we’re trying to have this place work efficiently.”