KINDERHOOK – The Village Board is moving ahead with plans to borrow money to connect the business district to the Valatie sewer system. Mayor Carol Weaver asked for board approval to sign an intermunicipal contract with Valatie at the board’s regular meeting Wednesday, January 11.
Changes need to be made to the contract by Kinderhook village attorney before Ms. Weaver can sign the document, so the board gave her permission pending the changes.
The board also set a special meeting for Wednesday, January 25 to discuss borrowing $700,000 project. The village received a total of $385,000 in grants from the state and $70,000 in private funds for the work, and the board plans to issue bonds to cover the rest of the cost, with residents in the sewer district paying off the loan through fees.
The 34 properties along Hudson and Albany avenues that will use the sewer system will pay a higher water and sewer fee, while most residents in the village will pay about $12 a year toward the construction costs for the life of the bonds.
Mr. Weaver said she called local banks for loan rates but will have better numbers at the January 25 meeting.
The village is also looking at another shared project with Valatie, a sidewalk along Route 9 that would connect the two villages. Jim Dunham, a former mayor and the project manager for the sidewalk, said that much of the project is funded federally and the villages plan to pay a small amount, with about $200,000 coming from the state.
Mr. Dunham said that he had heard of other projects that have not received funding promised by the state, but officials at the state Department of Transportation in Poughkeepsie told him the villages are “99.9%” assured the state will pay.
“When money is tight, that’s kind of a luxury,” Mr. Dunham said. The state needs to pay for bridge and road repairs, and a sidewalk project might not rank as important.
Board members asked whether money from the bond for the sewer project could also be used to pay for the sidewalk, since the sidewalk, like the sewer hookup, involves both villages. Mr. Weaver was not sure that could be done. Work on the sidewalk project is planned for July.
The village is also looking at a water cleaning system to deal with dirty water that some residents have complained about over the last few months. Board member Dale Leiser said that discolored water had been an ongoing issue in the village but that some residents have had very dark water over the last couple of months.
Mr. Leiser said he talked to a company that uses phosphates to clean the water and coat the pipes at little expense to the village. He told the board using this approach would mean flushing the system more often at the start using the chemicals and paying around $1,200 in set-up costs. “It doesn’t seem all that expensive to do,” he told the board.
The phosphates are federally and state approved and used in other municipalities in the Capital Region. “You are going to get more phosphates drinking a can of soda than from this,” Mr. Leiser said, quoting from the information from the company that produces the phosphates. He also said it’s odorless, tasteless and not visible.
After the meeting, Mr. Leiser said that the village has a long way to go before it would be adding the chemical to the water system. He said the board may hold a public information meeting on this topic in the future.
The next board meeting will be the special meeting January 25 for the bond of the sewer project. The next regular board meeting will be February 8 at 7:30pm in the Village Hall.
To contact Emilia Teasdale email eteasdale@columbiapaper.com.
