Paul Szmal: Our guest on FLX Morning is the mayor of the village of Newark, Jonathan Taylor. Good morning, Merry Christmas, and welcome back.
Jonathan Taylor: Good morning, Merry Christmas, and thank you for having me.
Paul Szmal: Now, you have requested that we not discuss the situation with the cemetery at this time. We will respect that. It's potential litigation and all kinds of other things, so I just want the listeners to know that we will discuss that when the time is appropriate for that, so we'll do that.
Let's start with the latest village meeting. I know you love to honor people who do good things, and we had a new Eagle Scout from Newark.
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, Andrew Joslin took a project on our canal trail and added a bench and a trash receptacle near the Edge Street bridge crossing. That's kind of a juncture where the canal path comes to the Edge Street bridge, and there's also a parking area there, and it's really kind of helped add to our canal trail experience, and we're thankful that he was able to do that. Interestingly enough, Andrew has 139 merit badges, and from what I understand, the most you can have is 138. He actually received one of the merit badges that is now retired, so quite of an accomplishment for Andrew, and now he's an Eagle Scout, so we're really happy to be able to be a part of that and to recognize him for his efforts.
Paul Szmal: Fantastic news. The board discussed a fire protection contract with the town of Arcadia for $65,000. Just tell us about that agreement, and how is that amount reached?
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, every year, the town signs into a contract with all three fire departments within the town of Arcadia, the village of Newark being one of them. Each year, that contract increases about $1,000 a year, and the town actually pays the village for providing the fire service to the town of Arcadia. They do that as well with Marble Town and with Fairville. I don't know what the amounts are for those departments, so I couldn't be quoted on that. The agreements may be different because of the connection or not. They're not connected with the village of Newark, but they are within the town of Arcadia and provide fire protection. So each year, that's an annual thing we do in December as the town's getting ready to prepare their budget. So now they have a fixed cost on the fire protection side.
Paul Szmal: You held a public hearing considering a new local law or to amend a part of the village code concerning parking. It would ban parking within five feet of the entrance to an alley or driveway, and also in the area between a sidewalk and a street. Has that been a problem? Have alleys and things been getting blocked?
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, we've had residents reach out. They've had issues with people parking sometimes even across their driveway or across part of the end of the driveway. Or if they park right at the edge of the driveway, it makes it very difficult to get out on any village street in any community. So it made a lot of sense, and some other communities have already done this. So we really took a code change from other places, put in place for the village of Newark because we were seeing this issue. And then there is our places in the village where people park in the right-of-way. So they may be up on the right-of-way, but still on the road, or parked on the sidewalk and in the right-of-way. So in order to eliminate all that, so our sidewalks are passable, and it's much safer, we've changed the code to make it illegal to park on the right-of-way.
Paul Szmal: So the feedback, I assume, from the public was positive for those changes?
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, we haven't. It's really been a long time coming. We've really been working on some of these things for a while, and finally had the public hearing and put them in place. So that'll be the code in the village going forward. And hopefully that'll help out a lot from traffic flow to people being able to access businesses and their homes and other things.
Paul Szmal: We've talked a lot during the year about training opportunities for police and for village officials, and here's a new one. You're going to have a membership with the New York Planning Federation. It's a $295 annual membership, but with that, free training for your planning, zoning, and code enforcement people.
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, training is something that's very important for a lot of reasons, but certainly for code enforcement as well as our planning and zoning boards. And sometimes it was challenging to find training, and there's certifications that need to be kept up and certainly need to be kept up with everything that's new when it comes to making decisions on the planning or zoning board. And this opportunity to have a lot more options for training available to both the boards and the code enforcement department is pretty integral to the operations of the village. We thought it was a pretty small price to pay to have that training when we needed it.
Paul Szmal: I would think it will also make it easier to attract people to these positions. Municipal governments are becoming more and more complicated, and if I were thinking about taking one of these positions, I'd want to know that I was going to get some good training so I can make informed decisions.
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. Things change all the time. The state changes regulations and things, and you really need to keep up, and you need to be informed, and you need to have people trained to handle those changes. And it's certainly important to keep everybody up to speed.
Paul Szmal: More police training news. We've been talking about that all year. You've got some officers, one's taking survival tactics and basic tactical medical instructor training, and another basic interviewing techniques for law enforcement.
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, and it's an exciting time in our department. We have, in the last year and a half about, we've added seven new officers to our department. There's a completely new energy and a lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of the members of our department are looking for these training opportunities to expand their capabilities. And it's great to see, and so we keep encouraging attending those training opportunities. And we have more to come, as we did transfer some money from one account line to the training line for our police department, so that we could continue these opportunities.
Paul Szmal: Another one is for the wastewater treatment plant operator, Seth Eberhardt, and if I remember correctly, I think he's pretty new, correct?
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, Seth joined us late summer or early fall, and he is going to a week-long training, and certainly the operation of our wastewater treatment plant is a vital service, and it's great to have people that are well trained, and it's a necessity. So we're, you know, we're thankful that Seth is with us on our team, and he's going to go to the training and advance his capabilities at our wastewater treatment plant.
Paul Szmal: It's that time of year when we take a look back, and we've been able to share just a lot of great news. The Village looks great. You've got, as you said, a lot of good new people coming into positions. We have economic development businesses coming to town. What stands out for you that's happened in Newark in 2024?
Jonathan Taylor: In 2024, there certainly was a lot of exciting things that have happened. The Taco Bell opening, the Mike Hotel, you know, the DRI projects are going to construction within weeks of right now, and so much has happened. The infrastructure projects that we were able to complete, we have upcoming infrastructure projects that are necessary and vital to the Village, with our Ellicott Reservoir replacement that will go to construction in February. So a lot happened, occurred this year, both in economic development, new businesses open, which is exciting, and at the risk of, I know I will forget some, but Oats & O's opened up, and some other businesses. So it's really exciting to see the growth in the community, and there's a lot more to come, and 2025 will be certainly an exciting year, as I said, with the DRI projects going to construction, and that'll carry right into 2026. So we have a lot to look forward to, and you know, our downtown is growing and changing, and it's a lot of good things going on.
Paul Szmal: What are you looking at in terms of the upcoming legislative session? I know the AIM funding is one big issue. Anything else that you're looking at that affects Villages like Newark?
Jonathan Taylor: Yeah, I think the, you know, the discussion about the similar program for water and sewer like AIM, so there's some aid there to help us replace the aging infrastructure. That's been becoming a priority, the New York Conference of Mayors, and will continue to be. You know, the CHIPS funding and AIM funding, those things that, because the cost of, you know, replacing the infrastructure in the roads and everything else has just gone up so much that it's difficult for smaller municipalities, well any municipality, to keep up. So we definitely need the support from the state to make those things happen, and you know, and then you just never know. There's, you know, as you know, there's literally thousands of bills that are introduced every year, and you know, thankfully, New York Conference of Mayors and others track those bills to see where they go and see what the impact will be. So, you know, it really remains to see what might be in store for 2025 that we're not even aware of yet.
Paul Szmal: All right, Jonathan Taylor, Mayor of the Village of Newark, we appreciate the time, and we're so happy to be able to pass this news on to the listeners each month. Thank you again so much.
Jonathan Taylor: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
