ANGELICA – It was relief for blue skies and sunny
temperatures when the Angelica Village Board held a novel outdoor meeting in
Park Circle Monday evening to deal with the mandates of the Novel Coronavirus
shut down.
Last month when the social distancing mandate came down from
the governor’s office Angelica Mayor Michael Trivisondoli put on his thinking
cap.
Knowing that a public hearing for the passage of village
budgets is required by law he pondered how to follow that law in the confined
quarters of the regular boardroom.
“I gave it a lot of thought.,” he said, “We have a lot of
people here in Angelica who may not have the Internet or if they do, they may
not have ever gone online for a meeting or know how to use Zoom or anything
like that. I am a firm believer in that everybody should have the opportunity
to say what they want to say, so I decided to hold the meeting in the park. We
have a great venue, so we might as well use it.”
However, with only three people in addition to the board and
clerk showing up the Mayor said, “Most times we don’t get anyone showing up for
these meetings. This (the park) is big enough that we could have had 50 people
here and still have maintained social distancing. I guess it shows that people
agree with what we’re doing.”
Before passing the budget, Trivisondoli highlighted the
differences between the 2019-2020 budget and the 2020-2021 budget, reporting
that there is a little more than a two percent increase over last year. The
village will raise $319,071.00 in taxes, up from $312,807.00 levied in
2019-2020. The new property tax will be $13.57 per each $1,000 of assessed
property value.
The budget includes $12,000 for Medical Transport Services
for advanced life support due to the retirement of members within the village
ambulance corps who could handle advanced life support.
There is also money in the budget for the village’s new
planning board and the proposal of creating a joint fund with the fire
department for the purchase of equipment.
“The budget remains pretty much the same as in previous
years,” Trivisondoli said.
