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Politics & Government

Northport Village Notebook: Vegetarian Meat-Out, Bond Ratings and More

Several resolutions were passed and the Village expressed its content with its municipal bond rating at the regularly-scheduled meeting.

The review of the overshadowed the brief regularly-scheduled Northport Village Board of Trustees meeting that preceded it on Feb. 15, 2011.

Northport's A+ Municipal Bond Rating
Both the reports of Trustee Thomas Kehoe and Deputy Mayor Henry Tobin mentioned a recent Financial Times article discussing the Securities and Exchange Commission's crackdown on municipal bonds, saying that the commission will be investigating them more. Kehoe noted that Northport was not going to be affected by this, as they had an excellent bond rating and continue to have an excellent bond rating. Tobin further illustrated the point by noting that while many municipalities in the state had ratings over 50%, Northport's was only at 12%. The article was brought to everyone's attention as a response to former mayor

Resolutions:
Three resolutions were passed. The resolution that took the most time to review was a resolution to retain Dr. Avrum H. Golub as a consultant on clean water and infrastructure issues for $80 an hour.

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Kehoe noted that Golub was currently working for the village for "at least as long as Henry [Tobin] and I have been on the board" working on the state-required Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4) report. The additional fee was to pay Golub for work he's done to prepare for the He noted that Golub is now quite knowledgable at water quality issues, and that they want to retain him. Tobin added that two grantes received from the State Department of Environment, totaling over $2 million, were written by Golub. Tobin stressed the need for someone with knowledge of the issues on staff.

A second resolution was passed that allowed a house that will be constructed at 35 Vista Drive to enter the Northport sewer system after paying a fee of $2,000 to the Village Drainage Fund. This complied with a request of the board at that the fee be raised from $1,000, which was what was initially proposed. The applicants, Morris Construction of Huntington, obtained a demolition permit in January. 

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The third resolution that was passed regarded the sale of a printer and ink cartridges to Joyce C. Meyer for $20.

Two resolutions were put on hold. One involved entering Northport Village into an agreement with the National Grid to install a gas service line into the Main Street Pump Station for an amount not to exceed $1,000. The other was for the approval of the minutes from the Tuesday, Feb. 1 meeting.

Requests
A group of vegetarians from Northport High School requested to put a table in for their "Meat-Out" festival on Saturday, March 19, from 9-4. Tobin noted that he visited the festival last year and that it was the type of thing they had in the park all the time, but added that he was concerned about their request to have unwrapped edible samples at their table. He wanted to confirm that there wouldn't be any health problems at the festival before approving the request. There was no formal vote; the consensus was to allow them to use the park, as long as they complied with Tobin's request.

Warrants
General Fund Bills in the amount of $117,481.27 were passed, with an exception for a payment to Pete Cross Electrical, Inc. worth $1,078.41, as Village Administrator Gene Guido said he needed more time to review it.

There were only two payments listed on the capital bills. One of them, a $4,092.46 payment to fix a burst water main line at the sewer treatment plant, was determined to be a general fund payment, and was moved to that bill. The other paymentm $5,840 for labor and installation at the plant was approved.

The bills, $9,932.46, were also approved.

Miscellaneous
Trustee Kehoe also discussed meeting with a marketing consultant, Linda Pierce, before the Board of Trustees meeting, in an effort to generate more tourism in the area. During new business, he mentioned over water quality issues. He mentioned that he was impressed with everything about his meeting with Israel, saying that he was extremely well-prepared for the meeting. 

Mayor George Doll was not at the meeting.

The next meeting of the

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