Politics & Government
Village Board Discusses Imposing Per-Household Recreation Fee
Fee would go toward improving Northport parks and waterways.
Village Trustee Tom Kehoe proposed that a per-household recreation fee be implemented to raise money for maintenance and improvements to Northport parks and waterways at the Village Trustees board meeting on June 19.
A $40 or $50 annual fee per household, which would include a beach sticker, would bridge the gap between expenses and funding for improvements such as repairs and an upgrade of the electrical system on the village dock, he suggested.
"One of the great resources in this village are our parks, beaches, and dock. We all utilize and enjoy them so I think if we had segregated $150,000 on an annual basis in a capital fund, we could do a lot to upgrade the dock or do some of the repairs the Mayor's talked about," Kehoe said. "...We've talked for years about upgrading the electric on the dock, but we don't have the money to do the proper upgrade."
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Parks and Waterways Commissioner Damon McMullen added that the last estimate for a basic electrical upgrade on the dock in 2009 was $46,000.
Village Attorney James Matthews said the fee could be put to the voters as a referendum, similar to what was done for Huntington's Open Space Fund in 1998, or be put on the tax bill.
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"There are state requirements that mandate you have separate accounts and to maintain the money for that purpose only," said Matthews, who added in response to a question by Trustee Henry Tobin that the revenue could be split for both capital and operating costs.
"You could do what Huntington has done and establish a fund and specify the purposes, and submit a referendum to the voters so they can decide whether they would like to be assessed for this particular fund and keep that in tact and keep your beach sticker fund in tact," said Matthews. "The more details you give the voters, the more confident they'll be that you're going to be using it for that purpose."
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