This Tuesday night, August 3rd from 6-8pm is Walworth’s first “Night Out”.  This is a National “Night Out” event where everyone is invited to come to the Walworth Fire Hall to get together and see what is happening in your community.  West Walworth, Walworth and Lincoln Fire Departments will be there along with the Walworth Ambulance, Wayne County Sheriff with Operation Safe Child ID’s, a Walworth Highway truck, Walworth Sewer Department, Wayne County Fire Safety Trailer, Wayne County Water and Sewer Department and the NY State Police.  This should be a great time so please try to get there.

When it is time to renew your vehicle registration, please make an effort to do so at the motor vehicles office in Lyons in Wayne County.  You can also renew by mail to:   Motor Vehicle Department, 9 Pearl St., Lyons, NY  14489.  When you use our local DMV, the county gets to keep 12 ½ percent of each transaction.  Once again, this helps hold down our taxes at the county level.  So keep this address handy and mail your forms to Lyons instead of Albany or Utica.

We regret having to remind town residents that placing anything including grass clippings, tree limbs, refuse or any other materials in the road right-of-way or on someone else’s property is illegal.  It is not the responsibility of the Town of Walworth or Wayne County Highway Departments to clean up after residents using these areas as a dumping ground.  In many areas of town where there are storm drains or where the runoff goes to a stream it is also a violation of the State MS4 regulations and Walworth is a MS4 district.  To find out more about MS4 please visit our web site www.townofwalworthny.gov

To those of you who do not misuse these areas we thank you for your consideration, but those of you hoping someone else will clean up your mess we respectfully request you remove all materials you have illegally dumped and consider others in the future.

On the county level we are fighting against unfunded mandates.  The latest one is Leandra’s Law.  We think the law is a good one, with the intent to protect our children from people driving while intoxicated, but they have passed the cost of monitoring the people convicted to the counties.  Wayne County will probably have to hire an additional person to handle this. This will cost county taxpayers more money to comply with a state mandate.

On the town level the state has also increased our unfunded mandates.  We must comply with the DEC’s directive of MS4, which has just expanded to include the whole town.  This will mean an added expense for all of us.  Up until now it was just a portion of town.  The extra cost to the town to comply with this directive has cost town taxpayers $15,000 in the last year alone.

 The state has also passed a law that we must have the LOSAP (Length of Service Award Program) for the volunteer firefighters audited to new requirements.  These requirements are set up by the state and paid for by the town tax payers.  We have received 2 prices, both for $4,000 for each of the two departments within our town that the town contracts with (Walworth Fire District 1 is separate).  This is another mandate made by the state that will cost $8,000 that we have not budgeted for but must pay.

As your Town Supervisor, I take my job as fiscal officer seriously and have a problem with the state passing mandates on the towns and counties and leaving them to pay the cost of these mandates.
Remember to come to the “Night Out” this Tuesday.  See you there.

Bob