Both the New Paltz town and village boards have made a public call for volunteers to be part of the local government efficiency grant project -- a $50,000 New York State Department grant secured by the town and village to study what sort of government would be most efficient and effective while still retaining the values of the community.

New Paltz has one of several antiquated political systems remaining in New York State -- one where there is a village municipality that governs village residents and then a town municipality that governs both village residents and those citizens in the town as well.

Originally, a village was established to provide basic infrastructure and emergency services to its constituents in the 17th century. Later, the town was created to provide services and public safety to residents in the rural part of the township.

Now the town has the largest constituency and there have been arguments for decades as to whether or not there should be some level of consolidation. That could be anything from simply sharing more services and combining departments to dissolving the village, creating a coterminous government, applying to become a small city and many other possibilities.

After arguing based on anecdotal evidence and visceral responses from residents and two special referendums were village voters overwhelmingly voted to keep their village government intact, a grant was secured to gather empirical data that the community could study and make decisions on how they might be governed best.

While a new municipal setup could cost less, a single New Paltz government would likely run with less antagonism and friction. Historically, the village and town have been at odds and that antagonism is reaching epic proportions of late.

To this end, a small working group with representatives of the town and village hired Peter Fairweather, and Fairweather Consulting of New Paltz, as their consultants for the study.

Both boards each chose representatives to be part of the steering committee. This committee includes Supervisor Toni Hokanson, Councilwoman Kitty Brown, Mayor Terry Dungan, village Trustee Patrick O’Donnell, Sally Rhoads, Nancy Cohen, Kevin Harp, Ellen Rocco, Chris Robins, Rick Linden, of the New Paltz Central School District, and Gerry Benjamin, from SUNY New Paltz.

Former village Clerk Brittany Turner and former village Trustee Pete Healey have both been outspoken about the need for one government in the past. Turner and Healey complained to both boards that their initial three meetings should have been public since the grant application -- which Healey worked on while still a trustee -- “states in several places that public participation and transparency are fundamental and should be treated with the utmost importance from the start, without exception.”

He went on to chastise elected officials for “failing to give adequate notice to the public and members of your own steering committee” for the first three meetings. He also felt that the process of appointing steering committee members was “wrought with discrepancies,” as some were interviewed, some were not and the New Paltz School District “appointed someone who does not only live in this community, but doesn’t live in the county!”

Both boards countered that the initial three meetings were to interview candidates for the consulting position, vote on hiring that consultant and the third as “organizational” in nature.

The first meeting that was noticed, at least verbally to Healey, Turner and the New Paltz Times was held on July 13, 9 a.m., at Village Hall. Fairweather brought the steering committee up to date on the data that had been collected and outline deadlines for more data and interviews of village and town department heads that would need to be completed.

The consultant noted that, in his estimation, interviews with department heads would be a critical piece of information to find out what each department does, how much money they spend doing it, how many positions they have, what the duties are for each of those positions.

Fairweather consultants asked if they could get a copy of the employee handbook, which the supervisor asserted “would not help provide you the information you’re looking for.”

Hokanson added: “Interviews and budgets will, but the handbook will only provide insight into policies and procedures and guidelines for employees.”

Rhoads asked Fairweather if there was a deadline to receive all of the data requested by his firm to the town and village. He said that budgets were the most important piece of data he required from both governments, as they are “necessary to evaluate service delivery.”

Benjamin asked if the data collected for New Paltz would “be compared to data of other towns that have restructured their government in some form.”

Fairweather said that in his experience “all communities are unique and really not comparable. We can find areas where minor comparisons may be helpful,” but that “no clear parallels” could be developed.

Rhoads asked whether or not “constitutional tax limits, debt ratings and bond ratings” would be included in the evaluation of the data. Fairweather said indeed they would.

From there the group moved onto the discussion of how best to set up a Community Advisory Committee and what their mission and role would be.

The steering group agreed more with Fairweather’s draft mission statement and role of the advisory committee than they did on how many should be appointed, whether or not they should be interviewed, and whether any existing bias towards a certain form of government would preclude them from being on the committee.

At first Cohen suggested that those interested in being on the advisory committee be vetted to ensure that they had no bias towards one form of government or another. Linden disagreed and said that it would be preferable to choose advisory committee members that “have opinions on the issue, as they will provide interesting knowledge and vantage points.”

O’Donnell suggested that the village and town appoint people to the advisory committee. Cohen strongly disagreed with this and said she wanted to “take politics out of it.”

Rhoads felt that anyone who showed interest should be allowed to participate to make sure that “there is great buy-in and participation from our community.”

In the end, the mayor and supervisor said that they would announce that they were looking for volunteers and agreed with Benjamin’s suggestion that they appoint an equal amount from the town and village (loosely established as 12 each) so as not to have any one municipality “weighted” in the advisory committee. Thus far, Hokanson said that she has had several people approach her to be named on the committee.

The basic mission of the advisory committee is to do research, public outreach, review the work of the steering committee, find where there are gaps and serve as another check-and-balance of the process and ultimately any decisions on restructuring that may be made.

Fairweather said that they would meet twice during this process, which Cohen argued did not seem to be adequate enough. Fairweather thought it was, as there is a website established where advisory committee members can blog with one another, information will be posted, the public can comment and the steering committee will also have a blog.

That website can be accessed by going to http://newpaltz.ning.com or by going to either the town or village website. Fairweather noted that all documents, analysis, minutes of meetings and announcements of upcoming meetings would be posted on this site so that the public can stay up to date, informed and engaged.

The packet, which outlined what they’ve done in the past two months towards data gathering and organization as well as public outreach and the creation of the website, also pointed to a big public “kick-off” meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 27 at the New Paltz High School Cafeteria (too late for the New Paltz Times deadline).

Part of this initial meeting and the charge of the entire project are to gather data and analyze it to see what potential restricting options could be.

According to Fairweather Consulting, four options are clear and known -- village dissolution, town-and-village merger, creation of a city and enhanced shared services.

But he noted that other questions have to come into play.

“Are the project goals accurate? Are they clear? Are there other ways of ‘getting there’ that should be considered? Are there preferred options or things that are badly broken?” he asked.

And specifically for the shared services option he raised the question of “how do we prioritize among the array of village and town services,” which ones to consolidate or share or merge?

Coverage of the July 27 meeting will appear in the next edition of the New Paltz Times.