Schuylerville ups DPW pay, delays parking vote
Department of Public Works staff will get an immediate pay increase of 5.86%, the Schuylerville Board of Trustees decided at their meeting Wednesday March 7. Although the village is looking to boost the salaries of many employees, DPW has had a harder time recruiting and retaining staff, Mayor Dan Carpenter said in an interview March 9.
“We can’t compete with the towns,” he said. The village has lost four or five people in the last three years as those employees have moved to municipalities with larger budgets. The village spoke during their February meeting about losing a worker over the winter.
Starting salaries in the department of about $17 per hour will rise to about $18 per hour.
The village will consider a similar raise for the town clerk, treasurer and wastewater treatment plant workers. Those are part of the ongoing budget discussions that would take effect with the next fiscal year in June.
Carpenter said a target hourly wage of about $22 or $23 per hour is needed if they are to compete with the towns and county.
Also, the Board of Trustees has decided to delay the vote on a new parking ordinance until later this year. The parking ordinance would require that people move their vehicles from one side of the street to other during winter months so that the plows can clear the streets.
[Read more about parking here. Editor's note: we had the wrong starting salary in the story earlier. It has been corrected. We are sorry for the confusion.]
Fort Ann still struggles with STRs
The Town of Fort Ann is still working on their Short Term Rental ordinance, and the discussion took up much of the town board meeting in late February. The meeting fell into a bit of a shouting match as Katelyn Moskos of the real estate company Northern Living once again accused board Chair Sam Hall of singling her company out.
This was the the focus of our story about Northern Living’s rental properties on Hadlock Pond.
[See the town board meeting here. Read our original story, here.]
Moskos left the meeting but another man, identified only as having been a former planning board member, asked the board if they were following the best procedures in this instance. He said they may have been listening to hearsay or the loudest complainers.
He asked, if he wrote a letter to the town under the Freedom of Information Law seeking complaints against Northern Living, what would he get? Since the town is not forcing the complaints to come in writing, he said, "I'm betting money that there's very little if any. Very little."
The complaints themselves have caused arguments between the Moskos and others, Hall said, and he did not want written complaints to further burden people who already feel attacked.
"I'm not going to put a citizen in that situation," Halls said.
Another person in the audience said he would put his complaints in writing and get them to the town.
Attorney General’s 2021 Top 10 list
Internet fraud, tenant/landlord complaints and retail price gouging topped Attorney General Letitia James’ Top 10 list of consumer complaints for 2021, a statement from her office reported on March 7.
Rounding out the list were complaints about:
- Consumer-related services such as restaurants, dry cleaners and movers.
- Vehicle sales, financing and service.
- Improper debt collection.
- Utilities, including heat, power, and internet service.
- Home repair services including projects left unfinished.
- Problems with health clubs.
- Troubles with furniture or appliance delivery, installation or repair.
The statement lists a number of cases won by the AG, but does not list the conviction rate for the complaints, nor does it list if mitigating factors such as the pandemic caused a problem that could not have been avoided. It does mention a few cases, one involving the New York State Sports Club, that took advantage of the pandemic to defraud clients.
The statement from the Office of the Attorney General says consumers may report instances of fraud to the office. Consumers are encouraged to file complaints by completing and submitting a Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau online complaint form or by calling (800) 771-7755 if they are unable to submit a form online. This week was National Consumer Protection Week.