9.12.23 BSpa Trustee Meeting Summary
ICYMI here’s a summary of the 2.5 hour Village of Ballston Spa Board of Trustees 9/12 meeting in 18 emojis: 🚘🌳🗼🍂🎻🎨🌳⚖️⚠️📝🚧✍️⚖️📣📖🇺🇸🗳️✅
News to know:
🚘 BSBPA looking for 10/8 Car Show volunteers: email maggie@ballston.org or steve@ballston.org
🌳 Lion’s Club plans to improve Iron Springs Park stage and trash cans in coming weeks
🗼 John St water tower repair plan to be reviewed by DPW in next few weeks
🍂 Bag and bundle leaves and yard waste; brush pick up by DPW may be 10/15 at earliest
🎻 11/18 and 11/30 Sound of Winter concert series at Brookside Museum
🎨 Saratoga Arts grant applications due mid December for $ for local community artists; learn more at next Arts Committee meeting on 9/20
Motions passed (we agree on):
🌳 Lion’s Club approved to do improvement work in Iron Springs Park on 9/30, 10/1, 10/9.
⚖️ Revised Ethics law to be reviewed by Ethics Committee and returned with comments by 10/6 (Passed 4-1, Trustee Baskin voted no, citing revised law was already reviewed by committee previously and this additional review would only add more delay to implementing the new law)
⚠️ Grove St to be closed on 10/5 from 9:30-2 for Malta Ave’s Fire Prevention Day
📝 RFP (Request for Proposal) approved for consultants to revise Village Zoning codes; this is the next step to officially engage firms to help village staff and Zoning Advisory Committee to update zoning codes in the Village
🚧 Zoning Advisory Committee members appointed and instructed to meet by 10/13 and will review responses from RFP and make recommendations to the board by 11/9
✍️ Contract approved with Studio A
Motions removed (no longer applicable):
⚖️ Motion D on the agenda was removed as Ethics Law will not be considered yet by the board until additional review is done by the Ethics committee
Call to action:
📣 1️⃣ Tuesday’s meeting, while shorter and more orderly than the last meeting, displayed both positive examples of bipartisan compromise and the inappropriate political divisiveness we have come to expect under Mayor Rossi’s leadership. To start on a good note, we were pleased to see the board come to a compromise on the Zoning RFP (Request for Proposal) and pass the motion unanimously to move forward. After 19 versions of the RFP were exchanged between board members, the version passed in Tuesday’s meeting will be sent this week to consulting firms to present plans for the Zoning Advisory Committee to consider and recommend back to the board to update our zoning codes.
In addition to passing the RFP, the board also unanimously passed the motion to appoint the committee members for the Zoning Advisory Committee (ZAC) and set a deadline of 10/15 for their first meeting. We are encouraged to see this progress being made to finally update our zoning codes and thank Trustee Kormos for her hard work leading this effort!
Call to action pt. 2:
📣 2️⃣ Disappointingly, we witnessed some disgusting displays of partisanship from both the public and Mayor Rossi himself in his failure to apply fair and equal treatment to public speakers. We posted our statement yesterday denouncing the verbal attacks and shaming of the Democratic Trustees by some members of the public for not attending the 9/11 ceremony organized by the Village Special Events Task Force. We are appalled that an event commemorating this tragic event was used for political purposes (by the mayor’s sister no less) and was not also denounced by both Republicans on the board.
In addition to that inappropriate and insensitive incident, we also witnessed partisanship from the Mayor himself when requested by a member of the public that he must exclude himself from voting on or commenting on the new ethics code in the meeting as he is in violation of the current ethics law in place today. Instead of actually handing over the gavel to his Republican deputy mayor Trustee VanDenise-Perez as he said he would, the mayor chose to interrupt, insult, speak over and gavel down a member of the public during their public comment time, essentially silencing their freedom of speech in front of all of us.
Call to action pt. 3:
📣 3️⃣ The mayor has shown us yet again that he cannot remain fair and balanced in these meetings and apply the rules of order in a nonpartisan way. The mayor allowed his own sister in her public comment to mention political candidates and turn the 9/11 memorial ceremony into a political attack against the Democratic Trustees without being gaveled by the mayor even though he did gavel another speaker for just mentioning the mayor’s Republican running mates (Trustee VanDenise-Perez and Mary Price Bush).
Even in election season, we expect the mayor to do his job to apply the rules equally and he failed to do so yet again in Tuesday’s meeting. This pattern of behavior from the mayor shows just how crucial it is for us to pass the new ethics law now in order to hold our elected leaders accountable. Why have both the mayor and his fellow Republican trustee stalled the ethics laws for months in nearly every meeting? If Republicans get the majority on the board in November will they pass a new ethics law at all? Especially if the mayor cannot even follow the outdated and un-enforced law in place now?
Call to action pt. 4:
📖We call on all members of the public to read the proposed ethics law and show their support for passing it in the next meeting on 9/25 via emailing the village clerk or speaking up in public comment.
🇺🇸 Between attacks against Democrats on the 9/11 ceremony and the organized pushback against the new Ethics law, it is clear that the mayor and his Republican allies are using every tactic they can to win a majority on the village board in November. We call on all Village Democrats to support our candidate, Kamran Parwana in his campaign for the board this fall.
🗳️ We must do all we can to safeguard all the hard work undertaken by Democrats over the past 5 years to bring the village back from financial mismanagement and operational chaos. With Kamran on the board, he can help ensure that a strengthened ethics code is not undone in the new year as Republicans have already promised. Make a plan now to VOTE on 11/7 for Kamran (✅check one and done!) and consider joining us and speak to your neighbors and friends about how important this local election is for our Village of Friends!