FULTON, NY – A scarce audience provided no feedback in any of six public hearings at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting in Fulton.
“The council has been busy trying to clean up the charter and clear up some loose ends,” Fulton Mayor Ronald Woodward Sr. said.
The council first moved to extend the Cold War Exemption under Real Property Tax Law subsection 458-b.
The exemption is offered for veterans having served from 1945-1991. The exemption runs out at the end of 2018, but with the extension will run indefinitely until there are no longer veterans from this time frame.
The public hearing yielded no input from the community and was passed unanimously by the four present councilors representing the first ward, third ward, fourth ward and fifth ward.
The second public hearing addressed and amendment to a subsection of city code Chapter 235 entitled Bicycles and Play Vehicles that specifically addresses “period of registration.”
“Right now, the police department will register bicycles every year at no charge. The problem is, the stickers that they buy are expensive. The Police Chief is proposing we register them once and that is it instead of yearly. If the sticker wears off or someone takes it off, we’ll issue another. This will save us money and be less time consuming,” Woodward explained.
Fifth ward councilor Dennis Merlino was in favor of this proposal due to personal experience, recalling a time when he and his sons had bicycles stolen from their property and he was unaware of the need to register it annually at the time.
When he approached the police, he learned that all registration information had been purged from the system from the previous years.
“This will extend that registration out to keep the data available,” Merlino said.
Bicycle registration will continue to be available at the police department’s annual Bike Rodeo.
The proposal passed with unanimous council support.
The third public hearing addressed what Mayor Woodward has referred to as the “Chicken Law.”
The proposal addresses an amendment to the city code relative to “domestic animals and pets.”
The amendment includes a variety of farm animals that will, upon approval, be prohibited from residing within city limits.
While city code already prohibits roosters, pigeons, and turkeys, the amendment will add a variety of farm animals including chickens, swine, horses, cows, mules, goats, sheep, and others as animals prohibited from being kept within city limits.
Rabbits, as fourth ward councilor Sam Vono questioned, will still be permitted to be kept as domestic pets, as will dogs and cats.
Anyone currently harboring any of the above listed farm animals is now required to get rid of them. If failing to do so, a code violation will alert them to the necessary change and if continued to be ignored, a court appearance and fine could be administered.
In relation, the council addressed a public hearing to delete language in city code chapter 537 Streets and Sidewalks, specifically addressing subsection 537-4 Animals at Large Prohibited.
“When you were allowed to have chickens and farm animals, we had to have a law that they couldn’t run loose. Now that you can’t have them, we want to repeal it and get that out of the charter because it’s a moot point,” Woodward explained.
Both proposals passed with unanimous council support.
A proposal reversing a prior change in relation to “Right of Way Usage” quickly passed with unanimous council support.
“Years ago, any time you wanted to do something in the Right of Way, you had to go to the Public Works commissioner. For some reason, it got put over to the planning commission,” Woodward explained. “What we’re doing is changing that from the planning commission back to the DPW commissioner.”
By changing each request to be directed to the planning commission, the process to make a change in the right of way on a property would often take months, he said.
Right of way changes, including things such as removing a curb or inserting or widening a driveway, will now be requested to DPW Commissioner Charles Smith III, a change that anticipates approval or denial of each request will be determined in a much faster timeframe.
Finally, the council held a public hearing to opt-out of the exemption from taxation for green energy as advised under state law.
“Currently, a lot of people are putting solar panels up, they’re putting up this big windmills. It’s quite an investment in green energy, which is wonderful. State law has made it a property tax exemption if the council wants to exempt it,” Woodward explained. “My feeling is, a little better than just half of the people are paying taxes here, we don’t need any more that doesn’t pay. If you’re going to put something up and profit off it, you’ve got to pay taxes even if it is green.”
Councilor Merlino, fifth ward, noted that the city is still in favor of green energy, however “we just don’t want it to be a further burden on the rest of the public within the city,” he said.
Woodward noted the city’s attempts to utilize green energy including changing all lights in city buildings to LED and working to make the switch to LED street lights.
“It’s not that we don’t think it’s important, but we have a very high tax rate and we just don’t need it any higher,” Woodward said.
The proposal passed with unanimous council support.
“I’m really happy we’re cleaning up a lot of these codes,” council president representing the third ward, Don Patrick Jr. said. “That’s what we’re working on and we’ll continue to work through the year on that.”
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Mayor Woodward and the Fulton Common Council continue to be proactive and committed to operating the city in the most efficient and cost effective way possible!Thank you.
Regulating chickens and windmills? Seriously? At what point is this council going to tackle the real issues effecting the residents of this city? Efficiency in government? Now that is funny. Let’s start with the high taxes at least you got that right. Boy the taxes sure are high, yet home values continue to plummet. So much for getting equity out of your home. Why bother investing in our properties everyone should let their properties continue to fall into disrepair like the city government is doing with our infrastructure.
Speaking of which I hear nothing about addressing crumbling infrastructure. We have roads that require monster truck tires and a massive suspension system just to drive down them. Failing water lines constantly and failure by elected officials to inform the public of the health hazard the contaminated water poses in a timely manner. We have snow covered sidewalks in winter so people are walking in the roads. Yet codes is supposed to enforce proper snow removal on sidewalks but they don’t. We have drug deals and use going on in the parks, that are supposed to be safe for our children to play in. Yet I see no enforcement……. The list goes on and on of all the issues that aren’t being addressed in this city but by all means go arrest all the chicken and windmill owners in the city because that is a priority! In truth its not the inept elected officials faults it is the fault of the voters of Fulton. So congratulations to the voters for their choices and now they are getting the kind of government that they voted for. Good job!
Adding more codes to be enforced is not the ans. Code enforcement is the ans. Adding more costs to the already tax burden homeowners of Fulton is not the ans. Improve code enforcement lessen tax burden is the key to improving and enticing home buyers to Fulton.