Supervisor Chris Koetzle Reports to You
2014 Year End Report
Greetings. With the New Year here it’s a good time for us to take a moment and reflect on the past year and begin looking at our plans for the new one.
In many ways 2014 was a transformative year for the Town. After completing the transition of the Supervisor’s position to full-time, which brought more efficiency to our top management level while saving the Town money, we quickly went to work on various projects. Among the accomplishments this year, the Town achieved a budget that is under tax cap and (because of that) will earn your levy increase back in a check from the state in 2015. The budget again, cut dependency on using the fund balance and absorbed increases in the retirement and health insurance lines and did not employ gimmicks to meet our obligations.
Other notable successes include the successful Oktoberfest event that we held in beautiful Maalywyck Park this year where we welcomed close to 10,000 people. We started the process of re-writing our Comprehensive Plan to update it since our last plan was passed in 1990. We also re-focused our Environmental Conservation Committee to more relevant projects such as looking at solar as an option for the town and reviewing our zoning laws to be sure we are more welcoming to energy efficiency projects.
Perhaps among our more challenging, yet successful projects was our transition to county-wide dispatch which presented us with operational issues relating to the police department and town court. We also dealt with 8 retirees this year and found creative ways to re-deploy employees and utilize part-time employees and private contractors to preserve services but at lower costs.
After months of working with the Department of Environmental Conservation, we successfully secured a new water line in the Sunnyside Road neighborhoods to ensure that our residents will have safe, clean drinking water in the wake of the Kenco contamination. This was secured with no cost to our residents for the infrastructure and hook ups, saving our residents over $1 million. Speaking of the Kenco clean-up, we successful worked with DEC to get the source site on Freemans Bridge Road cleaned up which will start in early-2015.
On the economic development front, we had a great year. We finally secured federal funding for the clean-up of the contaminated properties in the Glenville Business and Technology Park which will ensure the further redevelopment of that park. This was a long, long awaited step in a long process that is necessary to move forward with more development there. We also welcomed 2 major new businesses in that business park: Old Dominion and CTDI. Combined they represent an investment in our community of $16 million and well over 450 new jobs. The State Comptroller even visited the site since hearing so much about the positive news in Glenville. Of course, more recently, we got word that Applebees will be opening in our Town Center and finally secured the financial support to
build the sidewalks and brand new lighting in the Town Center. This project has been a priority for some time and we can finally move forward to making this commercial corridor more walkable, safer, and beautified.
So with such a busy year behind us, what’s next? That will have to wait until the next update, but I invite all residents to attend the State of the Town address on Wednesday, January 7th at 7 PM to hear the plans for 2015. I can promise you that 2015 will be even more exciting than 2014.
As always, please feel free to call me with any questions or concerns at 688-1201 or email me at ckoetzle@townofglenville.org. You can also follow me on Twitter at @chriskoetzle or on Facebook.
All the best. ~
| 
