Supervisor's Letter 2013

Supervisor letter 2013

Over the past two election cycles there has been a significant change in the Town Board. This change has allowed the Board finally to update the Town Comprehensive Plan and to develop a Town Zoning Ordinance which echoes the intent of the Com. Plan. The documents are fact based to protect health and safety and welfare of Cape Vincent citizens. There have been many other positive accomplishments in the past two years and more to come. Metalcraft is now in Cape Vincent and expanding. A salt Barn is up and will make for more efficient road protection in the winter. The Town offices have been modernized with new computer systems for better serving the public. The combination Justice Court and meeting room is being rearranged to provide better security, safety and more seating capacity. A larger fireproof document storage facility is also being planned. The Village water system is in the process of doubling the water supply capacity by the addition of a 4th filter which is being financed jointly by the Town of Cape Vincent and the Development Authority of the North Country. This will enable both the Town and DANC to increase their water planned districts.

Hopefully this will include District 6 this year and district 7 in the not too distant future. In the meantime we are working on a uniform policy for current and future water districts. The Town and Village Assessors office has been extremely busy reevaluating nearly 3000 land parcels which has everyone on pines needles. "Not to worry" I am told. Although property values are sure to increase from 10 years ago property taxes will probably not be affected. The Cape Vincent Local Development Committee has done a remarkable job during the past many years obtaining grants and improving the community. Unfortunately new laws and procedures are placing a great financial burden as well as reporting requirements on LDC's in NYS. Therefore the Village, Town and LDC are working on a solution whereby the Village and Town will jointly hire a Community Development Director the LDC members will become an Advisory Board. This hopefully will streamline the process and make it more efficient. Several other projects are in the works. More about those latter.

Urban Hirschey
Supervisor