Parking on Carol Avenue
More than a dozen Carol Avenue residents showed up at the Tuesday’s board meeting to discuss their overnight street parking situation.
The argument stems from an agreement that the village reached with the Clovelly Homeowners Association, along with residents of Brookside and Hillside avenues, in December to have access to overnight street parking permits. The agreement was part of a settlement in which which Clovelly agreed not to fight the village’s claim that Brookside and Hillside avenues are public streets.
Village law only allows for overnight parking under special circumstances.
Kathy Mattesi, a resident of Carol Avenue, presented the board with a petition from the Carol Avenue Association during Tuesday’s meeting asking that overnight parking be included for the east side of Carol Avenue, which isn’t part of the Clovelly agreement.
“I have three notices from the police department and one of the notices specifies that we need a Hope permit to park overnight ," Mattesi said. "So I inquired about the HOPE permit and the HOPE permit states that if we have a driveway, we cannot park overnight, but we need a handicap sticker. A lot of the people that I’m talking about have the handicap stickers, but don’t qualify for the HOPE because we have a driveway.”
The HOPE, or Hardship Overnight Parking Exemption, is a temporary parking pass residents can apply for if they meet certain conditions
There is currently a moratorium on issuing tickets for overnight parking in that neighborhood, but that expires at the end of this month. The board said it will revisit the issue the during its May 22 meeting.
Look for more on this story later this week.
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Amendments to the Building Code
Len Russo, head of the building department; Martha Conforti, the village attorney; and Erika Krieger, a representative from the New York State Department of State; discussed amendments that the village must make to its building and fire code.
Conforti said that the village hasn’t been in compliance with its building and fire code. To comply, Conforti said the village is required to pass a law outlining how it plans to enforce the state’s fire prevention and building code.
“This is the state law, whether we adopt it or not,” Conforti said of the amendments. “But we need to explain to the state how we are going to go about enforcing it.”
Conforti said the law that the board is discussing is a modified version of the law that’s been promulgated by the Department of States’ codes division.
Conforti is expected to present the board with a model law it can vote at a later date.
Discussion of Possible Law to Ban Merchants from Using Plastic Bags
John DeCicco Jr., director of operations at , and David Brown, a Pelham resident, spoke to the board about the possibility of the village implementing a plastic bag ban similar to the .
DeCicco and Brown wanted to know what steps they could take before getting the board to consider a law.
Brown said the goal is to come up with creative solutions to stop the use of the plastic bags.
Deputy Geoff Lewis said that the board will need to hear that there is community support for such a ban before passing a law. Trustee Paul McGoldrick suggested supporters of the ban collect signatures in favor of a law.
Volunteers Needed for Farmers Market Committee
Trustee Laura Morris reminded people that Community Markets, which runs the farmers market in Pelham, is looking for people to help create a market committee.
The purpose of the community would be to brainstorm ideas for bringing in local talent, such as musicians, chefs, and developing kid-friendly activities.
“We’d like to get more activities, more vendors to the market and in order to do that, we need more traffic,” Morris said.
Anyone who is interested can call 914-923-4837 and ask for Frankie or Miriam, or email frowland@communitymarkets.biz.
County Gives Village Additional Funds for Mortgage Tax
Deputy Mayor Lewis said Westchester County corrected an error in its mortgage tax calculations which will result in the village receiving about $29,000.
“It hardly ever works that way,” Lewis said of the additional money.
