Following a winter season in which Brookhaven spent about $10 million on snow removal – which required the town to borrow against some of its own budget lines – the Brookhaven town board passed a measure on Tuesday that puts close to $4.4 million back into the appropriate town accounts.
The "housekeeping" resolution, as one town official described it, follows a measure passed in July that put a $6 million bond note out for the upcoming tax year. The highway department's original 2011 budget for snow removal was $3,245,116, so the $6 million bond represents the difference between that amount and what was spent.
"We had to borrow money from various accounts to keep things moving," said deputy highway superintendent Lori Baldassare in an interview Friday. "Next year, that will be a separate line on the tax bill so people can see what [the snow removal] costs."
When asked about the snow's impact on the town, councilman Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld said in an interview Thursday that the past two winters have been very hard on the highway department's budget.
"In the last couple of years [the snowfall] has been very unpredictable," he said. "We got walloped. ... We do everything we can to control the impact on the taxpayers, but you have to clear the snow."
Pharmaceutical Take-Back Event Set for Oct. 1
Residents can dispose of old over-the-counter medications, prescription drugs and more at a town-wide take-back event set for Oct. 1 at the Rose Caracappa Senior Center in Mt. Sinai. The material which can be disposed of includes:
- Prescription and over-the-counter medications
- Ointments, lotions and creams in containers
- Vitamins and supplements
- Liquids in containers
- Cold medications
- Pet medications
"This event will provide our residents with a safe, secure and environmentally friendly way to dispose of unused or unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medications, keeping it out of our children's hands, our waterways and waste stream," councilwoman Jane Bonner said in a statement.
Town Board Adopts Intermunicipal Agreement with Islip
The town board voted unanimously on Tuesday to enter into an intermunicipal agreement with the Town of Islip that will enable the two towns to seek funding for the .
A sewage treatment plant and infrastructure improvements at the Ronkonkoma Hub are planned as part of the towns' "Ronkonkoma Transit-Oriented Development" project. The intermunicipal agreement between Suffolk's two largest townships is the first of its kind.
The redevelopment of the area would happen around one of the busiest LIRR stations with 14,000 Ronkonkonkoma riders per day. It’s close to Sunrise Highway, the Long Island Expressway, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory.
"This project is going to create jobs in the short-term and long-term," Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan said in a statement. "We know that this project is going to be a home-run for everyone who uses the Ronkonkoma Hub, and we hope that this sets the standard for intermunicipal cooperation in the future."
