With the late winter nor’easter threatening to cover the area, the Ellenville Village Board met on Monday evening for a quick, essential meeting.

First up was John Frost, vice president of Citizens Of Forward Facing Ellenville (COFFE). He said that COFFE had signed up its 95th member. The group continues to work on the recreation map that Cresco Labs has sponsored.

A discussion of Berme Road Park issues shifted around as Mayor Jeff Kaplan injected the idea of having the town of Wawarsing take over that park. “Let the Joint Parks Commission oversee the park,” he suggested. Kaplan asked village attorney Ian Morse to check the state rules regarding parks and such transfers. One issue with that concept would be the need to sever the park from the Ellenville Streets Department garage, which sits next door.

That led to a conversation about websites. Kaplan wondered if the village website could be updated, and all the websites more centralized. Frost said that the Ellenville-Wawarsing Chamber of Commerce website was the place to both post and view calendar events. He said that COFFE is urging other groups to post events there, too.

Mayor Kaplan turned to the Borscht Belt Museum committee, inspired by Andrew Jacobs. A festival celebrating the history of the Borscht Belt hotels is coming into focus for a weekend in late July — that being a relatively quiet period on the calendar, after July 4 and before the Blueberry Festival. Kaplan said he was in favor of it but that policing costs would need to be addressed by festival organizers.

Police Report

Ellenville Police Chief Mattracion reported on the precinct’s February statistics. Ellenville Police responded to 778 calls for the month. They gave out 75 tickets for snow clearance issues on sidewalks. Kaplan suggested that when police do ticket people over a failure to clear sidewalks in front of their buildings, that they take a picture and provide it to the court so that no one can claim that they had cleared the snow when they hadn’t.

On the grimmer side, Mattracion reported an uptick in problems associated with Motel Du Val. Three overdoses had been reported; the people involved reportedly came from Kingston and Middletown. A “DOA” was also reported — a 61-year-old from Queens. Mattracion said that the motel had been quiet through most of the winter but that quite recently it had seen an uptick of police/emergency activity.

Other Business

With the nor’easter event looming, the topic of the Hunt Memorial Building Emergency Shelter came up. Kaplan wondered when it would be fully operational. Now that an intermunicipal agreement has been signed by the town and village, it should soon be ready in case of a town wide emergency.

Kaplan then turned to the need for trustees to attend the annual conference of the New York Association of towns. The town of Wawarsing had sent three board members this year, and they had attended informative meetings and come away with a lot of valuable information. Kaplan asked Village Manager Michael Warren to squeeze some money out of the budget to cover the cost of sending at least one trustee next year.

Back to Berme Road Park, discussion of the issues surrounding the basketball court returned. The drainage project outlined by Street Department head Michael Jeter was supported by the mayor and the village manager. This work can be undertaken by the Streets Department and will take potentially damaging water away from the court. However, the issue of repairing the asphalt surface remains and will require finding funds. Kaplan said that the drain would “give us a head start” on the project of refurbishing the court.

The Housing Smart Committee picked up two more members, as Trustees Ray Younger and Samantha Ellis volunteered for the committee. The Housing Smart Initiative is an Ulster County project, see hsci.ulstercountyny.gov for more information.