Letter sparks inquiry into salary for unpaid volunteer position

A letter sent by former town board member Bill Carroll has sparked an inquiry into the salary for the chairperson of the Amenia Emergency Response team.Carroll’s letter questions whether the position is supposed to be an unpaid volunteer position or an hourly paid position.Carroll said in an interview that he has received responses from three town board members, but none of them have satisfactorily explained how the current situation came to be. He said that two board members admitted to being unaware of the situation before Carroll brought it to their attention.Supervisor Wayne Euvrard has confirmed that the person who is currently holding the position, Dawn Marie Klingner, is being paid for her work and that the person who previously held the position, Lana Anguin, was not paid for her work. Euvrard said that he believes there is nothing fishy with that situation.Klingner and Anguin have both confirmed the status of their payment as well.Anguin said that she held the position for over ten years until January 2011.Board member Vicki Doyle said she spoke with the town bookkeeper, Sherry Johnson, who confirmed that Klingner has received payment several times for her work as the chairperson for the Emergency Response team. Doyle said her inquiry revealed that Klingner was not paid out of a part of the budget earmarked for that position because the position was not put into the budget.“I’m not 100 percent sure things were done as they should have been,” said Doyle, citing the fact that no vouchers were presented to the board. “This is a recurring thing, so the town board should be informed.”Doyle said that if this position is supposed to be paid, the salary needs to be discussed and voted on by the Town Board and put into the town budget.Carroll said that “any money spent by the Town Board is a concern to me” and needs to be done with the consent of all Town Board members.After explaining that one Euvrard admitted to being aware of the change of the volunteer position pay, Carroll said, “I don’t think that it’s being faithful if the other board members didn’t know about it.”He went on to say that if it turns out that the position was illegally paid, the money should be returned to the taxpayers by coming out of the supervisor’s salary.Doyle said she will look further into the issue.The public hearing for the 2012 Amenia Town Budget is Thursday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Amenia Town Hall.

Latest News

Bunny Williams's 
‘Life in the Garden’
Rizzoli

In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.

“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Garet&Co dancers

Jennifer Almquist

On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”

At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dealing with invasive species

Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with PRISM, is holding a tool she calls a “best friend” in the battle against invasives: the hand grubber. She was one of the presenters at the Copake Grange for a talk about invasive species Saturday, March 2.

L. Tomaino

According to Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM), one of the best ways to battle invasive species is with a hand tool called the hand grubber.

In her work in managing invasive species, she refers to it as a “best friend.” Schultz and Colleen Lutz, assistant biologist with the New York Natural Heritage Program, delivered a lecture on invasive species at the Copake Grange Saturday, March 2.

Keep ReadingShow less
Arts Day for young creatives

Fourth graders at Arts Day

Lynn Mellis Worthington

Fourth graders from all of the schools in Region One gathered Wednesday, March 6, at the independent Kent School to expand their artistic horizons.

It was the 28th year that Region One has held Fourth Grade Arts Day, and this year’s event was coordinated by Kent Center School music teacher David Poirier. He quickly pointed out, however, that it was a team effort involving all of the art and music teachers in the region. He also saluted Geoff Stewart of Kent School, chair of the performing arts department and director of the theater.

Keep ReadingShow less