The Village of Kensington Board of Trustees last week opted against creating term limits for its local politicians.
On the heels of the debate over instituting term limits in the Village of Kings Point during the recent election campaign, Kensington’s trustees discussed terms limits for its elected officials at the board’s regular monthly meeting last Wednesday.
“Most of the village’s don’t have them, some of them do. I just wanted to have a healthy, open discussion about it,” Village of Kensington Mayor Susan Lopatkin said.
Board members took some time to develop an opinion on the subject.
“I’m sort of on the fence about it,” Kensington Trustee Alina Hendler said. “It depends who wants to step up as mayor or a trustee.”
The issue of term limits in village government became a hot-button issue during the Village of Kings Point election earlier this month.
Although challengers in the election against Kings Point incumbent Mayor Michael Kalnick and trustees Sheldon Kwiat and David Harounian questioned the length of the politicians’ service, the trio easily won re-election.
Lopatkin said the Great Neck Public Schools Board of Education does not have term limits either.
“The issue is when you have no one to step up to run. If it’s uncontested, what do you do,” Trustee Jeffrey Greener said.
Trustee Philip Bornstein said the board should “listen to the people speak,” and see if they’re “obviously fine with their mayor serving long term.”
Trustees also discussed the term of the village justice, who serves for four years, while all elected officials, including the mayor, serve two year terms.
Bornstein questioned the reason behind the village justice serving a longer term.
“If you look at the federal and state level, judges are life appointments” said Kensington’s Architectural Review Board Chairman Darren Kaplan, who was in attendance for the meeting. “Obviously the legislative and executive branch are elected offices and I think there is some passing nod to insulate the judge from whatever political pressures they might feel. So we give them a longer term.”
Bornstein said there hasn’t been any political pressure in Kensington.
“This problem hasn’t come into our village. We haven’t had anyone in the village hanging around so long,” Bornstein said.
Added Village Attorney Peter Mineo: “Where I have seen problems along those lines, where the village parties have real power struggles, and this is not that kind of a village.”
In other business, trustees set a public hearing for Wednesday, July 18 on a law governing the usage of professional offices in the village.
According to Lopatkin, the law still needs some “cleaning up” before it is presented to the public.
The law was also discussed during the board’s May meeting, in which trustees recognized that there is no established policy that addresses the issue of zoning professional home offices.
Trustees later added another public hearing on July 18 on a new local law regarding the use of a permit to replace windows in village buildings. Kensington’s village court first heard the case in May.
“Someone was issued a summons for replacing windows without a permit, and they concluded based on our code that they don’t see how our code requires a permit for window replacement,” Lopatkin said. “When the prosecutors read it, they believed that the wording states that window replacement is a repair rather than alteration.”
The question of what would be considered an emergency repair for windows was also brought up.
“You can’t allow this process to go unregulated,” Kaplan said. “You’re going to have people breaking their windows and saying it’s an emergency repair just to get what they want when they want. There is a real difference in the kind of windows people can buy, and the types of windows we would approve in order to maintain the character of the Village.”
The board is in the process of developing changes to the code.
The board previously entertained the idea of “directional boring,” a possible alternative technique that would not damage the roads, but will ultimately not be able to proceed with that method.
“As a result of that, the contractor said that he will pave half of every road that we touch,” Lopatkin said.
LIPA will be notifying residents along Nassau Drive in advance of the work schedule of crews, who will try to avoid depriving people of access to their driveways.
Trustees announced at last week’s meeting that the village will be going ‘paperless’ in a few months. Agendas will not longer be sent through traditional mail.
Village officials ask that residents provide them with contact information, even if you have before, by e-mailing villageclerk@villageofkensingtonny.gov. E-mail addresses can also be given in person at Kensington Village Hall at 2 Nassau Drive.
