DELAWARE — Piles of old bank statements taking up valuable space on your desk, in your attic, in your basement? The Town of Delaware plans to host a paper shredding event as part of a larger annual Spring cleanup that will take place on Saturday, April 26. 

During the town meeting on Wednesday, March 12, Town Clerk Tess McBeath said Jeff Bank agreed to split the $700 shredding cost. McBeath said, “People really like [this event] – they bring the truck, you bring your box, you see it go in, you see it be shredded, it’s pretty cool actually.” 

Other news

Building Inspector Kristofer Scullion said he poured another “footing”- the concrete foundation’s base- for a new house in Kenoza Lake Estates. “It’s been busy,” Scullion said, as he completed renewals for short-term housing rentals. Scullion also reported dealing with a house fire caused by a wood stove on County Route 164. 

In her Town Clerk report, McBeath said that property tax collections totaled $5,052,535.83 to date, and that there is a little over 1 million uncollected, so “tax collection is going really well.” McBeath said, “We received a response to our request for a speed limit on route 52 near the Janice Center, and the answer was two pages of basically ‘No.’ Lucette Ostergren, who submitted the request, plans to pursue it further.” 

McBeath said that they’ve received numerous reports about the lack of snow removal on Callicoon sidewalks.

 “It really was bad this year, especially with the ice, and I don’t believe that many of the property owners even know they own the sidewalks, so if somebody falls, it’s their liability, not ours,” said Mcbeath. The board passed a resolution to review a sidewalk law introduced by Town Attorney Ken Klein in 2017; there is currently no sidewalk law in the code book.

Engineer Bill Brown said they should be starting construction again in the next week or two. 

“We’re gonna be putting in [cement] block at the well house and they have roof trusses coming, so the building is moving forward, and we’ll probably start pipework around April 1st. Then we’ll be back on 17B to finish up the water services and the piping there. Then we’ll be switching over to upper Main Street,” where the water main is being replaced between the railroad tracks and NY 97 this Spring; Brown hopes to finish this project by the Summer. 

The board passed a resolution to schedule a public hearing to evaluate Local Law #1-2025, which proposes to give back 50 percent of false alarm fines back to the fire department. The board reappointed Deborah S. Shea as Town Assessor for a six-year term, and they passed a resolution to close River Rd for the Delaware Youth Center’s 5K/10K on July 20.