SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Delaware County Newscast, where we've got some of the latest news from around the county. I'm Andrew Cantor. Alright, let's start off with a quick update on the whole senior meals in the county thing. In case you haven't heard, the county has parted ways with Delaware Opportunities, the nonprofit that's been providing meals for, well, for more than half a century. And we're not talking about a small program. Lately, it's been serving more than 6,500 meals each month. Well, it was. Basically, the county issued a press release saying it was going to stop working with Delaware Opportunities and bring the meals program in-house, claiming it will save money. More on that in a sec. What's important is that the county officials they never bothered to tell the folks at Delaware Opportunities. So that led to Delaware Opportunities, which says the county owes it something like 300 grand, to issue its own press release and say, fine, we're stopping the program immediately before we lose any more money. And between them, it doesn't seem like anyone bothered to tell the seniors who get those meals what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

What we've got here is failure to community.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Impressively, though, county officials were able to scramble using, I guess, duct tape and bubblegum, and get meals out without skipping a day. Right now they're using a mix of volunteers, staff from the sheriff's office, and personnel from the office of the aging, sorry, office for the aging, to deliver meals and run the dining room sites. They're still trying to figure out the long term, though. Like I said, county officials argued that bringing the meals program in-house will save money, but here's the odd thing. How do they know that? According to Delhi supervisor Maya Bukai, it doesn't seem that anyone actually did any kind of cost analysis. They certainly didn't hold a public hearing. So this little saga, it's definitely not over, but at least the meals are still being delivered. Fun fact: one of the passengers on that cruise ship with the huntavirus outbreak is from Sydney, 76-year-old Mary Rofes. It's not clear if she's in quarantine somewhere or was released into the wild, but wherever she is, we hope she is safe and healthy. Colchester's got a new comprehensive plan, basically a long-term vision for the town. It looks at demographics and then sets uh broad goals, like long-term infrastructure plans, zoning ideas, housing issues, even how to deal with climate change. Now, to be sure, the comprehensive plan doesn't require any specific projects, it's more like a general guide that everyone agreed on. It took two years to create, what with uh input from residents, an environmental review, and all the other T's that had to be crossed and I's that had to be dotted. If you're interested, you should be able to check it out soon on the Colchester Town website at Colchesterny.gov. Just an FYI, the Downsville Bridge, the covered bridge over the east branch of the Delaware River. It's now closed to all traffic after engineers found structural deficiencies, so it might be a while before it's open again. It was built in 1854, so I guess it's not entirely surprising. But did you know the bridge has a Wikipedia page? It's not much of a page, but it's there. Hamden officials are looking to create some new standards for signs in the town. They're going to be holding a public hearing on their plans June 3rd at 6.30 p.m. Essentially, they don't care if someone wants to put up a sign that's smaller than 10 square feet, but larger than that will require a permit from the code enforcement officer, and anything bigger than 32 square feet will need a whole site plan review. If you plan to attend that June 3rd meeting, by the way, you can also weigh in on the town's planned temporary moratorium on any big data centers. They'll be covering that there also. Should be fun. It only took two years and who knows how many committee meetings and phone calls and assessments, but congratulations to Middletown. It finally has a plan for a new transfer station for its garbage. Well, the start of a plan. The cost? Just three and a half million bucks, give or take. Right now it's still preliminary, but the town wants to get to the point where there's a complete design and a firm price from the engineers, then it'll start looking for grant money. Let's be real, $3.5 million is a bit more than Middletown can afford, even if its existing transfer station is, as one town official put it, on borrowed time. If you owe property taxes in the village of Sydney, trustees there have proposed a new law to make it easier for you to pay them. Pretty simple. They want to offer payment plans of up to 36 months. I guess they don't do that already. It's a proposal right now, and if you want to weigh in, there is a public hearing on Tuesday, May 26th at 7 p.m. in the village boardroom on Liberty Street. Both Colchester and Walton have adopted moratoriums on commercial solar development projects. In both cases, council members say they aren't planning a permanent ban or anything like that, and neither one applies to small, home-sized solar panels. They just want some time to consider whether they need to pass any new regulations before someone suggests putting up a big solar farm. Finally, just a reminder that this is still no mo May. Let your grass grow, let the dandelions spread. If nothing else, it crosses a chore off your list and it does good things for the bees and the butterflies. And that's your quick look at some of what's been happening around Delaware County. Did you know you can hear us weekends on WDLA at 92.1 FM or anytime at Delkonewscast.com. Until next week, I am Andrew Cantor. Thanks for being here.