MAMAKATING – Something groundbreaking and progressive seems poised to land in Mamakating. And it has to do with modern energy.

"This is a surprising program — almost revolutionary — and the most exciting one I've ever heard about," said Dick Riseling, board member of the Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development in reference to the fledgling Community Choice Aggregation program presented at the Mamakating town board meeting this past Tuesday, September 20.

Dick Ferguson, also a Sullivan Alliance board member, explained more about the CCA initiative to all in attendance. Alternative energy generation facilities can be owned by local municipalities and provide power to their communities, he said, providing communities with a way to move painlessly towards a sustainable and affordable power delivery system. He encouraged local municipalities to exercise their decision-making capacity and take advantage of the CCA initiative.

"We have a rickety electric grid across the nation," Ferguson added. "The future of energy in New York State will not rely on remote generation stations."

The CCA program has been in existence for twenty years, and has 1,300 aggregations in a total of six states. The first and so far only one in New York State comprises 100,000 customers in twenty Westchester County towns. For the program to work optimally, Ferguson and Riseling explained, each aggregation should have at least 60,000 customers, which means that a coalition of towns is necessary in more rural areas such as ours. In this way, more favorable terms can be negotiated with power companies who will continue to deliver whatever electricity is generated. Individual CCAs, however, will have their own administrator, and a representative who will negotiate the best deal with the power company... and the aggregation can incorporate their own stipulations into the agreement, such as that local solar energy sources must be used.

New York State is supporting this program, and will give technical and legal assistance to any communities that wish to go forward with it.

The Mamakating board, after hearing the CCA presentation, said that it will take a careful look at the opportunity offered and host public information meetings on it all in the near future.

"We have the chance now to be good citizens and to take care of ourselves in a responsible fashion," said Riseling in conclusion.

In other business, supervisor Bill Herrmann said that he was touched by the graciousness of the Open Space Institute, who donated lands for rail trail segments that were acknowledged in a special dedication ceremony last Friday. He added that given its growing mileage of public trails that need patrolling, the town should consider the purchase of a quad all terrain vehicle for about $5,000, to be the property of Mamakating's parks department.

Dave Lybolt then presented his plans to build a replica of a boat that sailed on the D&H Canal, to be donated to the canal museum and interpretive center in Phillipsport, which the town is looking to buy or lease from the county. It was added that there's a new group in Orange County looking into ways of getting water back into the canal. The board appointed Lybolt as liaison between Mamakating and Sullivan County for the museum and canal project.

Councilwoman Janet Lybolt reported on progress regarding the town's tennis court repairs: $5,000 worth of materials will be needed to fill in divots and resurface the courts next spring.

Herrmann noted that the town's preliminary budget is due by the end of the month. Requests for 2017 spending plans, and revenue estimates, have been received from all departments; to fulfill all would entail raising taxes by over ten percent, according to the supervisor's calculations. Since this figure is well over the tax cap, he joked that a case of red pens has been ordered so that a number of items on the request forms can be red-lined.