MALONE — The town board heard from the chair of the American Legion’s Post 219 baseball committee at a meeting held Wednesday evening.
Greg Paye said he will be stepping down from the legion baseball committee and took time, Wednesday, to thank the town board for their support in bringing the border hounds to Malone, and for helping to assist with funding for updates and improvements at the legion’s baseball field.
“I’m here tonight to say thank you, personally, to all of you, this wouldn’t have been possible without all the support, every town employee had a hand in this,” Paye said.
Paye presented town council with a large picture of Veteran’s Field titled “Our Field of Dreams.”
“I hope you (Paye) understand that your leadership played a huge role in what that field looks like right now,” Councilman Jody Johnston said.
Lester Favreau will be taking over as the baseball committee’s chair.
Town council talked about overriding the tax cap for fiscal year 2026’s budget at Wednesday’s meeting and set a public hearing to vote on a local law to do so.
“As you know ever since we established an ambulance district it’s been impossible to meet the state’s requirement to stay within that tax cap,” Town Supervisor Andrea M. Stewart said, “In anticipation of us going over I would like to make a motion that we set a hearing for this local law.”
A public hearing on the tax cap override is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 6:15 p.m.
A special meeting was also set for Thursday, Oct. 2, at 10:15 a.m. for the presentation of the town’s 2026 proposed budget.
“We will probably start scheduling work sessions from that point,” Stewart said.
Matt Szeliga was reappointed as the town of Malone’s assessor for a term running from October 2025 to September 2031.
“Andi’s been around longer than I have and assessor has always been something that has stuck in the town’s craw, we had trouble finding one for a long time,” Councilman Paul Walbridge said.
June A. Fisher, town court judge, asked the board to support a resolution for an application to the Justice Court Assistance Program grant.
“I’m seeking to scan all the files, what we call pay fine files, to get them all scanned and onto a hard drive which will be uploaded into our computer program so that when my staff goes in to a case there will be button there and they can click on it, and it will bring up the whole file on the computer,” Fisher said, “No need for a hard copy anymore.”
Fisher said the grant town court would like to apply for totals $28,195.75.
“There’s 13 file cabinets full of cases that people owe us money on,” Fisher said, “If I could get ride of some file cabinets and make room in the office it would be great and I think it would be awesome to have it on the computer so you can just look it up.”
Fisher said the town court’s grant application also includes miscellaneous items including a video cart with the supplies for virtual appearances.
“There was just new legislation saying we can do virtual appearances in certain instances, not all but in certain instances, and they recommend that we get a cart to do that” Fisher said.
Johnston made the motion for the resolution to apply for funding that was passed by town council.
“I think we need to step up into the 21st century,” Johnston said.