Here's a recap of what happened at Tuesday's Sleepy Hollow Board of Trustees work session:

Public Hearing on the Budget Brings Calls for Tax Relief, Community Spending

Two residents addressed trustees on the proposed budget during Tuesday's public hearing.

River St. resident Bruce Lozito appealed to the trustees to lower the village tax hike as a way to help residents cope with skyrocketing property taxes coming from other jurisdictions.

So far, the Union Free School District of the Tarrytowns is proposing an almost 8 percent tax increase for Sleepy Hollow residents; the county is also raising taxes for the town of Mt. Pleasant (of which Sleepy Hollow is a part of) by over 15 percent. Lozito said that the village was the last taxing agency that could offer some relief.

"Obviously the county is s a done deal," Lozito said. "You are sort of our last hope to reduce this percentage, which is great."

Lozito went on to appeal to trustees to make sure that investments in the community weren't shorted in the budget. He had particular concern for quality of life issues and parks. Cuts proposed on Tuesday included the reduction of part-time staff for parks in the village by $13,200.

"We don't want to see the investments in our community shorthanded," he said. "Any resources you can put toward the maintenance of our parks is a wise move and an investment in our community."

Tarrytown treasurer, and Sleepy Hollow resident, Jim Hart also spoke to trustees about funding the Community Opportunity Center.

The COC, located in Tarrytown, receives over $34,000 from the Village of Tarrytown annually, and used to receive about $10,000 from Sleepy Hollow. However, trustees have cut the payments to the COC and and allocated the money elsewhere.

Hart noted that the COC provides a great deal of services to Sleepy Hollow residents, and that the building is about to come under the management of Elmsford-based WestCOP. Because there will be new groups involved in running the center, Hart urged trustees to fund at least part of the operating budget of the facility.

"I would ask if you would reconsider putting that much money back into the budget," Hart said.

Trustees Talk Cuts and Comprehensive Planning

The majority of Tuesday's work session focused on lowering a 4 percent tax increase for the 2010-2011 budget. Trustees are intent on bringing the tax hike below 2 percent, but it was apparent that the measures needed to reach that level will affect many sectors in the village.

"I was looking through the whole budget and looking for places to cut, and it's tough," trustee Bruce Campbell said. "But something approaching 2 percent tax increase is rather high for me."

The village's finance committee submitted a list of recommendations for cuts which included reductions for the police department ($112,000), fire department equipment ($6,000), recreation department ($13,200), and programming. In total, the cuts amount to about $230,000.

Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio said if trustees adopted the finance committee's recommendations in whole, tax increases would be lower than 2 percent this year. However, many of the cuts, especially to seniors and park upkeep, became contentious at the meeting.

Proposals on the table include cutting $6,000 in funding for Neighborhood House, and cutting over $12,000 from the adult programming budget.

Trustees said that the new Senior Center (slated to open next month) will reduce the amount of money the seniors need because they will no longer have to rent out facilities and travel for as many activities.

"We had a budget for many years that was based on the fact that we didn't have a Senior Center," Mayor Ken Wray said.

Cuts also included a reduction in labor relations (by $10,000) despite the village needing to negotiate with the unions representing village employees. The village has contracts for all their employees due on June 1, trustees said.

As a way to bring back the funding for parks, seniors and labor relations, trustees became focused on a $50,000 increase in spending for a village comprehensive plan.

A comprehensive plan is a binding document that guides development in the village. Trustees created a Comprehensive Plan Committee earlier this year, but have yet to fund it. Village officials estimate coming up with a plan will cost about $250,000 over the next few years.

Trustee Tom Capossela seemed to suggest decreasing or getting rid of the funding entirely would allow the village to spend more money on tangible services.

"I don't see how we can do it this year," he said. "I would like to add to the adult programing, parks part time and our labor relations."

Trustee Karin Wompa disagreed, saying that coming up with a comprehensive plan was necessary to manage growth and deal with issues like traffic and pedestrian accessibility.

Trustees agreed to earmark some money for the comprehensive plan, but said they planned to reduce next year's funding for the project by a significant amount.

In their discussions on the comprehensive plan, trustees hit out at some critics who claim the village has been making large zoning and planning decisions with little or no thought to their future impacts. One of the examples given was the recently approved re-zoning of the waterfront area which includes the Castle Oil site. The approval makes it possible to build large-scale condo developments in the area.

Notably, former planning board chairman Nicholas Robinson said village officials were "flying blind" without a comprehensive plan.

"I don't buy Nick Robinson's assessment that we are flying blind," Capossela said. "We did Castle Oil, and I think that was a great move. That comment bothered me and is it should bother all six of you."

Trustees will hold another public hearing on the budget next week, April 13, at 7 p.m.