NEW PALTZ TO SELL TOWN HALL SITE

Town Board yet to decide on new location

NEW PALTZ — The Town Board plans to seek buyers for the Town Hall property off state Route 32 in advance of finding a new facility for municipal offices.

The need for a new building was discussed during a Town Board meeting last week, when officials said it would been necessary to determine a market value for the current site.

“When you take the action and say this building is for sale then everybody knows we’re serious about selling this building and finding some other place for Town Hall,” Supervisor Susan Zimet said.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen until you actually open up the door,” she said. “So I would love to start the process of actually putting this up for sale knowing and committing to the fact that we’re going to sell this place.”

Town officials had previously suggested moving town offices to the middle school, which would be shared with the village, but acknowledged that school district trustees are not ready to determine whether classes can be moved to another location.

“I don’t see a future right now where the school district and the town of New Paltz can consolidate our administrative needs because ours are jeopardizing our employees’ health and safety,” Councilwoman Kitty Brown said. “I don’t think we can wait the five to 10 years that the funding and visioning would take to move forward on it.”

Officials also said they would consider use of the current school administrative offices on Henry W. Dubois Drive if district trustees follow through with plans to move to Lenape Elementary School. However, Councilman Kevin Barry agreed that school officials are moving too slowly to immediately consider working with the district.

Officials said there had been consideration of building a new Town Hall on the current property, but a larger parcel would be needed to meet state requirements.