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The Pleasantville Village Board of Trustees held a regular meeting on March 24, 2025. The Board swore in a new police officer, received the FYE2026 tentative budget presentation, and acted on a series of resolutions covering capital projects, fees, grants, and personnel.
Oh, it's your oh, your presentation is now here. I'll I'll show it on my screen. Yes. Just to make sure I've got it working fine. Okay. Good evening all. Welcome to the Village Board meeting for the Village of Pleasantville. Today is Monday, March 24th. We just finished a work session began at seven. This describing a bunch of different issues. Our next regular meeting is let's see, it's our organization meeting, right? Yeah. Which is on Tuesday. Monday. Monday, the 7th of April. Recording and comment. Monday, the 7th of April, which is the annual Village Board organizational meeting full of dry as dust resolutions that we need to make. But we invite you all to join us. Then we return to our regular schedule, uh second and fourth uh Monday. So we have a meeting on Monday, April 14th, and again Monday April 28. Uh tonight we have a long list of things to do, but the first and perhaps the most important uh is to invite a Chief Eric Rutzner of the Pleasantville Police Department. Welcome, Chief. Welcome, Lieutenant Gil Martin. Uh welcome colleagues on the police force to introduce the swearing in of a new officer. Good evening, Mayor Sheer, Village Trustees, Village Administrator Morrissey, members, family, and friends of the Pleasantville Police Department, and the Pleasantville community. I'm before the board tonight to make a recommendation for the hiring of our newest police officer, Matthew Miller. The importance of hiring the best possible candidate, especially on a smaller department like ours, is not lost on Lieutenant Woolman, Lieutenant Gilmartin, and myself. We embrace the hiring process as an opportunity to bring the most qualified people to Pleasantville. In short, we want to give our residents reasons to be proud of their police, and the only way to do that is to find individuals worth supporting. The standards around selecting new candidates have evolved and improved over time. What was previously a haphazard system has been replaced by a much more formalized structure. Most impactfully, the police reform initiatives of 2020, so a host of new requirements of our transfer candidates. As a result, our detectives complete multiple checks as they work through the background investigation of a candidate. There are questions to be asked about the candidate's personal and professional life, their competency and aptitude, as well as their attitude and experience. Each question leads to others, and each box needs to be checked. Has the candidate met all the necessary requirements, as well as avoided the possible pitfalls of their career to this point? Are all the check marks in the right place? Officer Miller comes to us from a large urban department where he served in a supervisory capacity. Prior to beginning his police career, he worked in customer service and relationship building. Our background investigators learned that at his prior department, his server service record was impeccable, and he enjoys an exceptional reputation as a smart, devoted, and thoughtful officer amongst his co-workers, regardless of rank. Many of the people we spoke to commented on his thorough knowledge of the law and legal process. In Pleasantville, we also seek out officers who exemplify integrity, empathy, and compassion, and who can function both independently and as members of a team. Our background investigators dive deep into each candidate's personal life and are encouraged to be creative to find ways to truly uncover white what type of person the candidate is. For Officer Miller, each interview we conducted brought another glowing recommendation.