Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
This work session of the Pleasantville Village Board of Trustees covered a referendum petition on moving village elections, traffic safety in the Hopper Street parking lot, and an update on the school district fields/lights committee. An executive session was listed on the agenda. No formal resolutions or votes were taken. Note: The agenda and raw transcript identify the meeting as Monday, July 28, 2025, while the meeting timestamp provided for this summary is August 7, 2025.
Let's start over. Please. Welcome to the work session for the uh village board for the village of Cleftonville. Today is Monday, July 28th. Uh, we have a work session uh beginning now and then a regular session which begins at eight. So first item on our work session agenda is a report to the community that we have uh received a petition via Francesca Hegedis uh to uh seek to have a referendum put on the November election, uh seeking uh people's votes on the question of whether to move the village election date from its historic March uh location instead to November. So those of you who followed this in in recent weeks and months are aware that there have been a group of people who have argued that that is the right thing to do. There are certainly arguments on both sides of the issue. We received a stack of petitions via Francesca Hegadus, amounting to what she believes are 523 signatures. 400 valid signatures are required for the petition to be valid, and uh through the village clerk's office, uh we're in the midst of validating those and determining whether there are 400 valid signatures uh in what was submitted. So that work is ongoing. I have to say it's a fairly heavy lift uh to make certain uh that we understand uh that we have what's required. Uh we are seeking to validate those in a positive way, completely and completely fair weight. Um and we ought to know uh within a couple of days what the upshot of that is. In the hypothetical that there are 400 or more valid signatures will be submitted to the county board of elections by August 4, and then the County Board of Elections would establish uh that referendum question on the November election. Uh and in the hypothetical that that is the case, if that referendum item were to pass the existing terms which would otherwise expire in March of 2026, would automatically be extended to November of 2026, because there would be no election in March, and instead there would be an election in November. So stay tuned on that. We'll have a report which we can make uh public as soon as the final assessment has been determined whether the valid 400 signatures have been received, and if so, off it goes, and folks will have an opportunity to vote in November. Uh in different forums, there will be an opportunity to talk about the pros and cons of that. This wouldn't be the forum for us to do it. All I'm reporting right now is we receive this. In the hypothetical that those petitions are valid. Uh folks will have the opportunity to vote in November. In the hypothetical that they are not found to include 400 ballot signatures, we'll report further on what's next. So I got that right, Eric. Yeah, just uh to add uh the petition needs to be submitted to the board of elections um by August 4th in order to meet uh that deadline. Right, because the requirement is what 90 days before the election date in order to uh provide that. So uh that's where we stand, and uh as I as I said, we uh will report obviously at our next meeting, uh, what the upshot of that was and uh let everybody know where we stand on it. All right, we get back to the agenda street. Okay, so let me share my screen here for the benefit of those watching at home. Okay, and you see that so as those of you who are familiar with this neighborhood will know. Uh, we have a village-owned parking lot adjacent to Hopper Street, and that has been an asset both provided by the village to immediate neighbors, but also used for uh parking for our activities and school activities that take place on the fields. Um at the moment, and since this was created, the expectation and the the signing is such that you are uh presented with a one-way route. You are supposed to go all the way down Harper Street to the end and then return in this direction uh to park, and then when you exit to exit here. This is as it's currently signed, a do not enter location. This is a one-way cycle. Um an immediate neighbor of Hopper Street has expressed concern that folks are widely widely ignoring the one-way route,