Stone Harbor Council Passes Bonds, Sets Seasonal Fees

STONE HARBOR – Money was on the minds of Borough Council members when they met Tue., March 6.
While council approved a pair of bond ordinances, the first for $1.7 million to buy four vehicles, including a recycling-packer truck, all-terrain vehicle for the Police Department and to perform a number of renovations in municipal offices and the fire house and Bird Sanctuary, and the second, for $750,000 that will be used for the water and sewer utility to rehabilitate the water tower and reconstruct the 95th Street well, it also introduced the $13.3-million municipal budget.
The budget, if adopted following a public hearing April 3 at 4:30 p.m. in Borough Hall, 9508 Second Ave. will increase the local purpose tax rate by 1.3 cents per $100 of assessed value, or to 49.2 cents per $100 of assessed value from the 2011 rate of 47.9 cents.
What will be closer to a greater number of residents and visitors will be the beach tag fee that council approved. It will be $26 for a season tag, if purchased after May 31, $21 if bought pre-season. Weekly tags will cost $12 and daily tags will be $6.
Also approved were fees for municipal parking meters. Those who park at a meter will pay 25 cents for each 15 minutes. At kiosk parking lots, such as those at the beach 95th and 96th streets, and at the water tower will remain 25 cents per 30 minutes. Those kiosks will be operative from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There are two penny meters at the post office that charge five cents for 12 minutes.
All meters will be operative from May 1 to Oct. 1.
Council took action to allow a continued annual lease agreement with the Stone Harbor Boaters Association, which began in 2009 with owners of Site 103. The pact calls for an annual payment of $4,320. Also to be paid will be $2.240 for expenses incurred by the boaters since inception of the lease. The association was formed by a group of interested mariners who wanted to make it economically feasible to have a place where the municipality could place dredged material that would allow all boaters to enjoy channels and back bays, which routinely fill in and make boating unsafe or impossible.
The borough plans to use Site 103 to deposit dredge material (don’t call them spoils, that’s like calling a marsh a swamp). There are few of such state-approved storage sites, thus it is possible that other municipalities may also use Site 103, which is located in Middle Township just west of Ocean Drive between Stone Harbor and Grassy Sound.