CROTON-ON-HUDSON — Albany has handed the village two new powers, and at its December work session the Board of Trustees worked out how far it wants to use them: red light cameras at up to three intersections, and a tax that would reach short-term rentals. Each still needs a local law, and neither got one at the work session, which ended in direction to the village manager rather than votes. Red light cameras, and a referral before a draft Village Manager Bryan Healy said the village is authorized to put photo enforcement at up to three intersections, and that the police chief had recommended the two Croton Point Avenue intersections at the Route 9 ramps plus Municipal Place at South Riverside Avenue, based on tickets already written there. Healy drew a line between the new devices and equipment already in place. "We don't have any red light cameras currently in the village," Read 58:14▶ Healy said, describing the license plate readers at some intersections as police security tools. Trustee Stacey Nachtaler asked whether the village would need "a data usage policy for this so that we're being clear with the vendor," Read 65:03▶ including a guarantee that images blur faces and passengers. Healy said the village would not be the one holding the images, but that "we would need to make sure the vendor had a policy." Read 65:43▶ The village attorney said that review already happens: "When we review vendor contracts, this is what we're looking at." Read 66:44▶ Trustee Maria Slippen said she had no preference among the locations but wanted the board to be aware of the politics around them. "This is a topic in the media right now," Read 63:23▶ Slippen said, adding that residents had already been in touch. Nachtaler said she was concerned that doing too many at once would draw a lot of backlash. Mayor Brian Pugh proposed sending the locations to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee for comment before any law is drafted, and asked that the committee put them in order. "We should ask them to actually rank them," Read 71:46▶ Pugh said. Healy said he would send the material over and did not expect a response until after the committee's January meeting. Authorization is not installation. "Even if you pass this law, this is not something that we would be doing right away because we would have to budget for it in the upcoming budget," Read 70:02▶ Healy said, calling it a capital project. A tax that finally has something to tax "We don't actually have any hotels or motels in Croton," Read 50:04▶ Healy said — which is why the village never sought the hotel and motel tax that other municipalities have collected for years. A change in state law extends that tax to short-term rentals, and the home rule bill the village requested has now been signed. Healy put the rate at 3 percent, having first cited three and a half, and said long stays are exempt. "If you're renting an Airbnb and you stay for more than three months, then you would no longer have the tax," Read 55:10▶ Healy said, explaining that 90 consecutive days confers permanent-resident status under the law. He said the attorneys have already drafted the law and that a public hearing could be scheduled in the new year. Trustee Nora Nicholson asked where the village's rental registry stands. Healy said the landlord form is on his desk awaiting review, the registry is meant to start early in the year, and a resolution setting fees would come back to the board. Pugh said the two should travel together: "If we're taxing them, we should probably write them down." Read 56:19▶ Housing preferences for veterans and first responders Healy reported back on a memo he sent over the summer to the Westchester County planning commissioner about adding occupational preferences to the village's affordable units, which currently have none. "What we were looking at was a veteran's preference, right? Veterans of the armed forces, and then also having emergency service workers and medical workers be a second occupational preference," Read 33:38▶ Healy said, adding that the Housing Action Council and the Pace Land Use Law Center had reviewed the demographic data. The county answered in October. Healy said it "did not have any objections to us moving forward with the proposal" Read 36:01▶ so long as the village can show no disparate impact on protected groups, and added that the county law department had found no formal determination on a veterans preference was ever actually made — so that question has to be studied too. Healy described how a set-aside would work: "If you had a 20 unit building being built, two of the units would be set aside," Read 35:14▶ he said — 10 percent, in that example, though the board could set the share higher or lower. Pugh asked that school district employees be included in whatever goes to the county: "School district employees, and I would cast a wide net on that," Read 45:12▶ Pugh said, naming teachers and paraprofessionals. Deputy Mayor Len Simon recalled showing firefighters a new piece of apparatus and getting an answer he has not forgotten: "We really appreciate this. What we really need is some housing opportunities." Read 48:09▶ Adoption would be a multi-month sequence, Healy said — a draft local law, referrals to the county, the Planning Board and the Waterfront Advisory Committee, then a public hearing and environmental review. The board gave consensus to proceed with both preferences at this stage. Committee rules: one seat per resident, after June 1 Healy walked the board through what he had hoped was a final draft of guidelines for the village's advisory committees: agendas due two business days before a meeting, minutes to the village manager within 30 days — he offered to stretch that to 45 — annual reports due Dec. 31, and four unexcused absences in a calendar year making a member eligible for removal. The unresolved question was whether a resident may hold seats on more than one committee. Nachtaler read the line that had been left out of the draft: "Residents may only serve on only one committee at any given time. They may, however, be a liaison to a related committee." Read 117:56▶ Slippen pushed hardest for the limit. "I don't wanna be boxing people out so that a small number of people can serve more than one position," Read 124:33▶ Slippen said. Pugh said he supports the idea but not the timing: "In principle, I support this idea, but I think it's a question of phasing it in." Read 119:40▶ Healy floated a 90-day holdover; Nicholson suggested using the program year instead — "It could be June 1 because then they can finish off any programming" Read 127:25▶ — and that is where the board landed, with multi-seat members held over until June 1, 2026. The board also weighed giving each committee chair a village email address, which would pull committee records out of volunteers' personal inboxes; they are subject to FOIL either way. Healy said each license runs about $52 a year, and that the village has 12 committees, "so it really would not be a huge amount to make 12 more email addresses." Read 86:05▶ The guidelines were supposed to have gone out to the committees already and did not. Pugh set a new target: "Let's give it two weeks and then shoot for adoption on January 7." Read 132:02▶ $100,000 from the state, most likely a senior bus Healy said the village has received another $100,000 through the state's CREST program from Sen. Pete Harckham, on top of an earlier $100,000 that went to Dobbs Park and $100,000 from Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg for sidewalks along South Riverside Avenue at Municipal Place. The money must go to something with a useful life of at least 10 years. Healy's candidates from the capital plan: the Farrington Steps, those sidewalks, a roof at the Harmon firehouse, Gouveia Park improvements, the Brook Street drainage project and a new senior bus. Simon made the case for the bus. "I've been the liaison to the seniors now. I guess it's going on two years," Read 139:57▶ Simon said, adding that the issue is not novelty — the current bus has spring and shock problems that make the ride uncomfortable for older passengers. Healy said a replacement would retire a bus at least 10 years old and would likely give up one seat to accommodate a wheelchair, and put the price at about $150,000, leaving the grant to cover roughly two-thirds. Nicholson noted the bus had originally been slotted into the 2026-27 capital budget. Slippen asked whether the same vehicle could also carry teen programming; Healy said something had prevented that with the current bus but he could not recall what. Healy said the state paperwork is due by the end of the month and took the board's consensus rather than a formal motion. Pugh asked that any announcement wait until the funds are encumbered, since the grant runs through the state Dormitory Authority. The survey that opened the night The session began on a proposal to survey residents about spending priorities before the 2026-27 budget is drafted. Healy said salaries and benefits alone run a little less than half the budget and put the genuinely movable share at roughly 40 percent, so the survey would be asking about a comparatively small slice. Simon wanted a plain-language explainer attached. "We definitely want to have maybe a one page budget primer on there so folks understand what the budget is," Read 3:35▶ Simon said, noting that the largest share of a Croton tax bill is school tax rather than village tax. He also wanted the framing honest — "a survey is not a plebiscite" — with the board still making the decisions at the table. Nachtaler pressed for forced ranking rather than letting residents check every box, and asked how the board would get to comment on the draft, offering parking as a pain point absent from the sample surveys. Nicholson said the Tucson survey in the packet was too far from Croton's situation to be useful but liked the Timmins example's sections on services, property taxes and communication. Nicholson also cautioned against over-surveying: a police survey is required this year under police reform requirements, and she said the Police Advisory Committee intends to reuse the standard questionnaire so results can be compared directly with five years ago. Healy said a draft would come back at the January work session, in time to have results before the tentative budget in March. What to watch: the committee guidelines are set for adoption Jan. 7; the draft budget survey returns in January; the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee's ranking of camera locations is not expected before February; and both the short-term rental tax and the red light camera law would need public hearings before the board could adopt them.