The town of Orangetown is seeking candidates to fill a vacancy on its Zoning Board of Appeals. The ZBA meets twice a month to hear applications for use and area variances. Members of the five-person board are paid $4,778 annually. Interested Orangetown residents can submit a letter of interest and resume to Town Supervisor Thom Kleiner, at 26 Orangeburg Road, Orangeburg, N.Y. 10962, or by email at supervisor@orangetown.com. For more information, call the supervisor’s office at 845-359-5100 ex 2261.

The Ramapo Town Board has changed the starting times for Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals meetings to 8 p.m. from 8:15 p.m. It was anticipated by the Town Attorney’s Office that the new start time would be 7:30 p.m., but the Town Board settled on 8 p.m. instead.

There will be a public hearing at 8 p.m. on March 18 in Town Hall on the town’s plan to build about 130 units of affordable housing off Elm Street at the Spring Valley border. The town has created a development agency for the project, which means that Ramapo will be the builder, although it will hire a contractor to do the actual construction.

Spring Valley officials support the idea of affordable housing, but have expressed opposition to the density of the project because of concerns for traffic and storm water drainage.

Although public hearings are intended as a way for all residents to have a chance to comment on one plan or another, there may be a conflict with holding the hearing on this night.

It’s also Election Day in the Ramapo villages of Airmont, Chestnut Ridge, Hillburn, Kaser, Montebello, New Hempstead, New Square, and Pomona.

Should the hearing date be changed to accommodate more input from residents?

Dan Masterson, who has taught English at Rockland Community College for the past 45 years, was named Rockland’s first poet laureate today.

The announcement was made during a ceremony hosted by County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef and County Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell.

The county decided to create the unpaid position in honor of RCC’s 50th anniversary. Cornell said the college had sought to establish such a position and the timing made sense.

As poet laureate, Masterson, who lives in Pearl River, will help determine the protocol to be used to establish future poet laureates, Cornell said. He will also conduct poetry readings, among possible other tasks, she said.

In speaking today, Vanderhoef recalled his old friend and mentor, Lester E. Rounds, himself a poet. In 1954, Rounds, then superintendent of the Ramapo Central School District, wrote a doctoral dissertation showing the need for a community college.

By the spring of 1959, RCC had taken shape, graduating its first class of 39 students in 1961.

Today, the college also has campuses in Spring Valley and Haverstraw, in addition to the main Ramapo campus. Enrollment is about 6,600 and a typical graduating class hovers around 1,200.

The photo shows, from left to right, Masterson, Cornell and Vanderhoef. It was provided by Vanderhoef’s office.

Read the press release on the event, verbatim, after the break.

I got emailed this flyer, which I hear has been circulating around local businesses since the village board said it wanted to raise parking fines. By the way, the board is planning to meet on Thursday, Feb. 26 to continue discussion on changing parking fines. If you want to read more on this and the recent parking rate hike, click here or here.

The recently-started grading work on the 10-acre lot on Holt Drive a/k/a/ Kay Fries Drive — where a Super ShopRite strip mall is proposed — surprised neighbors because they thought nothing should be done to the site until state Supreme Court in New City decides on the Article 78 proceeding filed by a group of residents against the town and the developer of the ShopRite mall, Crossroads.

William Sheehan, the town’s building inspector, said today that the developer indeed has not filed a final site plan for the project and did not have a building permit. But he said that it was allowed to do the grading work based on the permit issued late last year by then town engineer, Greater Hudson Valley Engineering & Land Surveying.

Among the items on tomorrow’s Town Board meeting is a resolution to change the starting times for the Planning Board and Zoning Board meetings.

The 8:15 p.m. starting time will be changed to 7:30 p.m. That could be a significant change for the public, which sometimes had to wait until 11 p.m. or later for discussions on items of interest, especially those before the Planning Board.

Now, we’ll just have to see whether the change gets more members to the meetings on time. Tardiness has been a chronic problem, particularly at the Planning Board, where the start of meetings was sometimes delayed for 15 minutes or more.

Sheriff’s Department arson Detective Doug Lerner has been working without his partner – Scooter.

The yellow Lab, known to get excited over the scent of gasoline and other accelerants, has been out on injury leave with a bad foot.

The action pooch had surgery on Jan. 29 at the Suffern Animal Hospital. She’s expected to be off-duty until the end of the month, Detective Lt. William Barbera said.

“She came back and had a cone on her head,” Barbera said, adding the device was meant to prevent Scooter from licking or biting the stitches on her back leg.

Her stitches came out today, he said.

While she’s convalescing, Lerner has been working.

He’s investigating the massive fire that destroyed a Washington Avenue warehouse in Suffern last week – a fire seen for miles. And the warehouse had loads of flammable stuff – from propane tanks to gasoline, all the stuff that puts the bark in an arson dog like Scooter.

Lerner and Scooter have been a team since 2006.

Scooter was found in a Chicago animal shelter after she was abandoned on the streets. The person who rescued the pup and named her Scooter took her to Maine for possible training as an arson dog.

Scooter succeeded Hayley, a black Labrador retriever who became the county’s first arson dog in 2001. Hayley retired with her handler, Detective Joseph Guidice.

While Scooter is a “sworn” law enforcement pooch, she’s not eligible for 2007c – the state program that pays police officer their salary tax free while they are recovering from an on-the-job injury.

The Palisades Community Center seems to have found the answer to the dearth of farmers’ markets in the winter. Starting this Saturday, the center will be hosting what may be Rockland’s first indoor farmers’ market. It will be held every Saturday from February to April, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the center, 675 Oak Tree Road. Familiar local vendors will be there, providing organic nuts and dried fruit from Tierra Farm of Valatie, chicken and eggs from Dines Farms of Oak Hill, and cheeses made from grass-fed cows from Bobolink Dairy of Vernon, N.J. Visit palisadesny.com for more information.

While novel for Rockland, such an idea has been done before. Here’s a photo of the Westchester County Center’s indoor farmers’ market, which started in 2007.

The Pearl River School District will be holding a budget focus group meeting Friday for parents of children not yet in kindergarten (from birth to 5). The session will take place from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. at Pearl River High School, 275 E. Central Ave, in the Pirate Cove meeting room. The district will be asking for input on school programs, costs and taxes to consider for future budgets. Participants are asked to RSVP to Sandy Cokeley at cokeleys@pearlriver.org or 845-620-3932.