Plattekill Deputy Supervisor Dean DePew Sr. insisted at the Town Board meeting on December 7 that the proposed local law banning motor vehicle racing is not “a done deal by any means” and the board is not targeting the applicants for the drag strip who currently have an application for the track before the Town Planning Board.

DePew, who said the public hearing on the law will continue until January 17, said the board will keep reviewing the comments of the public before making a decision on whether to pass the law.

Town resident Connie Dirago charged at the second public hearing on the local law on December 7 that the law came about to thwart the attempts of Anthony Dirago and Tina Bucci to get approval for the drag strip on Freetown Road in Modena. The couple first proposed the drag strip in 2018.

“It’s more than obvious that you’re targeting the application that has been put in,” Dirago said. “There’s no doubt. You just happened to include in that law the district that their property is on. Is there a clause that says if the law goes through, their application is null and void?”

DePew answered that the law wasn’t proposed to combat the drag strip and declined to answer how that would affect the application before the town planners. “I think it’s important to understand that this is not specifically pointing out or fingering one individual or one group of individuals or directing it towards anybody in particular,” DePew said. “It’s something that has been looked at in the past. This is not a done deal by any means.”

Only a handful of residents spoke for and against the Town of Plattekill’s proposed local law banning motor vehicle racing at the December 6 public hearing.

Unlike when residents packed the Town Hall for the first public hearing on the controversial local law on November 15, only six people signed up to speak about the law at the most recent board meeting.

DePew ran the meeting in the absence of outgoing Supervisor Jennifer Salemo, who was absent. DePew will take over as Supervisor on January 1, 2024, after winning the post in November’s election.

While nearly all of the close to 30 speakers at the first public hearing on November 15 spoke in favor of the drag strip, only five speakers voiced their support for the drag strip this time around. One town resident said he hoped the Town Board would approve the local law banning motor vehicle racing in the town.

Pat Laffin, who resides in Poughkeepsie, said he had been following on Facebook the most recent attempts by the owners of the Modena Drag Strip to get approval from the Town Planning Board for racing by “street legal” cars.

He said the drag strip might encourage more kids to want to work on or build automobiles.

“In a time where they’ve taken away shop classes and they’ve kind of done away with the trades, I’m getting back into cars,” Laffin said. “A lot of kids don’t even know how to hold a screwdriver or a pair of pliers. They certainly don’t have enough confidence in working on a car. The people who are in this hobby are passionate and create an environment that is very good for our community.”

Town resident David Roach felt that the town should pass the local law banning motor vehicle racing. He agreed with Laffin that youths should have more things to do in the town, but he said shop classes are still available at BOCES.

“I think the kids today do need something and years ago, I filled out a survey for what we should do at Thomas Felten Park, seeing some trees being cut down,” he said. “But there was not a whole lot of movement beyond that. I’ll be brief tonight, but I am in favor of the local law.”

Roach didn’t give his reasons for supporting the law.

Though attendance for the second public hearing on the local law to ban motorized vehicle racing dipped substantially, DePew indicated there was still a lot of interest.

DePew said the Town Board had received 66 letters giving their views on the proposed local law since the public hearing opened. He said he also had nine face-to-face meetings with town residents on the issue and had received two phone calls from town residents detailing their feelings on the local law.

“I will not tell you a weighted scale of so many here, so many there,” DePew said. “I don’t think that’s important. There are a lot of contacts we’re making with the community and quite honestly, I’m glad to see that.”

In other news, the board unanimously approved former Deputy Building Inspector Ed Diller to replace Scott Mandoske as the Town Building Inspector and Code Enforcement Officer. Mandoske resigned from office earlier this year.

Diller, who was scheduled to begin work on December 11, will be paid $26.73 per hour for a 23-hour work week.

The board scheduled its annual reorganizational meeting for 7 p.m. on January 3.