MIDDLETOWN – At the Middletown Area Town Hall (MATH) on Thursday, Dec. 12, Helen Owen, District 1 Supervisor-elect addressed the attendees at the request of Monica Rosenthal, MATH Chairperson. Owen held that she was more familiar with the “horse arena” than the political arena, but that she would swiftly find her footing on the Board of Supervisors.
Owen maintained that her candidacy was to work for the people of District 1, so she wants to hear from Middletown residents what they would like to see coming out of Lake County governance. Owen further stated that southern Lake County has been “left out”, and that she knows there is a desperate need for road repairs, one that will surely exceed available funds. She called on District 1 constituents to contact her by phone call, or text message, once she is assigned an official phone number by the county after her swearing-in on or about Jan. 7, 2025.
Rosenthal summarized the role of MATH as a Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) under the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors (BOS) with a responsibility to represent the community to the BOS, and to generally inform the community of issues and discuss solutions. She stated that there has been a disconnect with county governance as they are legally required to inform MATH of political issues only 72-hours in advance, but the MATH board only meets once a month and is staffed by volunteers. The 72-hour window is barely enough time to generate emails.
When Rosenthal served on the Planning Commission in 2008, they were notified of actions 10 days in advance, even though the legal requirement was only 72-hours. This allowed the committee to perform its due diligence. Since Middletown’s MAC does not receive this courtesy of greater advanced notice than the legal requirement, it is frequently only able to serve as an information clearing house, rather than as a representative agency of the community.
Rosenthal pointed out that the local and regional Area Planning Committees convened under the aegis of the County of Lake has by-passed the MACs in setting up meetings and soliciting community input when the MACs themselves would seem to be the best venues for developing land use policies. As an example of interfacing with county services she recounted finding the agency responsible for replacing bulbs in streetlamps, and was asked for the pole numbers affected. She went out after dark as a volunteer member of the community to document the numerous dark streetlights to the full-time staff at the county. There is no projected date for the repairs.
Tara Ybarra of the Middletown Area Merchants Association added that there are no electrical outlets on the streetlamps as well, making it challenging to string seasonal lighting downtown. Nonetheless, there will be a tree lighting ceremony, Santa, the Grinch, an indoor snowball fight, many open merchants, carolers, live music and breaking pinata’s at the Middletown Art Center come rain or shine in downtown Middletown tomorrow (Saturday December 14) from 3pm until 8pm. The entire community is encouraged to join in the celebration.
Nominations for seats on the MATH board were collected and elections will take place at the January meeting of the Middletown Area Town Hall.
