Guilderland Town Supervisor Peter Barber delivered his State of the Town address Wednesday at Town Hall.
Barber, a Democrat in office since 2015, spoke about policy decisions and funding cuts in the nation's capital he says are impacting the Albany County suburb.
"To think that we're immune is really very short-sighted," said Barber. "We have a Section 8 program, which is the Housing Choice Option Program. We have about 186 participants. It varies a little bit. More importantly, I think it's 43 children. When the executive order was issued by the president, I got a few phone calls, but my coordinator got dozens of phone calls from people who were panicking about it. Again, this is the working poor. These are people who do contribute towards their household and to the support of housing. But our budget basically is now $1.2 million. Five years ago it was $800,000. So it's going to show that there's a growing need in our community. But unfortunately that program was paused for a while, and people were panicking, not just the participants in the program, but also landlords have to pay mortgages, pay expenses and whatnot."
Barber says at least one stream of federal funding is in limbo.
"We got a very snarky letter from the Department of Energy basically saying that our grant for $74,000 is on pause," Barber said. "That was a grant to replace the boilers in this building up on the roof. I know Kevin was looking forward to doing that as part of an energy efficiency grant. But it was stopped basically because they wanted to make sure that that grant – and by the way, it's not just our grant: there are tens of thousands of grants of similar type throughout the country – was not impacted by or ‘tainted,’ I think they said, by DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Barber pointed out that Guilderland is one of few so-called "pro-housing communities" in upstate New York committed to affordable workforce housing.
He thanked the nine members of the Comprehensive Plan Update Committee who have spent the last two years working on the "blueprint for the future" through public gatherings and stakeholder meetings, with a second public hearing March 18th at Town Hall.
Barber says Guilderland has experienced modest growth over the past year. Town employees have gotten 3% raises and major investments are on the horizon for parks, EMS and police. Guilderland now has 44 uniformed police officers and the 2025 budget includes funding to purchase five new police vehicles. Barber says public safety initiatives rank high on the priorities list.
"I hear a lot about 25-mile-per-hour speed," said Barber. "Don't ask me why, but towns can't just wave a magic wand and make it 25. We are mandated by state law to be at 30 miles per hour. A couple of years ago, the state basically said, ‘yeah, you can have it 25 miles per hour, but you had to do a traffic-engineered study,’ and that's tens of thousands of dollars to do that. It's money we just don't have. 2025, here we are, and now they're looking at eliminating that study. So I think if we get that elimination, I'm pretty confident that that is something the town board will be endorsing. I know there are some concerns that 25 on some roads is too slow. The cars will still go 40, but I think, again, it's all about education. It's really about making sure people understand why we're doing this and how we're going to make it happen."
Barber says the few "speed humps" the town has installed have successfully slowed traffic, and are looking into placing an additional one or two along Willow Street.
Barber gave an update on two prominent construction projects in town.
"I get a lot of questions about the Oncology Center, New York Oncology Center. The last I know is they're going to probably be opening in early 2026. The reason why it's going to take some time is because it's specialized. It's a research facility, treatment facility. A lot of things going on in order to make that building functional. Costco, on the other hand, it takes four months to build because it's just a box. There's no basement. There's nothing really specialized about it. Last I heard, it was going to be opening in late 2025, but I think it's all dependent upon what's called a slot, building slot. These companies build based upon their schedule, not our schedule or anybody else's schedule. So I'll let you know if I know anything about either one of those projects in the next several months," said Barber.
The town of Guilderland has nearly 37,000 residents, including the Village of Altamont, parts of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve and the University at Albany.
