Smithtown to Consider Joining Effort to Preserve Lake Ronkonkoma

Smithtown Town Board members are expected to vote on joining a group to help preserve and enhance Lake Ronkonkoma on Tuesday. 

Smithtown officials will hold their first public meeting of October at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Town Hall. Their agenda includes a vote to join Lake Ronkonkoma Watershed Intermunicipal Organization and a public hearing on the proposed 2014 budget. 

Suffolk County and the three townships surrounding Lake Ronkonkoma are expected to join forces to in an organization that aims to jointly address those environmental issues facing the lake such as stormwater and fertilizer runoff, sewage and more, Newsday reports. 

Suffolk County, Brookhaven and Islip have already agreed to join the effort. Smithtown's elected officials are supposed to vote on whether or not to join the Lake Ronkonkoma Watershed Intermunicipal Organization on Tuesday. 

The organization would meet several times a year to allow representatives from each group to talk and share ideas. It is modeled after similar governmental groups formed around Lake George and the Finger Lakes. 

Smithtown elected officials will also host a public hearing on the town's proposed 2014 budget of $104.3 million that aims to cut the average homeowner's taxes by $13.12 per an assessed value of $5,500. 

Supervisor Vecchio said the proposed 2014 budget leverages savings in health care insurance and staff reductions through attrition, along with predicted increases in mortgage tax revenue, to lower taxes. Vecchio will apply $2.75 million of the town's reserves to the general fund to keep taxes low. 

A full agenda for the Town of Smithtown's town board meeting on Tuesday can be found here on the town's website.