Trustees unanimously adopted Garden City's proposed $50,056,695 village budget for Fiscal Year June 1, 2005 through May 31, 2006 - an increase of 3.44 percent from that of last year's - during a hearing April 4. A $35.86 tax rate is required to balance the budget, an increase of 5.97 percent over that of 2004-05. The increase will require the "average home" (one assessed at $13,200) to pay an additional $266.64 in village taxes per year. Residents may examine the budget at village hall, 351 Stewart Avenue, Monday through Friday - excepting legal holidays - between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Prior to its adoption, St. Paul's Place resident George Salem urged trustees to kill and remove funds allocated for the proposed jogging/walking path at St. Paul's or defer it until the village's recreation department provides formal plans and drawings. "I strongly urge the board of trustees to remove the funds for the path for a variety of reasons," Salem said. "The path is highly controversial," he continued, "not only among abutting residents but among parents of children using the field, law enforcement officials, legal experts, residents in general, and even joggers that have passed by my home that I have polled."

Salem criticized the recreation department's failure to provide plans for the path, in writing, or any "formal, professional drawings" of the path's proposed route. "The recreation department has given contradictory information throughout the last year regarding distances from the abutting properties, the route [the path] will take and even the dimensions of the path," he said.

He also knocked the proposed path's eight-foot width. "Why is it so big?" he asked. "We're told that jogging volume will require that dimension. This is absurd. We've also been told that the village's maintenance trucks and utility companies and emergency vehicles need a paved road to carry out their business. This is a very mixed message. Is it a road or a path? It can't be both."

Mayor Gerard Lundquist assured residents that the board intended to vote on appropriations of dollars for the path that evening. "We are not voting for the path tonight," he explained. "That will be discussed and debated over the next several meetings. We are appropriating dollars for the path but we are not voting tonight to install a path."

Salem argued that since the proposed fence, to be installed along Stewart Avenue near the St. Paul's fields, was removed, the path should be too. "The way things are now, we're voting for a black box," he said.

Kevin Ocker, director of recreation, noted removing the fence from the capital plan saved the village approximately $170,000. "It was discussed to leave the funding in for the proposed path for further discussion," he said.