At its May 15 meeting, the Village of Roslyn Board of Trustees approved a $283,000 separate contract agreement between the village and Roslyn Highlands and Roslyn Rescue, the two volunteer fire companies that serve the Roslyn area.

Trustee Marshall Bernstein said the contract amounted to the smallest increase from a previous year's budget in some time. For the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the fire contract totaled $273,202 with $63,000 allotted for insurance and fire service awards.

The village will submit a contract to the fire companies for the 2002-2003 fiscal year sometime this June. Trustee Bernstein is hopeful that negotiations will also result in a modest budget, satisfactory to both sides. In fact, Trustee Bernstein said he hoped for a zero spending increase in the upcoming budget.

Village officials, Trustee Bernstein said, have no choice but to get along with the fire companies. Relations between the village and the fire companies, he added, have gotten better in recent months. BOT members approved the contract in a unanimous vote, with Mayor John Durkin also praising the work fire companies perform.

In the recently approved Roslyn budget, the BOT found savings of nearly 30 percent in its Public Safety budget, which itself contains the fire department budget. The village will spend the same amount ($25,000) as last year's budget in the fire awards segment, while spending $57,000 in fire department compensation insurance, a slight increase over the 2000-2001 budget.

In other news, the BOT authorized the hiring of two interns to work in Village Hall this summer. The interns will work for a salary of $8 an hour. The BOT also approved a new sign for Colour to Dye For, a business located at International Haircutters, 1450 Old Northern Blvd. Colour to Dye For was one of the businesses devastated by a July 4 weekend fire at their old location on Roslyn Road, near the Clock Tower. The BOT also tackled the problem of certain organizations conducting door-to-door solicitations in the village. The BOT debated limiting the hours of such activities. In addition, it was noted that other villages draw up lists of groups and organizations they don't want making solicitations in their neighborhoods.

-by Joe Scotchie