🏛️ Board Of Trustees
Century-Old Water Main Ruptures on Alcott Avenue During Budget Work Session
A 1908 cast iron water main blew apart on Alcott Avenue hours before the meeting, leaving one block without water while DPW crews raced to repair it. The board then dove into a line-by-line DPW budget review and unanimously approved a $414,301 body-worn camera program for the police department.
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Key Actions & Decisions
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Water Main Break: A cast iron main from 1908 ruptured on Alcott Avenue between Radnor and Van Cortlandt around 1:45 PM, cutting water to the entire village temporarily. DPW isolated the break within 45 minutes and began excavation at 3:30 PM. Half the pipe had blown off. Repair with ductile iron section and new copper service lines was underway during the meeting.
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DPW Budget Review: Line-by-line review of the 2026-27 DPW budget. Key changes: municipal building bathroom renovation deferred to combine with engineering department revamp; central garage duct cleaning completed (5-year cycle); fuel budget held flat; road paving boosted to $900K (double typical allocation).
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Body-Worn Cameras: Board unanimously approved a $414,301.36 contract with Axon Enterprise for police body cameras after a trial period with both Axon and a competitor. Program includes cameras, cloud storage, and licensing over multiple years.
The Board of Trustees had barely settled in for their first budget work session of the year when DPW Superintendent delivered a dramatic update: a water main had ruptured on Alcott Avenue just hours earlier, cutting water service across the village.
"About 1:45, we started receiving many phone calls at the DPW office regarding people all around the village experiencing no water," the superintendent told the board. A DPW staffer driving down Alcott had spotted the problem moments before the calls started flooding in. Crews found the break between Radnor and Van Cortlandt — a cast iron pipe from 1908 that had literally blown apart, with half the pipe sheared off.
"Would you want to take a guess at the age of the pipe?" a trustee asked. "The age of the infrastructure in the area is 1908," the superintendent confirmed. "So we're thinking it could very well be over a hundred years."
DPW isolated the leak within 45 minutes using valves at both intersections, restoring water to the rest of the village while the affected block remained dry. Excavation began at 3:30 PM, with crews working through the evening to replace the section with ductile iron pipe and new copper service lines.
The break punctuated what was already shaping up to be an infrastructure-heavy evening. The board spent nearly an hour walking through the DPW budget line by line for fiscal year 2026-27, with the superintendent explaining changes in everything from building maintenance to snow removal.
The standout number: road paving will jump to $900,000, roughly double the typical $400,000-$500,000 annual allocation. "That was a direct response to the community budget survey," the Village Manager noted.
Other DPW budget highlights included a decrease in building maintenance costs as the village defers a second-floor bathroom renovation to combine it with a larger engineering department revamp, and the completion of a five-year duct-cleaning cycle across all municipal buildings and firehouses.
The evening's second major item came at the end: a unanimous vote to approve a $414,301.36 contract with Axon Enterprise for a police department body-worn camera program. Officers had been testing cameras from both Axon and a competitor over the past few months, and the department recommended Axon. The program covers cameras, cloud storage, and multi-year licensing.
The body camera approval followed months of discussion by the Police Advisory Committee, which had explored the issue alongside broader questions about department staffing and community relations.
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