By Margaret Menge

Peter Miller has served as a village trustee since 2000, and says he wants to serve two more years. But sitting down at his kitchen table with the Local on Saturday, March 8, he openly expressed frustration at residents who voice complaints and at politicians who avoid stating plainly how they feel. And he says that he doesn’t think that it’s his responsibility as an elected official to go out amongst the people are try to gauge public opinion. “No,” he replied flatly when asked if he’d been “out there” campaigning, or communicating with people as a trustee. “I expect people to either come to the meeting, or read the paper, of write me a letter, or give me a phone call,” he said. “This is a small community. In some respects the residents have some obligation to stay aware of what’s going on in their community…Why is it always an elected representative’s responsibility to do all that? I’m not going to hedge you. I’ve been doing this too long.”

Pete Miller is the police chief in Highland Falls, and was once the acting police chief in the Town of Cornwall. And he is all of a sudden the most vocal advocate for consolidation of the town and village police departments in Cornwall. Like his fellow trustee, Rudy Hahn, he says he doesn’t know how much money would be saved from consolidating the departments. He says calling for a study amounts to a “stall.” When asked if he thinks Mayor Joe Gross is stalling by calling for a study, he responds: “Yes, because it’s been more than a year now [since the mayor's election] and nothing has happened.”

Miller says the only way he’d go along with doing a study would be if the other Village Board members and the Town Board members agreed going into it that if the study showed a “substantial” savings, that they’d proceed with consolidating the departments. He says he’d consider a $50,000 annual savings to be “substantial.” He says he doesn’t know what the police department’s budget is now, but says regardless, there would be a substantial savings to be had by consolidating.

Miller hasn’t spoken about consolidation of police departments at Village Board meetings, except to respond to a recent question from village Patrick Welch, who asked why nothing was being done on the issue. Miller’s response was brief. In talking with the Local last weekend, he says he’s not pushed the issue in recent years because he has no support from the rest of the board. Miller says he consider irrelevant any talk about who would control the consolidated police department, town or village, saying that no organ of government controls a police department. He says that no full-time officers would lose their jobs if the police departments were consolidated, and says that a number of officers in the village and town are close to retirement.

Many village residents were surprised last year to find out that the village was more than $8 million in debt, something Mayor Gross made an issue of in his campaign. But Miller says the village went into debt to do some work that had to be done, including building the Black Rock Treatment Plant, paying for drainage and sewer projects on Cherry, Vinebrook and Duncan Avenues, and purchasing a fire truck and garbage truck. “I’m going to go on a limb and say this, but in some ways I think he was visionary with the water,” Miller said, referring to former mayor Ed Moulton. “If you don’t have water, you’re jammed up.” He says the village is well positioned to provide water to big developments like Cornwall Commons only because the mayor had the foresight to build the Black Rock Treatment Plant. When asked whether the Village Board looked closely at the plant’s capabilities, and how it might benefit the village, Miller said there was a water study done in 1996, but that he’d never read it.

Pete Miller on the issues...

Riverfront: “I want the riverfront to stay the way it is….everyone I know who goes down there likes it just the way it is, the tranquility, the peace.” He says he and his children have swum in the river for years. Miller previously worked as a commercial diver, and now does body recoveries for a not-for-profit organization. He says he would not be in favor of a pier at Donahue Memorial Park, and would also be opposed to a floating dock, as has been proposed by John Wenz, chair of the Riverfront Revitalization Committee. Miller has been a member of the RiverFest Committee since the first year of RiverFest, something he says is not an accident, but a reflection of his love of the river.

Parking: “Politicians have to have a little foresight..Even if you’re on the side that says there’s no parking issue right now, there will be down the road.” Miller says he still thinks the License Agreement that gave The River Bank two parking spaces in exchange for building another municipal lot on River Avenue was a good idea. “There was a small group of people in the immediate area who didn’t want it,” he says, referring to NIMBA (Not in my backyard). “But we have an obligation to serve all the people.

Moffia wall: “I don’t understand the moffia wall issue, why it’s an issue,” says Miller. “The moffia wall doesn’t change, and can’t change the area of the park." Miller says the wall will go a long way toward limiting the labor and money spent in having DPW workers build up the embankment after a storm. He says it should be left to the DPW Superintendent to determine what is needed in applying for grants, as Bob Gilmore did in this case, winning a quarter million grant from FEMA to build the wall. He says Bob Gilmore had been in the job long enough to know what needed to be done. “Just like in any business micromanaging is not always the most productive way,” he said. “Unfortunately, there was a huge personality issue between Mr. Gilmore and Mr. Gross..”