SARANAC LAKE - The village of Board of Trustees has scheduled a public hearing on a local law that would ban smoking and chewing tobacco in village parks.

The proposal bans the use of any tobacco product - including cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chew, snuff and any form of smokeless tobacco - in village parks, beaches and playgrounds. The law also prohibits the use of tobacco products within 25 feet of the entrance to a public playground or beach, and at any events held in public parks or areas in the village.

The public hearing is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. Feb. 8 in the village offices.

The idea of banning smoking in village parks surfaced in August, when Trustee Jeff Branch said he had received complaints about people smoking in the William Morris Play Park and other public areas.

"I don't like smoking in public places," Branch, a former smoker, said at the time. "There's nothing more disruptive to me than to be walking down the street or in a public park and smell someone's cigarette smoke and see all the cigarette butts on the ground."

Since that time, the proposal has been reviewed by the village's Healthy Infrastructure Advisory Board, an eight-member committee formed last year to advise the village on issues related to parks, recreation, transportation and accessibility.

Trustee Susan Waters, a member of the advisory board, said the group thinks it's important to ensure village parks are clean and healthy for children and families. Margot Gold of Saranac Lake, an advisory board member who is also administrator of the North Country Tobacco Cessation Center, has spearheaded the proposal, Waters said at Monday night's village board meeting.

Trustee John McEneany said he was surprised at the scope of the proposed local law, specifically because it also applies to cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco in addition to cigarettes.

But he was more concerned about enforcement of the ban, if it's approved.

"Creating a law that's just on the books to make people feel good is not a good idea, as far as I'm concerned," McEneany said.

Community Development Director Jeremy Evans said the advisory board asked village Police Chief Bruce Nason about enforcement of a smoking ban in public parks.

"(Police) don't have the resources to be going around looking for people smoking in public parks," Evans said. "But it gives them a tool if someone is abusing it."

Approving the local law would also allow the village to put up signage informing the public that smoking is prohibited in parks, which could help resolve any issues, Evans said.

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Water and sewer rate study

The board voted 3-2 to hire Pioneer Consulting of Woodbury, Conn. to conduct a water and sewer rate study. The firm's $15,000 bid was the lowest among the five companies that responded to a request for proposals.

The study is being performed as part of the village's plan to install water meters for 2,300 village water users who don't have them already. The village was awarded $1 million in federal stimulus funds for the project.

Village Manager Marty Murphy said Pioneer Consulting will prepare a billing analysis for water consumption, develop a revenue and expense budget and prepare rate structures for the village board to consider.

Mayor Tom Michael said the village's current rate structure, which includes a flat rate for using a minimum of 8,000 gallons, is counterproductive to conserving water.

"This will allow us to determine other sorts of rate structures and will tell us the impact of each one," he said.

"When we go to fully metered and people start conserving water, it's going to be beyond our capabilities in-house to determine what a fair rate is going to be on a completely metered system," Murphy added.

But Branch, who voted against the rate study along with McEneany, called it an "unnecessary expense."

"We've been producing and billing for water for 100 years now," Branch said. "To me it's a pretty simple equation."

Branch also said he believed the study was geared to determine how much the village can charge for water, instead of how much it should charge.

The funds to pay for the rate study will initially be taken from a village Community Development account. The cost will eventually be rolled into the village's financing for the water meter project, Murphy said.

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Meetings to be taped

The board voted unanimously Monday to spend $1,550 to purchase and install video equipment to record village board meetings. The purchase includes microphones for the board table and one for the audience. The equipment will be installed by Pat Donnelly.

"Every week we'll have a recording of the meetings and it will play on channel 2 or 22," Michael said. "We'll have improved sound recording so people can actually hear the meeting."

The funds to purchase the video equipment will be taken out of the village clerk's budget line, said village Treasurer Paul Ellis.

A village resident had videotaped board meetings in the past and submitted the recordings to Time Warner Cable for broadcast, but there were problems with sound quality and that person is no longer recording village meetings.