The new public parking lot at 22 Lincklaen St. will likely charge money for parking, the village board revealed at a special meeting last week.

The May 28 meeting was scheduled to close-out the year-end budget books, which included paying the village’s final bills for the 2012 fiscal year and transferring money between various accounts.

“The good news is we’ll begin the new fiscal year in a healthy place,” Mayor Kurt Wheeler said after the board had approved all the final fiscal moves.

Because the village budget is healthy and has higher-than-expected cash reserves, the village is now in a “financially-viable position” to move forward with the purchase of a parking lot pay station for the 22 Lincklaen St. lot, Wheeler said.

The board has been discussing for months whether or not the new 22-space parking lot next to the post office should be a paid or free lot, and, if it were to be a paid lot, how much it would cost the village to purchase a pay station and get it up and running.

At the board’s May 14 regular meeting, Trustee Peggy Van Arnam, who is on the parking committee and has been spearheading the Lincklaen lot project, said the best price she had found for a pay station was $14,700. At that meeting, Wheeler suggested the board wait to see the outcome of its May 28 budget close-out meeting to further discuss the option.

On May 28, Van Arnam said she felt after further research that leading a pay station was not a fiscally logical idea, and that the vendor for the pay station had reduced the price below the previous $14,700 number. She said if the village uses its own employees to install the station that would further lessen the cost. She asked the board to make a decision that night on whether or not to move forward with the pay station option, saying they would not have to actually spend the money until the project was ready.

The rest of the board agreed that the pay station option was feasible and appropriate, and they should move forward with the policy development and detailed planning for installation. They deferred a formal vote until later in the summer. Village Attorney Jim Stokes said they did not have to formally vote on the action until the board was ready to approve the expenditure of village funds.

Also at the meeting, the board:

—Approved the request of the CNY SPCA to hold its 5K walk-run event on village streets Saturday, Sept. 14;

—Approved the hiring of two new part-time police officers for the village police department;

—Approved the closing of a section of Green Street from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, for the St. James Parish picnic;

—Scheduled a public hearing on the Empire Brewing Company zone change application for 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, at the village office. The board is expected to vote on the application at the end of the public hearing.

Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].