Business View Civil and Municipal | June 2022

88 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 6 V I LLAGE OF PATCHOGUE , NEW YORK One such effort created an outdoor dining area each Sunday in the warmer weather. Main Street was closed for the afternoon and restaurants were permitted to extend their outdoor dining into the street. Parks and Recreation developed innovative programming that could be conducted outdoors such as the Walk-Through Zoo, Goat Yoga and Trunk or Treat. And in a superb display of illumination, the local arts council turned the village into an outdoor museum during weekends in October & December with its program ‘MoCA Lights’, which created artist- designed projects on iconic village buildings. Issues of ventilation had to be addressed in village buildings, including the 1000 seat Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, which was shuttered for more than a year. Plans are now in place to add a second floor to the back of the theater to create space for dressing rooms and classrooms – a $2 million project. On the technology front, the pandemic was the impetus for the village to update their website and develop a virtual meeting system. Now all meetings are broadcast live on YouTube and archived there on the village channel. The village also embarked on a multi-year records management project with records being digitized in a manner that will be able to be accessed by the public through the website. “The goal is to move from paper to a fully electronic records keeping system,” says Devlin. “We see technology as a clear benefit in terms of improved productivity and efficiency of village services.” In ‘green’ news, the village embarked on an energy efficiency program with Johnson Controls, who designed and implemented an energy saving program that included replacing the aging boiler in Village Hall, installing new