Happy New Year.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I thought since it is the end of the year, I would do a review of the past year in Conquest.

The year 2008 was a transitional year for Conquest. We had to break in a new town clerk, and I think the transition has gone well.

I can remember my first year in office after winning the election in 1998 and walking in office the first day in January. I said to myself “what the heck do I do now.”

Then the natural instincts take over and everything goes fine. I am sure Kelly felt the same way. Cindy Lamphere did things her way and the job got done, and Kelly had to find her way, and guess what, the job got done.

We also welcomed a new town board member: Janice Moore. Jan has gotten her feet and has been an asset to our town team.

We also welcomed a newly appointed code enforcement officer, Mark Soutar, to our team. He is currently on track to have all his schooling done early in 2009.

If you haven't noticed, we made some small but monumental changes to our transfer station.

We went out and purchased a used truck and some dumpsters and currently haul all our own garbage and recyclables. This has cut cost for dumpster rental and having to pay an outside source to do the hauling.

The end goal is to have only the taxpayer using the transfer station paying for it. What we have done not too many towns are giving the service we provide at the cost we do.

Those that use it are also enjoying the user friendly changes we have made. No more having to throw everything up and over your head.

Our recreation committee continues to raise monies for our park.

Our newly appointed recreation and senior citizen director Regan Townsand has done a great job bringing some excitement into our community.

Conquest is a great small town, and like most in Cayuga County, we had a great 2008 and look forward to 2009.

Charles Knapp is the town of Conquest supervisor