The village’s soon-to-be new mayor, Evan Trent, made an impromptu appearance at this week’s board meeting – at the request of his predecessor, two-decade leader Jeff Kaplan.

Trent took a seat with the board at Monday’s meeting as a guest, since Kaplan’s term isn’t officially over until Nov. 30.

“I’m a strong believer in the amicable turnover of authority,” Kaplan said in an interview after the meeting. “I’ve done everything I can to help him out,” he said, including inviting Trent to a meeting of all village department heads this week.

Trent defeated longtime Mayor Jeff Kaplan, who consider each other friends, by a 60% to 40% margin in this month’s election. Voters rejected Kaplan’s intention to “continue on the road we’re on,” in favor of Trent’s vow to “build forward and not tread water.” The IT specialist said Kaplan left a “proud legacy” that he’s learned from.

Kaplan, who issued a statement after his loss praising Trent, said this week that he’s excited to be able to focus on just one full-time job now that he’s in his early 70s. He said he’s proud that his mayoral salary fell to $3,400 shortly after his last election and stayed there – and that salaries of trustees didn't rise.

“A full-time job is full-time,” said Kaplan, whose term ends on Nov. 30, three days after the next board meeting. “Quite frankly, I don’t know how I was juggling two full-time jobs.”

In other business at Monday’s meeting, the Ellenville Housing Authority said it will start converting public housing tenants to Section 8 housing. The shift will result in more revenue for the authority while giving tenants the ability to use their federal-level Section 8 status to live anywhere in the U.S., not just locally, according to Karina Rivera, the authority’s executive director.

“We’re looking over the next 10 years to really help how we can help,” she said in an interview after the meeting.

In addition, the board on Monday agreed to set a referendum on Dec. 12 from noon until 8 p.m. to authorize the village to spend $100,000 of its “mountain money” to buy and install new playground equipment at Berme Road Park.

UPDATE: This story has been corrected to fix the characterization of the friendship between Kaplan and Trent and to show that salaries of trustees didn't rise.