The week after Christmas is usually a short and slow one for town officials in New Paltz, N.Y. — but not this time.
"When we opened town hall Wednesday we had almost 100 voicemails from people inquiring about how they could prepay their taxes," says Daniel Torres, the town's deputy supervisor.
And the phones kept ringing. People started lining up. Torres says the clerk's office has a only few people working in it.
"The clerk's office was so overrun. After a certain while we couldn't even pick up the phones anymore," he says.