REGULAR MEETING OF THE TOWN BOARD
TOWN OF GLENVILLE
OCTOBER 3, 2007
AT THE GLENVILLE MUNICIPAL CENTER
18 GLENRIDGE ROAD, GLENVILLE, NEW YORK
Present: Supervisor Frank X. Quinn, Councilmen, Robert E. Bailey, Mark A. Quinn, Edward F. Rosenberg and Councilwoman Valerie M. DiGiandomenico
Absent: None
Supervisor Quinn called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM. Councilman Rosenberg gave the Invocation and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Supervisor Quinn asked the Town Clerk, Linda C. Neals, to call the roll. Everyone was present and accounted.
Town Council Reports:
Councilman Rosenberg – “From our Receiver of Taxes Department; our school tax bills were due penalty free as of Monday the 1st of October. They still have until October 31st to pay with a penalty, after that the bill gets turned over to the County and added to your next town tax bill with additional penalties. They don’t accept partial payments but we do accept credit cards.
From the Assessor’s Office; a special thanks to Carol and Walt. They are working short staffed right now while we are working on our assessor’s position.
We had 62 sales transfers last month. The STAR Rebate Program has been a challenge for our department. There is a lot of confusion, misinformation and problems between ORPS, Taxation and Financing and the media information that is out there.
The last 8 small claims hearings were completed last month. There are still some commercial grievances that are out there; some of those will be discussed tonight in executive session.
As far as the assessor’s position goes our committee finished round one of the interviews and they selected a few of the top candidates and those have also had second interviews. We have narrowed down our choice to a couple people and we are in the process of choosing one. We hope to appoint our new assessor at our next town board meeting on the 17th.
The Board of Assessment Review currently has an expired position and it has become common practice to have anyone that may be interested in serving on this board to get us a letter of interest and/or a resume with their experience before the end of this month.
I would like to add this to our agenda for the first work session in November. We can go over the resumes; we have already received one.”
Councilman Quinn – “The Traffic Safety Committee met in September and responded to several complaints from residents. One of the more interesting items under review is the Stewarts entrance on Maple Ave. and Freemans Bridge Road. There was talk of possibly removing the first curb cut going north on Maple Ave. because it is too close to the intersection and results in bad back-ups as well as a dangerous propensity for fender benders.
I also noted in that in our meetings many locations we discuss involve the Village of Scotia due to the number of roads we share. My suggestion is that we consider merging our respective Traffic Safety Committees as a logical step towards additional collaboration. This could be achieved at little or no cost and would benefit both municipalities.
Supervisor Quinn – “We have two public hearings on the agenda tonight and I also am adding to the agenda a resolution to go into executive session to deal with pending litigation. There should be no vote of any kind after coming out and reconvening the meeting.
Now it is time for the public hearing to gather comments on the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement and Master Plan.
Supervisor Quinn opened the public hearing at 7:40 pm.
Steve Wilson, Clough Harbour & Associates – “I would like to thank all that have participated to date in the process. It has been a very engaged process since we started working back in January, the Town Board, town staff, landowners within the park, residents and various interested parties. It has been a very pleasurable experience and I think we have come up with a good plan.
The hearing tonight is on the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement and I will keep my remarks short because at this point in the process I am done talking, the reports kind of speak for themselves. It is up to the public to comment on it.
I want to emphasize the work “draft” for those who are going to comment tonight, it is a draft; it still can evolve in response to public comment and input. This is so to speak the last test of the process and the plan so that as the public makes comments we can revise it yet again in response to those comments and prepare a final plan that will eventually be adopted by the board. The public comment period runs until October 22nd, comments should be directed to the Town Supervisor who will forward them onto us. From there we will take all of the public comments both those heard tonight, and there will be an official transcript of tonight’s hearing along with written comments, we will
prepare responses to those comments, revise the plan and/or report accordingly as needed based on those comments and prepare a final environmental impact statement. That will be published and made for public review as well. Subsequent to that we will prepare a statement of findings, which will accentually summarize and probably in fifteen pages or less the project, all that has been done, what the plan is, the improvements proposed in the park, how we will mitigate environmental impacts of that plan and all the steps necessary to implement that plan.
It’s kind of the document that travels with the project for the next ten to fifteen years as projects are proposed within the park, this is kind of what you look at to find out…it’s your road map for development in the park.”
Supervisor Quinn – “For those of you who are not familiar with it, there is a schematic up here that you can come up and look at. It’s the industrial park out on Route 5 should you be wondering. Copies of this draft statement can be found on the Town’s homepage of our website.”
Mr. Wilson – “There are also copies available at Town Hall for review.
It is the Scotia-Glenville Industrial Park, many people know it by a few different names, referring to it in the report all the parks known as Corporations Park, the Scotia Naval Depot, Scotia-Glenville Industrial Park all fall under the umbrella for purposes of this discussion.
Some journal notes on the plan; the park and/or parks cover about 300 acres; our plan proposes a little over one million square feet of new commercial, light industrial space that would be developed within the park. A lot of this new development would occur on long term on land that is currently under federal ownership that is expected to be disposed of by the Federal Government in the near future. Development would likely occur over the next ten to fifteen years all depending on market forces. Buildings would generally range anywhere from 5,000 to 400,000 square feet and all be very consistent with existing uses within the park, light industrial, manufacturing, commercial, office etc.
We have approximately 300 acres, Rte. 5 along the bottom, railroad tracks along the north side of the park. The existing buildings all about 120,000 square feet with lands that are under federal ownership sitting right in the middle of the property.
(Mr. Wilson pointed out existing buildings on the schematic that was on display, the microphone did not pick up Mr. Wilson’s comments because he was too far away.)
The middle-school kids currently walk through the park to get to and from the school. I would love to say that there is a perfect solution to make sure these children don’t walk through the park past the tractor trailers. There is no perfect solution. We tried to identify areas where we could separate and enhance the existing buffer. Encourage tractor trailers uses away from that end of the park that would help to reduce some of that conflict.”
Supervisor Quinn – “One comment for some of you who may not have been here in the past about this issue that Mr. Wilson just finished talking about. The tractor trailers and how close they are to the middle-school and the students at the middle-school. Years ago when the park was first dealt with to make it the industrial park much of the land was donated to the school district and it was assumed that once the school inherited the land and eventually built the middle-school they would have spent a few more bucks and fenced in some things and made walkways so it would be safer for the children. That is years ago, it didn’t happen so therefore we obviously have a potential traffic hazard, safety issue now for
the children there but this is part and parcel of where we are on it.”
Neil Turner, 1965 Amsterdam Road – “As some of you know I was on the committee that worked on this and I want to say first of all I think this is a good plan. I think it could be done. I have to also say that master plans that the town has generated have a sort of mixed bag as far as results so far. I am hoping that the zoning suggestions and some of the changes that are suggested here get implemented.
I am also concerned that one of the big factors here is the need for property owners in the park to form a business improvement district or some association. I don’t know how the town is going to help get that started but what ever it takes it would sure be a big improvement. This is kind of blue sky, a lot of this stuff but most of it makes sense and I would be happy to see that get started and be glad to see it get started soon.”
Yvonne Matthews. 1675 Amsterdam Road – “I did send a letter to the town board. I am a little concerned about all of the buildings (she pointed out near Rte 5). One of the problems is we have a beautiful spot down there, we have our boat and it is behind the islands, it is gorgeous, it is quiet, but up here (pointed to the Rte 5 area) all we hear is Sealed Air and what is that thing that they drop down? It is a 24-7 plant, three shifts. We understand that we have no problem with commerce but we want to have our quiet enjoyment of our property.
What they are doing is they load, I don’t know if you received the letter but I had to call the town police department three times in March because we can hear the idol of the truck. They keep them running and it is strong diesel. When the police officer came he told my husband I could smell it at the middle-school. There were people calling from CVS. These truck drivers are often out of state, they are not abiding by the 45 mph zone and then we have traffic coming out without even stopping at the stop sign and I am talking employees. They just run the stop sign. I am concerned about the traffic and we did have a problem with the tire manufacturer there that was without a certificate of occupancy that
burned.
I would like the town to make sure that there is some kind of monitoring going on over there. I don’t think that anyone is monitoring the noise and we are out there kind of like fending for ourselves.
I called the Superintendent of Schools the other day; these kids are going to get killed because they are running across Route 5 to get to Maalywck Park and they are running against the light. We need to have a crossing guard down there.”
Henri Plant, 1641 Amsterdam Road – “I haven’t had time to read this but I do have a couple of questions.
Is this report based on the fact that who is going to own that property from the government?”
Supervisor Quinn – “Not yet; that is to be determined so it may be the town, it may be the county, it may be a little of each. We have to determine that. We are talking about the 55 acres that are currently GSA (General Services Administration) property that are to be turned over. So right now, no Henri, it hasn’t been decided; one of the two definitely or both.”
Mr. Plant – “The other thing is that how do you go about, if they form an association and they come up with certain things that they want to do, I would like to know what is the incentive for them to do this? Why should they do this, after all they own the property? Why would they go ahead and do anything to restrict their own ability to do what ever they want?”
Supervisor Quinn – “You and I would say the reasoning being that there is strength in numbers and they all benefit if they collaborate and cooperate. They may not, we know that, no more than they would in some other places but we have town laws and we can enforce those but other than that this would be in their best interest. Whether they do it or not, no one can say.”
Mr. Plant – “Most business people have to have some incentive to do these kinds of things. I don’t know what that incentive is going to be.
The other thing is if they come up with anything, who’s going to enforce the rules like aesthetics like putting in something to break up all of those buildings that you see from the road? I don’t know how you go about doing that; I don’t know what powers the town or that they would have.
If this is accepted what is the councils first move going to be? What do you have to do in order to get this implemented? I don’t know what that is.”
Steve Wilson – “The towns’ greatest strength is the zoning ordinance and the master plan recommends specific changes to the zoning ordinance. One of the earliest things that the town might want to do is to amend the zoning to push some of these suggestions forward so future development activities, future site plans come forward to the Planning & Zoning Board they have the ability to implement recommendations to change the plan.”
Mr. Plante – “If any of those zoning things that you adopt are probably going to be fought like mad by the people who own the place. That would be the first thing to do, to do the zoning?”
Supervisor Quinn – “We want to get these things compatible, here is a plan, next step is okay let’s make the zoning and or laws if they are necessarily compatible to what we are trying to do and then we have a system in place for following up from there they finish planning and zoning, if they need variances or anything else there is a procedure already established in the town for doing those things.”
Yvonne Matthews – “What is the incentive for them to put thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands in a berm? This is wonderful, but look what we have (pointing to the schematic); when people come into Scotia-Glenville, I know that Mr. Rosenberg wants to have his buyers and sellers look at…I am an agent too. It is disgraceful the way it looks now so what is the incentive for them to put that kind of money in? When we were fighting the power plant I had somebody come and price this, this is very costly and some of the ordinances we have in the town now are being kind of ignored; noise, odors, fumes. We are not monitoring that. What is to say that they get over there and who is fighting for the
small residential area on the other side?”
Supervisor Quinn – “Two things that I would suggest by way of response; the first part is do we build into the zoning the kinds of protections that we want and then number two is the enforcement issue which you are really bringing up. So then it is up to the town to enforce the zoning that is there.”
Yvonne Matthews – “We have a lot of homeowners over there that are paying an enormous amount of taxes and I sometimes question the amount of taxes that these people are paying. If you look at that it’s a real disparity.”
Supervisor Quinn – “We thank you for your comments. Those will be incorporated and included for the record and they will be addressed one way or another. Please do not hesitate, we all have until the 22nd of October to input the process and as you heard you can either send them to my office which we will share with Clough, Harbour and if not send them directly to Clough Harbour.”
No one else wished to speak; Supervisor closed the public hearing at 8:00 pm.
Supervisor Quinn – “The next thing on the agenda is another public hearing to consider comments on a proposed local law to Prohibit Illicit Discharges and different activities and connections to our storm water or storm sewer system. We have been given a bunch of new things to do; mandated by the state on all of these things as well as some existing things we already have in place. So we are interested right now, if anybody in the audience would like to comment on any of these changes.”
Councilman Bailey – “I’d like to know what the public says and if there is no public comments I think it would be worth while to summarize some of the things that might be more startling for the public.
As the Supervisor said this is mandated upon us; we’re as much as other towns around the state, coming into compliance with the recent state requirement on what is known as MS-4 or Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems and you can think of that as your storm water drain. They are now becoming highly regulated and I will just touch on a few of the points in this multi-page document.
Illicit connections, things you can’t do in other words, treated or untreated sewage can no longer be allowed to go into a ditch along the road, waste water, wash water, storm drains from indoor drains and sinks, you can’t let your indoor sink drain into a ditch.
Pollutants, what are pollutants, any kind of dredged spoil, back wash from a filter and I am wondering myself whether that means the back flush from a water softener, I am a little concerned about that. It doesn’t say that here but that is a question in my mind. Solid waste, incinerator residue, treated or untreated sewage, garbage, munitions, chemical waste, biological materials, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand or industrial waste. That is why the town has to buy a sweeper to sweep the roads. The salt we put on so you don’t crash your car in the winter has to be swept up at the end of the winter, otherwise we ourselves are in violation of MS-4, agriculture waste and all that kind of stuff is
considered a pollutant.
As far as what is exempt, if you flush your garden hose or flush your waterline that is okay. If a little water runs into a ditch from you watering your lawn, that’s okay. Uncontaminated ground water that infiltrates from storm drains that’s okay. Footing or foundation drains, crawl space, basement sump pumps, condensation from an air conditioner. Water from individual residential car washing is okay. This means you can wash your own car on your own property but you can’t have one of these school car washes because that is not an individual car wash. That is good for pollution control but it’s bad for our school fund-raisers. You can discharge de-chlorinated swimming pool water,
water from fire fighting activities is okay. No person is allowed to operate a failing sewage treatment system, in other words if your septic tank is failing you are now besides hurting as far as repairs, you’re liable for fines.
This also gets into commercial establishments; the owner or operator of a commercial or industrial establishment shall provide at their own expense reasonable protection from accidental discharge of prohibited materials. That means that before the event happens you have to have shown some efforts to prevent a spill.
It gives the town the right to designate a storm water management officer who has the right to enter and inspect the facilities, to put meters in to measure any kind of flow. If any citizen happens to see a spill that person is obligated to give the town a call.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Most of you know, if you know the topography of our town, much of the town and much of this material; the town sits on the Great Flats Aquifer. We are sitting on top of the sole source of drinking water for 150,000 people in the county. So is Rotterdam and the city itself but the bulk of the water that we benefit from right now, both us and Rotterdam since we are upstream, you can see what the implications are. This changes a lot of lives and it’s really not just high school car washes but think of all of the clubs and associations and all different groups that do these things to raise money to keep their civic, social or other kinds of programs going. All of us need to be aware and
the enforcement issue is going to be enormous. This is one of those mandates, in a sense it is absolutely good for everybody but it’s another one of those mandates that we are all going to live with.”
Ron Provost – “What do we do with our stuff? What do you do with your paint, what do you do with anything. You are telling everybody that they are going to get fined if you do this, but you’re not telling them what to do with it. I went to Lake Placid because of the Adirondack thing on wetlands and I got a book from the wetland that says if it rains and a bird lands in my driveway it is a wetland. Where is the other end of this book? I don’t know what to do with any of the stuff that Councilman Bailey just mentioned.”
Councilman Bailey – “I know that you are environmentally conscious enough to never dump paint.”
Mr. Provost – “No, I am not going to dump it but what do I do with it?”
Councilman Bailey – “We have hazardous material collection days, which was last weekend I think. We had an electronic material collection which was cell phones, computers etc. which all have hazardous material in them that can poison the environment unless it is handled properly. We are starting to collect that stuff. There was a session last Saturday that I didn’t get to go to but I had a bunch of stuff that I would have taken. We also do that with other things like batteries, paint and left over chlorine from your pool, etc. It adds to the inconvenience because you can’t just get up on a Saturday morning and throw it out anymore. You have to kind of collect it and be responsible and
take it to the facility when the facility is open.”
Councilman Quinn – “You make a good point, Ron, they often give us these unfunded mandates but they don’t give people an alternative to react to them at least with any decent frequency. They need to do a better job not only educating the public but giving them alternatives.”
Councilman Bailey – “Linda Neals, Town Clerk just mentioned to me that the clerk’s office has a variety of materials free on information on various kinds of recycling regarding when it is and where it is.”
Henri Plant – “You probably already know the non point source; this is what this is all about. Any thing run off and so forth and so on is the biggest pollution that we have. The big problem is going to be as far as I can see, is how are you going to go about monitoring this? It is not going to be easy. Just take the Industrial Park, who ever is going to be in charge of that has to go through every one of those things every so often to find out what is going on because things like that especially in the beginning will slip underneath the tent and pretty soon you are going to have your tent full fun.”
Councilman Bailey – “Our Commissioner of Public Works, Rick LeClair, this year completed for the first time the inspections that you are referring to. It did indeed take a lot of effort and he personally and with the help of Mark Kestner or some of his staff because of the volume they visited all of the properties that needed to be visited in the two most rigorous protection zones, Zones I and II. He provided the board a report of what he had done a few months ago and that is going to be an annual thing and it is a requirement that we do that.”
Mr. Plante – “That has to be done because it is so easy for things to start getting slippery and get into the system. It doesn’t take much.”
Councilman Bailey – “I believe this being the first time that he did as much educating as he did regulating and that is appropriate because just to hit somebody cold unless it is an egregious violation is inappropriate so I think you will see that things get stricter as we go along.”
Mr. Plante – “We have to also educate the general public because we have so many people who have their own septic system and they have to be looked at all of the time because it doesn’t take much to get things loused up.
This is the big problem with any environmental problem, who is going to monitor so we know we have a problem because in the past the only time anybody does anything about this is because they smell it and there are an awful lot of things that don’t have very much odor that are a lot more potent in killing you so that has to be done continually. I hope we do that.”
Supervisor Quinn – “This is one of those hidden things; the town will have to pick up all kinds of actions related to this. Nobody is sending us any money to do any of it and so it is for the good of all of us but you can see the potential issues. It has got to be monitored; it has got to be enforced.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I am assuming that this is going to end up on our town web-site also. Is it possible that there be a link attached to it that would give people some guidance as far as what to do with some of those things that they can’t do anymore.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Yes, between Tony and Linda we have got to get something out there so that the general public has got the basic information.”
No one else wished to speak; Supervisor closed the public hearing at 8:20 pm.
The following people exercised the privilege of the floor:
Ron Provost – Expressed his opinion regarding the cost of the permit to use the Schenectady County Recycling Center and the restrictions that go along with that permit. The cost is too high and they restrict the number of times that a resident can use the facility within a day.
Supervisor Quinn – “For those of you who aren’t aware of it, the Town itself when it collects leaves has the exact same problem he just described. We have been negotiating to get that whole fee schedule down because we have been collecting leaves for years. We have been paying, as he described it through the nose, for the same service. We don’t think it is fair either so we are in your camp on that one.”
Supervisor’s Comments
Supervisor Quinn shared the following information:
Sept 20th – We had a meeting along with the Village Attorney and Mayor Katzberg down at the Beukendaal Fire Station to talk to the folks there and there is a long standing issue on the boundary line and where it is drawn in the Industrial Park and who has responsibility for it because believe it or not the boundary line itself runs through a few buildings. It is a nightmare for dispatch and taxing bodies as well. We think we have a good solution for that. This is in our Fire District #4 to which we the Board are the Fire Commissioners. You will see the solution in writing shortly.
We also asked their thoughts and ideas about suppose we did away with Fire Protection District No. 4 and in lieu of the existing district, which takes up below Mohawk Avenue where the town residents are as well as most of the Industrial Park but not all of it, what would be some solutions for that. One solution was do we just turn it over, the part that belongs to Fire District No. 4, do we turn it over to Beukendaal? That is an option. Number two we could create a brand new typical standard issue voluntary fire company and let it run like all of the other fire companies in the town. We asked them their comments on that. We could also create a joint volunteer company between the Village and the Town. That
might involve dissolving the Village Fire Department, dissolving Fire District No. 4 and creating a totally different and new volunteer fire company. The last option clearly is we just turn it over to the Village. Part and parcel of what is behind this besides the nightmare that it creates for all of us at the town level as well as the citizens, the citizens in Fire Protection District No. 4 are paying a third higher the price in taxes for protection in Fire District No. 4 and I don’t know that that is fair for the citizens and businesses in that district.
On the 21st at the Sanders Preserve we had a dedication of a plaque to a gentleman who for years and years, over twenty years, worked in the Park Commission. He was the leader of that Commission and did a wonderful job and unfortunately died from cancer.
Oct. 9th there will be a conference call regarding the Federal Aviation Administration, that conference call will be between us, the County Metroplex Office and the people at the regional office of the FAA. It has to do with follow up information on the proposed road in the back of our building and down to Rudy Chase Drive.
Oct. 15th at 7:00 pm here at the Municipal Center the Women League of Voters are having their “Meet the Candidates Night”
There is action actually happening at the regional office regarding the GSA property in the Industrial Park, they have agreed to do the field study to say what it is going to take to clear up the plumes that are in the ground and any other things that are hazardous materials so they can turn the property over for development. They have their appraiser coming to town next week to see what their appraisal will be and what our appraisal of it is.
We have been working on the Alplaus Sewer District for a long, long time and one of the last pieces of the puzzle has been to get the people involved, we need easements to do certain kinds of things. The Highway Superintendent has been working very hard to get those easements signed and we are down to having only a couple left. Those are people that nobody can find, they own the property but we can’t find them.
All of you have received the Tentative Budget for 2008, you also got a handout that summarizes the basic four things that make up the budget, the three main funds that make up the bulk of our budget and so you have the actual numbers and the actual data that compares 2007 and 2008’s tentative budget and what the dollar changes are in those. You also have a set of graphs that show the same information.
What I am really doing here is laying open to everybody, all of the stake holders, town board members, town staff, and citizens in the town and so forth what is the status of funds in the town? The 2007 budget is fine, we are on track, we will end up the year with a surplus but there are some major, major changes that have been submitted department heads as well as by some of the folks on the board who are the liaisons. Let me summarize for you the big picture. What I am trying to do is establish the base line so that we all know where we are at.
In the tentative appropriations between last year and this year there is a recommended increase of 16% that is a $1,700,000 increase in appropriations on the three main funds. This is requested for the appropriations to meet our goals, meet our objectives, meet the mandates like the ones we were talking about tonight and so forth. That is a large, large number and we all know that.
The revenue for ’07 coming in like predicted with a little surplus but revenue for ’08 will be down $450,000 so you have appropriation requests going up 16% and revenue going down 9 to 10%, obviously a major, major imbalance.
Most of the revenue for the town is outside the control of the town. Sales tax distributions, mortgage taxes and so forth and so on, the bulk of the revenue in these three funds are not controlled by us we are at the mercy of the county and others who are dealing with these issues.
The third part of the budget is how much of the unexpended fund balance that we have and we do have $1,200,000 in fund balance right now. How much money should we devote of that to reducing the tax burden for the coming year? You can see that what we have done last year 1.2 million was spent on the budget last year. You all recall as I do that we inherited a bunch of bills last year too from cash outs and other things that were funded in the budget that we inherited last year and so we made up for that and that was last year l.2 million. You notice in this budget strikingly enough there is only $200,000 put in there so that we can maintain a reserve. Therefore that is a million dollar shift on the revenue line so
between the regular revenue and the unfunded balance that we can put in there that’s dropping unexpended fund balance 1 million dollars. The reason is we want to have reserves. You don’t take all of your savings and put it in to paying the bills this month. We have some upcoming bills that we need to make sure we have some savings for and so that is covered.
What would be the taxes if this Tentative Budget was adopted, what would the citizens pay? You know and I know that town citizens and village citizens participate differently in this budget but I will give you the big picture. Last year the taxes were 4.7 million dollars if this budget is unchanged it is 7.9 million dollars given the other revenues that I talked about so you would say, Frank, were you drinking or on drugs when you put this together and the answer is no. That is a 68% tax increase if it went forward. Now let me give you the rational of why we did this and what is going on. You have the rational and it is listed so I am not going to read it to you but on the inside of the document it lists
appropriations, revenue, fund balance, the amount to be raised by taxes and what is the next step.
Part and parcel of why I did this is it’s…we don’t control revenue, we have a certain amount of fund balance, we are not broke or anything, we have a certain amount of balance and therefor we have got to make some really tough decisions about appropriations. That is where the big nut is and that is where we have some control. I did not use my prerogative as the Town Supervisor in fact, I broke with history most town supervisor not just ours get the input, get the data from the department heads, get the revenue, do the usual kinds of things and then they take the pencil and pen to it and start chopping it down. Given the magnitude of the changes we have to make in this budget in the next two or three week; we
are all going to face this one because as I present the alternatives it becomes obvious what is going on, so all of the stakeholders know this is the state of the art, this is where we are at this time.
Now, you want to call this the “shock in all budget”, it is the shock in all budget if you think of the warfare terms.
If appropriations requested are up 16%, 1.7 million, revenue is down $450,000, 9%, we’ve got a swing right there in those two items of almost $2,200,000 that is a major swing. We could solve this, we have got a lot of alternatives here, we could have this as a zero tax increase, and we could just take all of the fund balance and throw it in there, no tax increase. We would have to cut a few things on appropriations but we could spend it all and it would be a zero tax increase. Another thing that we can do is some things in this budget, as you read them, you will notice are capital expenditures that we put in the operating budget. You have got to pave roads, you have got to buy equipment, we have a lot of equipment
that wasn’t updated in some of our departments and we’ve got to buy equipment. It is in here right now as we speak as operating budget, we can leave it in there as operating budget or those items that are appropriate we take out we put them in a capital set-up and then we bond for some or all of them. A third thing we can do, obviously, is lay off ten or twenty people. We all know 70% of this budget is pay and benefits and so one of the choices we could make is we can not only have a hiring freeze but we could lay off ten people, fifteen people, twenty people whatever that is going to be to get us down to a budget that the citizens would think is palatable for the town. If we do that those are the main things that we can do, we know we can go in here and reduce the operating expenditures that you see here so you commit the fund balance; yes or no, you reduce the fund balance; yes or no, you reduce the staff; yes or no, you reduce operating
expenses; yes or no, take the capital expenses and move some of them over or all of them over into bonding.
What we are saying is how are we going to make these decisions? Part and parcel of this as you and I know is we have got to decide how important is it to have public safety and how much public safety and how much staff? Do we want our neighborhoods to have the staffing we have got right now? Public safety not only involves neighborhoods and our streets how about our roads, we have had roads washout this year. We have roads that never got paved for years and years and years that were never done. How much do our citizens value having decent roads and paved roads and all of those other kinds of things?
I did not follow custom and tradition, I did not…although Tony and George Phillips are two key staff people have been talking to all kinds of people so you got the October version of this, I will give you my recommendations for how we get down in time for our preliminary budget. My goal is no more than the CPI (Consumer Price Index), my goal is 3%. I didn’t put it in here because it would be arbitrary, I don’t know for sure how much each of you want to go and how you want to deal with it so please read over the front end stuff here. George has provided all of the big nuts, you have the individuals specific details, you got the summary sheets and the graphs and all of the things that go with that so in the
next two to three weeks before we present the preliminary budget, before we have the public hearing on the budget, before we do the final step in November in voting on the budget we need your input.”
Councilman Quinn – “The Chief and I sat down and in less than an hour found $65,000 to $75,000 worth of savings. It was submitted to George, my question to you is, are all of those figures in this and did everybody here contribute to that?”
George Phillips – “The $67,000 is in here. There were contributions from various board members but not necessarily $67,000 savings in expenditures.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Bob has made some contributions, so they are in here.
What you get from me, in the memo is, what we need to do is there is a format to follow. We will all be submitting things so follow the format and as we submit things to make it easy please use the form to make you recommendations, on revenue, on appropriations, and fund balance.”
Councilman Quinn – “Will we meet as a group, like we did last year, with each department head?”
Supervisor Quinn – “Yes, right now that is not scheduled. Our Town Administrator is certainly doing that. We have a work session next Wednesday night where we can do that, yes.
Each of you is a liaison to various departments so between here and next Wednesday night, we all do our homework and we all get in on it.
Yes I broke tradition, it may be upsetting to some people, but I think all of the stakeholders need to know; what’s the state of the art? To do all the mission and goals and objectives that we set the staff has said to us and you dealt with the staff at various levels and this is what they say they need. Number two I have no control over the $450,000 in revenue so far.
Please follow the format, submit all of the things, we all have an ownership in this and as I promised I’ll give you my thoughts on this and it will be a mix of the things I suggested.”
Councilman Rosenberg – “I’m with you on the CPI. I don’t know how we are going to do it but we have got to get it down.”
Supervisor Quinn – “We have options of how to get there but I think all of us need to be on a level playing field so that you have enough data to …”
Councilman Quinn – “I agree that that is a laudable goal the CPI. The one thing in a longer term perspective I am talking three years out, five years out, we need to be more visionary about the combination of commercial versus residential and what that yields, not just in this room but from a greater sales tax percentage. Also with regard to revenue right now anything we might conceive of new fee schedules for instance, drop in the bucket, over the long haul we have got a park system that can generate a lot more fees we just have to be visionary about that. I think we need to start thinking in five to ten years intervals instead of one.”
Supervisor Quinn – “Please follow the recommended guidance and we will go forth from there. We still have a union contract that is not settled. While many people may be upset, no this isn’t what is going to be the preliminary budget.”
Supervisor Quinn moved ahead with the agenda items
Supervisor Quinn – “I am going to make a recommendation, on the agenda items 9 through 12 all have to do with scheduling public hearings so I would like to hear a motion that we handle those as consent agenda items and we deal with all four of them at the same time. If anybody objects then please tell us your objection and we will back that one out of the consent agenda. I would like a motion that we treat all of those in one motion to schedule the public hearings?”
Motion to schedule the public hearings was moved by Councilman Bailey and Seconded by Councilman Quinn.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
RESOLUTION NO. 189-2007
Moved by: Councilman Bailey
Seconded by: Councilman Quinn
A RESOLUTION providing a hearing to consider any objections which may be made to the assessment roll for Water District No. 11, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York and to Extensions No. 1 thru 34 of said Water District.
BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF GLENVILLE, NEW YORK:
SECTION 1. A hearing shall be held to hear and consider any objections which may be made to the assessment roll for Water District No. 11, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York and to Extensions No. 1 thru 34 of said Water District, which was filed with the Town Clerk on June 01, 2007. Such hearing shall be held on the 17th day of October 2007 at 7:30 o'clock in the evening or as soon thereafter as they may be reached at the Glenville Municipal Center.
SECTION 2. Notice of such hearing shall be published once in the official Town newspaper at least ten (10) days prior to the date of said hearing.
SECTION 3. This resolution takes effect immediately.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 190-2007
Moved by: Councilman Bailey
Seconded by: Councilman Quinn
A RESOLUTION providing a hearing to consider any objections which may be made to the assessment roll for Sewer District No. 9, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York.
BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF GLENVILLE, NEW YORK:
SECTION 1. A hearing shall be held to hear and consider any objections, which may be made to the assessment roll for Sewer District No. 9, of the Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York, which was filed with the Town Clerk on June 1, 2007. Such hearing shall be held on the 17th of October 2007 at 7:30 o'clock in the evening or as soon thereafter as they may be reached at the Glenville Municipal Center.
SECTION 2. Notice of such hearing shall be published once in the official Town newspaper at least ten (10) days prior to the date of said hearing.
SECTION 3. This resolution takes effect immediately.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 191-2007
Moved by: Councilman Bailey
Seconded by: Councilman Quinn
A RESOLUTION providing a hearing to consider any objections which may be made to the assessment roll for the joint Acorn Drive Sewer and Woodhaven Sewer Waste Treatment Plant, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York.
BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF GLENVILLE, NEW YORK:
SECTION 1. A hearing shall be held to hear and consider any objections, which may be made to the assessment roll for the joint Acorn Drive Sewer District, and Woodhaven Sewer District Waste Treatment Plant, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York, which was filed with the Town Clerk on June 1, 2007. Such hearing shall be held on the 17th of October 2007 at 7:30 o'clock in the evening or as soon thereafter as they may be reached at the Glenville Municipal Center.
SECTION 2. Notice of such hearing shall be published once in the official Town newspaper at least ten (10) days prior to the date of said hearing.
SECTION 3. This resolution takes effect immediately.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 192-2007
Moved by: Councilman Bailey
Seconded by: Councilman Quinn
A RESOLUTION providing a hearing to consider any objections which may be made to the assessment roll for Alplaus Sewer District No. 1, Extension No. 1 of the Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York.
BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS BY THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF GLENVILLE, NEW YORK:
SECTION 1. A hearing shall be held to hear and consider any objections, which may be made to the assessment roll for Alplaus Sewer District No. 1, Extension No. 1, Town of Glenville, Schenectady County, New York, which was filed with the Town Clerk on June 1, 2007. Such hearing shall be held on the 17th of October 2007 at 7:30 o'clock in the evening or as soon thereafter as they may be reached at the Glenville Municipal Center.
SECTION 2. Notice of such hearing shall be published once in the official Town newspaper at least ten (10) days prior to the date of said hearing.
SECTION 3. This resolution takes effect immediately.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 193-2007
Moved by: Councilman Quinn
Seconded by: Councilman Bailey
WHEREAS, Halloween will be celebrated on Wednesday, October 31st; and
WHEREAS, it is the intent of this resolution to keep Halloween a safe day for the children trick or treating in Glenville,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the time Halloween is to be celebrated within the Town of Glenville is from 2:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Wednesday, October 31, 2007; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief of Police be and he hereby is authorized to print notices of "Safe Wednesday Halloween" and have them distributed to the Neighborhood Watch Groups, schools, churches, newspapers and at any other locations deemed appropriate.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
RESOLUTION NO. 194-2007
Moved by: Councilman Quinn
Seconded by: Councilman Bailey
WHEREAS, both the Village of Scotia and the Town of Glenville Police Department provide Police Services to their communities,
WHEREAS, there has never been a formal mutual aid agreement between the Village of Scotia and the Town of Glenville,
WHEREAS, an agreement would be advantageous to both municipalities and provide a more efficient use of personnel and equipment,
WHEREAS, an agreement would also enhance and define the scope of inter-agency cooperation,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town of Glenville and the Village of Scotia will be entering into a Police Mutual Aid Agreement,
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Chief of Police and Town Supervisor are authorized to sign the attached agreement.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
Discussion…
Councilman Quinn – “As you all know we have been moving toward greater levels of collaboration between the Village and the Town and for many years we have had an unwritten agreement between the Village and the Town in terms of mutual aid response. This formalizes that agreement. You folks have been provided copies of it and I have to tell you that Chief Pytlovany, Chief Ranalli and Village Trustee Tom Neals put a great amount of work into this and I think that it is reflected in the agreement. It is a great step in the right direction.”
RESOLUTION NO. 195-2007
Moved by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
Seconded by: Councilman Rosenberg
BE IT RESOLVED, that the minutes of the regular meeting held on September 19, 2007 be and they hereby are approved and accepted as entered.
Ayes: Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey, Councilwoman DiGiandomenico and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstentions: None
Motion Carried
Town Administrator:
Tony Germano – “I have a short report tonight. The first thing that I want to mention is the Village of Scotia has gotten back to us that they have recommended October 9th at 7:00 or 7:30 here for the joint meeting to talk about the collaboration reports that were prepared. We now have those reports, we will be packaging them and all of you and all of them will be getting them within the next couple of days.
I’m pleased to report that the Town of Glenville’s Emergency Management Plan is in its final draft, we have circulated it to all of the staff. I think as the Supervisor reported at the last meeting we had an opportunity to test it during last months county exercise at the base. We have made some minor adjustments since then and the hope was to get it in place before the winter season. Hopefully we won’t have to use it this winter. That will be on our web-site and in final form shortly.
We had training today on work place violence and blood borne pathogen and right to know for just about all of the town employees that were available to attend the sessions. Now that the training is done and the Board has put the Work Place Violence Program and Plan in place we have filled a very important square in terms of meeting a State mandate with respect to a law that was passed. I believe we are well ahead of other municipalities throughout the state.
The last thing that I want to brief you on is the status of where we are with the water plant. I am pleased to report that mechanically and electrically everything is operating as designed. One remaining issue has to do with the chlorination system and in the last two weeks we had two very productive meetings, one was with our general contractor and our engineer to identify a game plan to test the chlorination system one last time. That test was done last week. What we discovered is that the way the system is designed the pump is not working properly with the pipe therefor it is causing some off gassing inside the pipe so the installer of the chlorination system is sending us new materials and we are going to do one
final test by essentially lowering the pipe to determine if that will solve the problem of the off gassing. That is the last obstacle in the way of throwing that switch as we see it. As soon as we get the materials we will diligently connect everything and run one final test. If that solves the problem then we believe we have the answer to the automatic chlorination system.
I did talk with our general contractor today as you know we do have an intent by them to file a suit. We did offer them settlement today. I believe their job is done with respect to the chlorination system so the pump was not installed upside down, the pump was not installed backwards, and they did their job so I think our job at this point is to offer them settlement and we did. We are awaiting an answer and as soon as we get an answer I will present it to the board with recommendations.”
Councilman Bailey – “I did mention to our Commissioner of Public Works a number of months ago that I think the plant is an impressive enough facility that if our insurance regulations allows it it would be wonderful to hold a open house down there once it goes in operation. I think people would be excited to see what it takes to deliver water to this town as well as Rexford, Clifton Park and Ballston. I think we can do it safely.”
New Business
Councilman Rosenberg – “Just one suggestion for our next work session – the Chair position on the BAR is chosen by the members of the BAR and it is an annual appointment by themselves. A suggestion was made that from here going forward that we limit the chair’s position for no more that two consecutive terms.”
RESOLUTION NO. 196-2007
Moved by: Councilman Rosenberg
Seconded by: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Glenville hereby adjourns into Executive Session to discuss pending litigation.
Ayes: Councilwoman DiGiandomenico, Councilmen Rosenberg, Quinn, Bailey and Supervisor Quinn
Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstention: None
Motion Carried
Supervisor Quinn adjourned this portion of the meeting at 9:04 p.m. and entered into Executive Session to discuss the pending litigation.
Time being 9:35 pm Supervisor Quinn reconvened the meeting.
Motion to adjourn was moved by Councilman Quinn and Seconded by Councilwoman DiGiandomenico.
The Town of Glenville Town Board Meeting was adjourned at 9:36 PM.
ATTEST:
______________________________
Linda C. Neals
Town Clerk
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