Town Board - Regular Meeting

I welcome to the town board meeting of May 19th, 2026.

I'd like to call this meeting to order and if you could please rise if you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

I will note town board member McCain is not able to be with us this evening. So we are sorry, we'll miss her, but she is unable to make it. We have starting with a public hearing on the increase and improvement of the facilities of the Katona Park District, including the replacement of the playground together with incidental improvements, equipment and expenses at a maximum estimated cost of $500,000. I would like to move that we open the public hearing.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. And this hearing was duly noticed, Madam Clerk? In the recorder, yes. In the recorder. Thank you. Do we have any comments? I think we have superintendent Chris. So here, if there are any questions for him regarding the park improvements in the bond, this is requiring public hearing because it's a special district. Whereas other bonds of the general fund do not require that. Correct?

Yeah, correct. Yep.

Okay. Hi, Chris, thanks for joining. Um, any questions for the board. Any public comments. Okay, we are looking forward to the tone of playground and I'm happy to be passing this resolution to move forward with that project. And I guess we're doing public input survey. That's still open Chris.

That is correct. It's actually we're going to keep it open to the end of the day tomorrow. We have it on our social medias and on our website under our rec news update link, you can still access the survey. And we're gonna like I said, going to continue it through the end of the business day tomorrow.

Okay, thank you. Okay. There being no comments, I'll move that we close the public hearing. Second. All in favor and we will, I guess, adopt the resolution in the packet regarding the bond resolution for the park district. And did we have to do something with secret Eric?

I think we've said it's a type 2 action secret, I believe. So there is no further action that needs to be taken.

Okay. That's in the resolution.

Yes, that's in the resolution because the improvements to the park are just basically redevelopment of existing improvements or improvements that don't have a significant effect on the environment or fall under the type 2 exemption. Thank you.

All right. I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries.

They want a roll call too.

All in favor?

They want to roll call the roll. Yes. Councilmember Iorio. Aye. Councilmember Bicker. Aye. Supervisor Calvis. Aye. Councilmember Cattagliato.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay. First up, I see we have a resident and Steering Committee Youth Engagement Rev Up 250 member Tim Kouklis is here. So I will invite him up to the podium to give us a little update on the Youth and Democracy Panel and just the opportunity for residents to participate in the, well, I can speak to that because Anne's not here, but the 4th of July meeting. So hi, Tim, welcome and thank you for coming and thank you for a wonderful event on Thursday evening.

Thank you. So I wrote a little bit about the event. It was quite an experience for me. So if you guys don't mind, I got a few things to say about it.

Sure. Sure.

So hi, everyone. My name is Tim Kouklis. I'm a Bedford resident, a high school civics teacher, and the youth engagement coordinator for Bedford's 250th committee. I'm here to provide the summary of the student video showcase that took place this past Thursday at the Bedford Playhouse. I'm going to do it in a strange way. All right, so someone recently asked me a question that caught me off guard. They wanted to know what I want my students to gain from being in my class. My response was that I hope I can turn them into optimists. I teach government and politics. Therefore, I must confront the constant negative news cycles and political infighting and try to frame these things in a way that make it palatable for young people to understand and still be optimistic about their future. I hate to admit this, but it wears on me. This is why I was inspired to join Bedford's RevUp250 committee. The 250th is above our current national political climate, a celebration of our founding ideals and shared history, a symbolic marker of pride and optimism. Had it not been for the heat today, I would be coming from Razor Field in Katona where my daughter, there she is, has her softball practice. This happenstance makes me think of the wonderful film created by Elise Templeton and Maggie Lawton titled America's Pastime that was featured at our showcase. To think that Elise and Maggie began playing softball in the same field, in the same league as my daughter makes me smile. But this doesn't just make me think about softball, it makes me think about community. It's such a Bedford thing that my daughter happens to play on the team along with the daughter of Caroline McGill of John J. Homestead, one of our generous donors of scholarship prizes and a founding member of the committee. And it was there during practice that I was able to inform her that Amity Doyle had made a music video inspired by Pete Seeger using the Homestead property as the backdrop for her video. It only gets better when it turns out that John Cronin, one of our volunteer panelists, had worked with Pete Seeger on the Clearwater project and festival for many years. To me, this is community fabric woven tight. Reflecting on the last 10 months, I want to speak of the most common response I heard from people when working on this contest. It was always some version of, I love it, how can I help? It was the first thing out of the mouths of the steering committee members when I proposed the idea of a student video contest. When I reached out to George Coonhart, who I'd met once or twice through mutual friends, it was the first thing he said to me, eventually volunteering to provide assistance to student filmmakers and handle all the video stuff that was beyond my capabilities. When I spoke to Marie from the Bedford Playhouse, it was the same response. I love it. How can I help? Not only did they provide the perfect venue for our showcase, but Dan Friedman volunteered to be one of our panelists. When I approached Liz Halleck from the Bedford Historical Society at Tavern Night with the crazy idea of giving a grand prize of $1776, her response was, I love it, and I can help. Speaking of Tavern Night, it was at that event that William McCormick, a local historical reenactor and Fox Lane High School student, showed up in his Continental Army uniform. Fast forward to last week and there was William winning one of our scholarships and presenting his video in our showcase. William during the event wore a pocket square from his grandfather who immigrated from Italy. In our conversation with William about his family lineage, I began to share my favorite Reagan quote about America as a nation of immigrants. Only for William to finish the words for me. It was perfect. When I was worried that we weren't getting enough submissions, it was our committee chair, Anne Ferre, who said, I can help. She did what any good parent would do. She went home and forced her daughter to make a submission with her friends. Maria, Claire, Cassidy, and Alex put together an amazing short film featuring three young ladies sitting in a car chatting about local history, only to have their film praised by another Kotonian and John Jay graduate, Campbell McKendry, our third volunteer panelist. For me, this was another one of those serendipitous moments, knowing that one of our sponsors was the Women's Club of Katona, who likes to talk civics. There's one more story I have to tell. When I first approached a friend from Chowder and Marching, his response was, I love it, how much do you need? It felt like a blank check. However, working together with CNM, we realized that we had a conflict. CNM's charter has a mandate to support Bedford Village and Fox Lane, while our contest was open to anyone who lives in Bedford and goes to school in Bedford, including John Jay. In the end, we made a group decision that the most 250 thing we could do would be to honor the charter of CNM and ensure that any award they sponsored goes to a Fox Lane student. The idea of all of us being stewards of something bigger than us and to pass forward the idea of abiding by our written laws and charters seemed important to this event. Our grand prize did happen to go to a Village alumni, Ben Trotta and Joe Torres, with a video highlighting both civic engagement and the history of Bedford. As for Ben, I suggest members of the town board raise any age requirements to seek office. You do not want to run against him. And so in the end, our wonderful moderator, Jesse Spellman Mignone, put on a fabulous show. We watched some really creative videos and heard a lively discussion about America at 250. As for me, I can now hold firm to my optimism. I know that Bedford will continue to thrive for the next 250 years because Bedford is a place where people say, I love it, how can I help?

Thank you so much, Tim. That was incredible. I think you got everyone in there. And wow, throughout the whole town. So thank you. It was really a great night. And you're a brainchild. And thank you. It was excellent. It was well executed. And I think everyone had a really good time. So thank you. Congratulations. I think we had a slideshow, but I don't know how to turn it on. But that's it. Barb put it on the presentation. I don't know. Okay. I think that's going to be the same for the open space. I need to figure out how to turn that on. I think that we have also for the Rev. 250 and for I cannot be here, but there is going to be an opportunity to read the Declaration of Independence. There will be a simultaneous reading of the Declaration of Independence in all three hamlets at 10 a.m. on the 4th of July. And so anyone who would like to read a part of it can sign up on our website. There's a form. And I think if you probably search Declaration of Independence on our website, you can find the form and sign up. So everyone is welcome. And we can continue our small town. Everyone leans in and says, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let's do that. Okay. So, next up, we have our Westchester land trust and open space acquisition committee presentation or update on some opportunity for land acquisition. So, Laurie and singer from the open space committee is here. Thanks. Lori. I know we have the presentation on the other computer. Um, I just don't know how to get that. She's she's.

Yeah, she has her own.

Oh, all right. Yeah.

Okay. Good evening. Everyone. My name is Laurie and singer. I'm here tonight. Wearing my open space acquisition committee hat, and we are here to propose to the town board the acquisition of 13 acres of open space. protect drinking water and the bucks to complete the buxton gorge assemblage why are we here we have a proposal that thanks to a new york state water quality grant which has been obtained by the westchester land trust the town has a wonderful opportunity to acquire a very important piece of open space with a very modest expenditure from the town's open space fund This is a compelling public-private partnership that offers significant state grant support and five-to-one leverage of town funds. The proposed funds that would be needed from the town for the grant match are already in hand in the Open Space Fund. We'll go over that in a few minutes. And tonight, all we seek to do is start the formal process for deploying monies from the Open Space Fund, which as you know, is subject to public hearing and town board approval. So what is the parcel? This is a strategic conservation opportunity to protect drinking water. It's a 13.3 acre parcel on Buxton Road in Bedford. Does not have a number address, but for those of you who know Buxton Road, it's across Buxton from Bedford Community Church, who is the owner of the property. The protection of this parcel will protect the drinking water aquifer, public wells, and the Broadbrook Watershed. It also expands contiguous protected open space. It's adjacent to the Buxton Gorge Preserve, and it is, interestingly, the last undeveloped parcel of the original 95-acre assemblage that was Buxton Gorge, and we can talk about that in a second. This property has been a priority of the Town Open Space Committee for several years, and the current owner, importantly, is an interested and willing seller. Here's the map, and as you can see, The parcel shaded in red or outlined in red is the parcel we're talking about. Buxton Gorge Preserve is right here. It's about 80 acres. Just north of that is the prison. This to the east is 684. You can see my cursor. Bedford Center Road, and then Buxton Road follows the property line right up along the preserve and then into the Hamlin. This is the parcel we're talking about outlined in red. Why does this parcel matter? As I said, it's all about drinking water protection and ecological protection. Property lies entirely atop the Bedford Aquifer, and it's within the town designated aquifer protection zone, which is also designated by the town as a critical environmental area. Parcel is within 500 feet, not just of one public well system, but three. And these public well systems service over 1500 people daily. The property also buffers the aquifer and those public wells from the ecological pressures of I-684 and all the runoff that comes from the highway. The Broad Brook, which is a direct tributary to the Muscat Reservoir, which is also drinking water, flows right through the property. And as I said, this parcel is contiguous to 85 acres of already protected open space. And as we know, connectivity matters and it amplifies the ecological functioning of a parcel. How does this project fit within Bedford's goals? It advances water protection and conservation priorities that have already been adopted by the town. Drinking water protection is obvious. As we said, this property is within the town's legislatively designated aquifer protection zone and is a CEA. Secondly, it's very much in line with the 2025 comprehensive plan goals to strengthen the health and resiliency of Bedford's natural resources. to protect fragile environmental resources and to preserve town open space. And finally, it's consistent obviously with the purpose of the town's open space fund. For those of you in the public who don't know, this fund was created in the year 2000 to enable acquisition of open space parcels for specific environmental, excuse me, recreation and historic preservation purposes. So what is the proposal? We are proposing that the town partner with Westchester Land Trust, a local nonprofit, to use an already awarded New York State DEC water quality grant, we'll call this W-EQUIP, to acquire the property. To be clear, Westchester Land Trust has already been awarded the grant monies. The Land Trust would purchase the parcel from the Bedford Community Church and then immediately transfer ownership to the town for it to manage as part of the Buxton Gorge Preserve. The W-EQUIP grant would cover 80% of the total project costs and the town open space fund to cover 20%. This is where you get the 5 to 1 leverage to acquire a very important conservation parcel. Why does Westchester Land Trust matter? Having partners helps a lot. Founded in 1988, the Land Trust has protected more than 9,500 acres, 250 transactions, including 820 acres here in Bedford alone. They have extensive experience partnering with municipalities, other conservation groups to get this conservation, uh, to succeed. And importantly, they have extensive experience winning and managing grants. Will lead all aspects of the administration of this project, including the grant reporting. Minimizing administrative obligations for the town. And this is key. Structure of this partnership-wise and funding-wise is identical to what we did when we partnered with the Land Trust for the acquisition of the Rayburn Road project, which is now known as the Muscoot Reservoir and Preserve. That project spanned 2023 to 2025, and this would continue a joint legacy of watershed protection, virtually identical to that. Just as a refresher, what is the W-EQUIP program? You're all familiar with the program in different ways. They have different subprograms. This subprogram is called Land Acquisition for Source Water Protection. It's administered by the state DEC. and it funds acquisition of lands that protect public surface water and groundwater drinking water supplies. The state has evidenced significant support for this water protection over the years, seven rounds of funding, $100 million awarded to municipalities in the state and environmental nonprofits, 67 acquisitions funded, 8,000 acres of land protected to protect public drinking water. And again, 80% state funding, 20% local match. What would the estimated project cost be for this particular property? We don't have the exact numbers and we won't until the final purchase price is determined by 3 appraisals. 2 are required to be commissioned by the land trust as the buyer. These are all rules that the grant program lays out. 1 needs to be commissioned by the Bedford community church, because it has to meet its own requirements under New York state religious corporation. In addition, there's due diligence required by the grant. Property boundary survey phase 1, environmental site assessment, title, review, title, insurance, legal fees and staff time. These are all qualified covered costs in a reimbursable by the grant. I'm giving you an example. This is completely hypothetical, but it's order of magnitude right. If the total project cost ends up being 1.6 million, meaning a purchase price of 1.5 and project due diligence costs of $100,000, QIP grant would cover 80% of that, which is 1.280,000. Town open space fund would cover 20% for 320,000 again, 5 to 1 leverage of your property of your of your funds to acquire important property, 320,000 dollar town expenditure to acquire something worth. Our project that was costed at 1.6Million. We won't know what the purchase price is until the appraisals are achieved. or received and approved by the state. And then the negotiation, you have to triangulate amongst the three. But again, rough order of magnitude, we think this is roughly in the ballpark. Again, interestingly, Rayburn Road was also a 13.3 acre acquisition, and it was about this order of magnitude of numbers. So do we have the funding capacity? Uh, controller was kind enough to send me the update on Friday of the balance in the open space fund. Again, for the benefit of the public, the open space fund was created in the year 2000 to fund acquisition of land for open space parks and the protection of surface groundwater drinking water supplies. It's funded by an annual levy equal to 2% of the town's general fund. You can see if you have the glasses this year, the levy brought in 507,000 dollars. But we do, we are paying down debt on the last Buxton acquisition. We have 1,000,001 left to go. I believe we have 3 more years, or maybe 4. Of paid in on Buxton, too, but the balance projected from at the end of May in the fund is 1,726,000 dollars. And this fund will continue to be replenished every year by the levy and it will continue to. Continue to grow, so there's sufficient funding in that open space. So, what are the next project steps in the process? Yeah, appraisals will be commissioned by the land trust and the church. The church needs to run its own parallel path, seeking approvals from the attorney general under the religious corporation law. The church and WLT would enter into a purchase agreement once the appraisal and the purchase price is determined at roughly the same time the WLT and the town would enter into an MOU. The town would schedule the public hearing and the required board vote. The exact timing of this would be worked out with land trust, because they know exactly where the state needs to be. And it's, it's a little bit of a dance to make sure the timing or the sequencing is correct. Importantly, WLT conducts all due diligence required by the state. The state has to approve it, and then they approve the closing. And finally, at closing, WLT acquires the property from the church, and in the same closing as happened with Rayburn Road, the property is turned over to the town.

So it's two closings in one.

The estimated timeline, the Land Trust is estimating 15 to 24 months. Again, that's pretty consistent with the Rayburn Road acquisition. This is not happening in 2026. That's what I want to make sure we understand. So, in conclusion, this partnership to to acquire this box and road parcel in partnership with the land trust provides us with a strategic conservation opportunity to protect public drinking water. It's consistent with the town. a comprehensive plan and legislative efforts. It utilizes substantial state funding that has already been awarded to the land trust and the open space fund balance can readily support town match. So I'd like to call Janelle Robbins, who's our vice president of conservation at Westchester Land Trust to help me field any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

And I do want to clarify, we didn't apply for this grant without talking to the town.

We applied for this grant for a different parcel that we received. Private funding for so we were able to pivot the state grant to another project. So we. Actually were awarded the grant originally to acquire. 200 acres elsewhere, we acquired that with private funding. And then had to kind of shop around and find a good project that met the similar water quality. Goals and that DC would accept and most importantly, have a willing seller that's willing to play by the appraisal value because that is. the number one challenge in land protection is everyone thinks their land is worth more than what it appraises. So I don't want it to seem like we were presumptuous by any means. So we actually, you know, this is kind of a second chance to get in on Buxton.

Again, this has been a priority of the Open Space Committee for quite a few years. And if you picture a Venn diagram of properties that have a willing buyer, a willing seller, willing buyer and the funding to acquire the intersection that Venn diagram is tiny. Right.

And all the water quality needs of this grant. Yes.

So while this is very strategic, it's also a great opportunity. And when we found out about this grant that they had for another project that was going to be pivoting, we stepped in line, raised our hand to see if it could work. So

Great. Well, happy to hear that the DC is willing to pivot in that way, and that we could benefit from it. So that's great. Questions by the board.

Mine was gonna be on timing, but the last spreadsheet there slide took care of it. Thank you.

So just first of all, great job. And, you know, drinking water is so important. So that's just terrific. Is the land

to be have any public access or because it's protecting drinking water it's it says you know you can't go we can't go on it so the state is pretty strict about allowing public access on quip acquired properties like rayburn doesn't mean you cannot get public access but you have to seek approval for it okay we would suggest that you don't seek approval for it prior to closing yeah uh because it will extend it likely extend the approvals process by months we've been through it when i was i don't any longer wear westchester land trust hat but when i did i experienced that and it's it's pretty mind-boggling uh there is a trail access agreement across the property now that allows uh brla and pedestrian access through the church property to access buxton gorge preserve We've talked extensively with BRLA about this. They are willing to sacrifice that trail. It's really no longer needed for access to Buxton Gorge. There's another entrance that you can get your horse to, and certainly pedestrians are coming in from the north anyway. So this is not a trail project, although in the future, if the town wishes to apply for approval to reopen the trail, it's possible the state would ask for evidence that that trail access easement The closed for the time being, and then you can reapply.

The existing trial goes over the stream, so that would not be allowed. So, at the very least, it would have to be relocated.

Right?

So, it's probably most expedient to just close it. And then revisit it at a later date after the security.

Right and it really doesn't work for pedestrians anyway. So it was, it was a horse trail.

And you did talk to the BRLA there. They're on board with the access through the parking lot area or the it's actually a little south of that. There's a difference.

Another there's another entrance.

Yeah, because I know that was important that they were able to park the trailers and then get access, you know, through that. We had an agreement with the church for the parking of the trailers as well.

So they said that they were happy to continue to allow people to park theirs overflow parking. So they're not looking to extinguish that.

Okay. Okay. They just have to access the trails differently. Okay.

Got it. I think they'd have to, would they have to walk up the road a little bit? Yeah. The horses would have to walk up the road a little bit would be the, is the.

Or it could be dropped off and then.

Just making sure BRLA is okay with it. That's, that's the most important thing. So, yeah.

Great and I love that it's contiguous with the rest of Buxton. I mean, that really it does make it significant exponential. The upper end of what we should expect, I would imagine I would hope we're trying to be conservative Ellen.

But as, you know, I mean, the real estate market knows I don't want to guarantee that it will be. This number or lower, it could be higher, but order of magnitude, I would be surprised if it was substantially different.

Right? It's a different. Parcel than Rayburn so, um, yeah, like a budding 684. right? So. But who knows you're right? There's 3 appraisals.

So there will be so plenty of data.

Okay. Great. So, um, any other questions comments, I think, um. Sounds like everyone's fully on board with this use of open space acquisition funds as recommended by the committee. So we look forward to continuing to work with you and drafting when we're ready. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Yeah.

Okay, and now we have, I believe online are 2 of our. sorry we're leaving um building department and planning department members kim kowalski and donna arroyo thank you for joining us um ladies of the third floor at 425 cherry street they are going to share with us uh some of the features of the new property portal that is a public facing permitting and property lookup application offered by the building department That we hope will enable sort of a easier workflow for the building department, easier permit submittals and payments by the public and an ability to look into properties. So they are going to share with us what that looks like and how everyone can get ready to use it. Kim, are you there?

I am here, and I don't know if I can share my screen here. I've got the online portal up. I think so.

If you press share. Do I need to, let's see. Do I need to do something on my end?

Share on the bottom, Kim.

Allie, are you there?

on the bottom kim i don't see that oh here chair there we go okay now where are we where is my there we go okay hopefully we've got that okay so uh i don't know if anybody on the board or in the audience there have had an opportunity to uh take a look at our city squared portal but uh if you haven't we were a server-based municity program and we switched over to now cloud base and we've been working um going towards a live city squared portal for quite some time and through a lot of donna's due diligence and massive efforts we were able to launch earlier this year do a soft rollout accepting building permits and we've been addressing issues and problems and working with municity to try to tweak this and get this to a point where it'll be very functional and useful so that's what we're working towards and um it's been you know we've gotten some good feedback from the public and um The realtors seem to like the fact that they can go on and find what we call a parcel history and see what's going on at a property. So I'll take you through some of those steps. And this is the landing page. And you can, I'm already on the town of Bedford municipality, and you would have to log in or register. And this is where you would do that. And then you could go and look up a property search.

So Kim, you just register with your email address and password thing, and it might confirm your email. Like it sends you an email to confirm registration kind of thing. Okay, great.

And then you have options. You can look at the GIS maps, property searches, landlord registry, pay fees. Um, you can also look through a property search here, which is where I'm going to go. And then you would enter the property that you wanted to search for. And I'm just picking up one that I know has some things that I could point out and what things look like. So you select your property, and you come to the property screen. And here you'll see you have address information. And in this case, we have a historic district, which is HBPC Tier 1. which Donna has flagged all of the properties in all of the historic districts. So anybody who comes in that has a historic district, it will show up here. And scrolling down, you see some additional information. And here we have this property's been flagged with wetlands. And moving down the page, Here we have some maps, like here's a wetlands map that Donna has put together for the property, helping the resident identify where on the property the wetlands is. And this is a street view, which you've all seen street views on Google. And here we have information about the property. and what type of applications have been here, have been filed throughout the years and different information on those. And here we have one that somebody did submit online for an addition. And when you open that up, you get some additional information such as who's involved in this project and the reviewing steps of the project and where they started and whether they've been completed. and where they went to the next step. And then these are the next steps they have to go through, which I think is helpful for people trying to figure out what's going on with their application. And one other feature that has been pretty happy with the realtors, they can come in here, get their property, click on this print button and get a parcel history. And that gives them all the permits that you saw on the other page in a printout form with the dates and all the information they need in one form. And like I said, they're also using this to get the parcel histories, apply for applications. We hope to move on to taking in, bringing online the wetlands applications, planning applications, zoning. looking to have people be able to set their inspections through City Squared as well. And right now we're navigating the world between online and paper, which is proving some challenges, but we're working through those just like every other issue that we've been having going through this, bringing on a new application. I don't know if Donna, you have anything you'd like to add?

No, but we are close to going towards wetlands and planning. We're just trying to debug everything still within the building. We figured before we roll anything else out, we want to make sure building is functioning. And every day we're making more progress. I mean, we had a nice call with the Muni City team today. We're going to try to make, for instance, Kim, if you go into the application, if you don't mind, just click on that. There were some concerns. Let's go into the one that we just had, the one down at the bottom. Yeah. It's like vernacular, for instance. So like when people go online, they were going to reviewing departments. Kim, click on that. People see where it says completed pending. So we're going to change the statuses. Like for instance, instead of pending, we're going to change it to review. So people know when they go in what is really happening. This is a conversation we had today with Matt. Was it Matt? Yes. Yes. So we're going to change like the vernacular of the status. So it makes more sense to the people viewing it to the public so that it's like, okay, what does pending mean? Can mean anything. At least now we're going to know what's in review. And when it's issued, we're going to say issued. We're going to change the status to issued. So we're just trying to clean this as much as possible to make it as comprehensive to the public as possible. Simple, as simple as possible.

Great. Excellent. This looks so good and is so helpful, I think, to anyone who's looking to buy, looking to preparing to sell. you know, tracking their current application through the process and all of this information about what zone you're in and whether you have, you know, whether we know you have wetlands, although that's not always, you know, something you can completely rely on those old wetlands maps, but it does kind of alert you if there has been wetlands on the property or maybe wetlands on the property, the historic designation. So you may have to go through another review board. I mean, that is all, incredibly helpful to have in one place. And thank you. And I'm hoping once people get used to this, that will make your jobs easier as well, with less people at the counter and asking for FOIL requests for these things and things like that. So it should hopefully be better for both the staff and the residents. That is a hope and I think we also have a online plan review that has been installed as part of this as well. So the building inspectors will be able to review plans online and submit comments more streamlined than the current system. So.

They are using the DigiPlan, it's called, and I will say all these online applications, I refuse to print anything out and I'm forcing them to do it all online. Beautiful.

Good. Good. Because I think the current system might be like writing things out and then having someone type them and then having to send them out. You know, there's just a lot of steps where hopefully doing it right in the application will save a little bit of time, but it may take a little while to get them up to speed. Any questions?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, please. So so first of all, I think that's great that you're trying to make it user friendly and get the vernacular right. I'm just curious if you have done any run throughs with community members to, you know, to see how they you know, what questions they might have or the ease of use or where

something like could be tweaked to make it easier we have had a couple of suggestions and we you know obviously most people have good suggestions so we've been trying to follow through we are at times are limited to what municity can do um but wherever where we could we have gotten input and we get phone calls with people who are having trouble and we troubleshoot them and try to correct the issues. Cause this is still, I mean, even though we've been doing this like five months, it's still being ironed out. There's so many intricate pieces and anytime, you know, many times you mean to say you'll make a change in one place and it may, throw something else off and then that has to be corrected as well. So, yeah, but no, we've gotten some good input and we've gotten some people who aren't happy with it, but I think most people it's, it's new and they have to figure out once they get through it and navigate. I know in the beginning, some of the real estate people were like, oh, it's too hard to figure out. But then once they do, then they realize that it's much easier than trying to come in here or, or put in a FOIA request for the information that's right at their fingertips.

Um, And there's one other question, which is, so I love that you're that you're getting everyone to do the comments and the plans and everything on in in the platform. And so if I had a plan in there, and someone had reviewed it, put a comment in it, is there would I get any kind of an alert or something from unicity? An email?

Yeah, yeah.

Great. Okay. You know,

So to your point, so today one of our constituents said, I'm sorry, you know, because it's just a generic email title, subject line that goes out. Limited information. Right. So today I just like, for instance, this came up this afternoon. Someone said, you know, I get this email, but the subject matter just says task. So I just reached out to Municity before and I said, can you add the address? to the subject line so people know what they're looking at. Otherwise you're looking at just one generic title. So like little things like that, you know, that we're trying to make improvements to help it easier, you know, to make it easier for the public or for the applicants.

And I have to say, Donna's list, her spreadsheet of little things like that, that really, you know, could be improved or major things that like they said, once they change one thing, it changes things throughout the system. It's pages and pages. She's really done a great job of getting this over the finish line to make sure that all these details are hammered out and continues to work with them to that. So thank you, Donna. Really, it's very much appreciated how much work you've put into this to get it going. And I know on the back end, you've all seen a lot of this data already, you know, tracking applications and but now to have the public be able to interact, you know, this way, and we'll be able to sort of see what they will be able to see where their applications are. It's tremendous. So thank you.

It's just, it's a day by day thing. Every day we find something and we address it. You know, okay, what can we do to make this better? What can we, how can we, you know, just try to make it easier for everyone to use it, make it user friendly.

Thank you. Well, I definitely just want to reiterate, you're already an incredibly busy office dealing with people all day long, calling and at the window and emailing. And so to have taken the time to make sure that this is also getting installed and that all these kinks are getting worked out is wonderful. It's extraordinary. So thank you. Yes, Donna's done a great job. And then, you know, you've all had to learn how to use it, everyone in the department. So I know that that's extra. So thank you.

And Kim's been very instrumental as well, because, you know, she'll say, this is what we need. This is what we need. So I'll just make sure we execute certain things, because she's very good at navigating municity as well. So it's a team effort. It's really a team effort.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Kim. Thank you, Donna. Anyone have any other questions before I open it up to Eric?

Maybe this was discussed already and I missed it, but on the publicly available information, I just want to make sure that there are no email addresses or phone numbers that are publicly available through this website because there have been a lot of fraudulent contacts, especially through email, that are using this information. I don't know, Donna and Kim, if that information is available publicly, we really need to try to have a way of

only making it available to the property owner who's looking at it or but not the public um so that that was one concern i had we'll have to look into i see on the example i have on the screen right now there are no emails on the contacts but i don't know if that's just this was submitted online so they should be there they would be there and they're not so they do have phone numbers

Yeah, phone numbers and emails, we really need a way to try to not make those publicly accessible.

I do know, Eric, that you have to create your own profile. I do know I've tried to go into other municipalities. And if your name is not associated with a specific address or an application,

cannot pull up the information so it's like you whatever your user profile is it has to match whatever's in that address so once we once you create a profile with a password an email and a password i guess you're the only one that can access that that Okay, so, so that would not be publicly accessible. I just making making sure the publicly accessible information doesn't have that ability to access emails and telephone numbers, right?

You can see basic property, right? Well, that right, but not the details of the application, right?

Real quick, you want to just share?

I mean, to me, this is no different than putting in a foil request. You have to create an ID with your your email and And a password and all that, and you get verified. So it's, you know, going in there is kind of like, just like if they foiled it.

Tim, could you put that same address and just do the search on it and they'll see the difference?

The ones, which address? That was 164 Old Post Road.

Right. You'll see what comes up. Now this is when you're not logged in.

Okay.

And this is what comes up. You see everything else disappears on the bottom. all the you know the other like you know we have the permanent information now you're just going to get the basic information that it's historic tier one that there's wetlands get the map but you're not going to get all the personal information you won't be able to get a parcel history on here okay okay so the real estate agents are registering fully registering so we know yeah what they're doing on the site okay yes correct great okay

Thank you very much for joining us this evening and for this fabulous presentation. Thank you. Have a good night. All right. Thanks.

Have a good night. Bye-bye.

Okay. Moving on to new business. We have a request by Comptroller Keneally to approve abstract of claims and paid priors in the amount of $289,118.36. Do we have a motion to approve? so moved second all in favor aye aye uh number two we have the acceptance of monthly reports which doesn't require a motion number three we request to authorize um temporary chiller installation and rental for townhouse building at 321 bedford road based on estimates $23,960 for installation and $14,780 monthly rental. I will make a motion to approve.

Second.

So this was the major drama yesterday, the hottest day. The air conditioning conked out when it was turned on, I guess, for the first time for the season, or maybe not the first time, but these are old units. We have been working. One of them is already down. The other one has been limping along. We hoped that it would limp along for another year because we are undergoing a major project to insulate this building and then moving to design the new system. This problem created a need to come up with a temporary solution. We're not we can't just replace the system overnight. We are we really want to make sure that we do it right and do the installation is building so that we have the proper load and calculations to build a new system. And so this emergency authorization, you know, we did Make move to install a temporary unit early this morning and that is cooling the building. Now we had 190 people in here for court this morning. So we were trying to get it done in time for that. I think they, they had a lot of fans going. I think it started to cool off after court had started. The other part of this is to authorize not only the retroactive sort of emergency. Agreement that we had it installed, but the ongoing rental of this unit for the next few months, so that it can keep this building cool through the summer. And then we can, we can assess if. You know, whether we go through September or through October, as we get closer to that date and then at the same time, we'll be moving forward with. Proposing an RFP for an engineer to design a new system once we have all the information that we need to do that. So we'll be meeting about that next week and talking with everyone about how we, what the timeline is for that. Do we have any questions? 1 thing they haven't done yet, but I think it's happening soon is that they'll put up a fence around the new there's a trailer out there with a unit on it, a generator, a transformer. So that all that works together and there'll be a fence put around the unit. So that it's not tampered with in any way. Because it's right there next to the. Right there next to the back door. Okay. There being other questions all in favor. Motion carries. Thank you. We have number four, a request to adopt a resolution regarding the designation of an animal shelter. Defense is going in tomorrow morning. OK, got a text. South Salem Animal Hospital. For a donation option, so this is a new New York state law requirement that on our dog licensing application, there be an option to make a donation to a local animal shelter. So, the town clerk has prepared a resolution in the packet. That would designate South Salem animal hospital as our designated animal shelter to make those donations of people would like to do that. I'll make a motion to approve. 2nd, any questions I thought.

So, the original draft that we saw had the was there a reason that we changed that.

We just renewed our contract with the and came up with, like, an annual fee that we're paying them. We also use animal hospital for our more regular. Local shelter, and that's the 1 that most people just pick up within a regular period of time. The takes animals. If after 8 days, there's no home for them. And so the is used less frequently and I think we just negotiated the contract. That's. I think fairly reasonable for that service. So I just think that the more local shelter was recommended by our dog control officer as where perhaps this option should go. I love the SPCA. If we are actually getting people making donations in any amount that is significant, which we'll see what happens, we certainly could discuss going broader. Um, this requires that the comptroller set up, like, a separate account for these donations and then distribute them. Um, I think annually, or more frequently, um, as comptroller decides and, you know, it's voluntary, it's, um. We'll have to see, um, you know, what the results are. It's a nice idea. Hopefully people will give be nice. Any other questions? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Okay, and thank you, Madam clerk for bringing this to our attention and amending the form. Per the law. Okay, number five, we have a request to appoint George D'Ambrosio as the Bedford Historical Society representative to the Bedford Village Historic District Review Commission for the remainder of the term of the former Bedford Historic Society representative Sean Carmody. Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second. So, per the Bedford Village Historic District Review Commission There is a should be a representative of the Bedford Historical Society on that committee. And traditionally, it's been the treasurer, although it's not required. But Sean Carmody was stepping down as treasurer and George was stepping up and. Historical Society proposed that we replace Sean with George had a nice conversation with George. He filled out our application form. Um, had a short interview is very interested in Bedford village, historic district preservation and so I'm. You know, recommending that we appoint him to this. Questions George grew up here. Okay, all in favor. Hi. Okay. Number 6, we have a notification from the commissioner of employment of William judge for the position of in the highway department effective honor about me. 262026. We have a motion to approve.

Motion to approve 2nd, all in favor.

I. Number 7, we have a notification from the commissioner of employment of Noah. Bell Mania for the position of MEO and the highway department effective on or about June 1 2026. Do you have a motion to approve?

So move.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Happy to have Staffing up to W, that's all right. And number 8, we have our notification of employment of Joseph liberty for the position of labor in the water department effective honor about May 26, 2026 pending pre employment clearance to have a motion to approve. So moved 2nd, all in favor motion carries. Okay. 1 thing that I did not put on the agenda, but I'm hoping to move forward. There's a public notice of public comment period that I believe. Is required by May 22nd to provide comments to the regarding some updates to their. Proton watershed phase 2 total and maximum daily loads water implementation plan. This is another quip. Quality water quality improvement effort and I am. representative and on the executive committee of the East of Hudson Watershed Corporation and the East of Hudson Watershed Coalition. And we have drafted a letter as a coalition to provide comments to the proposed changes to the plan. They are mostly this is with respect to removing phosphorus before it reaches the reservoirs. Phosphorus can Cause algae growth and bad conditions in the water for the New York City drinking water and the new. Amount of phosphorus that needs to be removed has been updated. Then other obligations have been suggested that are unreasonable, like, requiring municipalities to have. People test their wells within a certain number of feet of a water reservoir. We don't know where wells are. We don't have any jurisdiction over wells. That's a county department of health. We don't have any mechanism to enforce if. Their wells have some testing that isn't appropriate. So that is something that we were speaking out against the methodology used to determine how phosphorus should be removed in the new plan is not clear to us and the funding. That's the biggest thing in the letter. That the corporation, and I mean, the coalition is sending is that the funding is just undetermined for the next 20 years. There are incredibly onerous requirements to remove this phosphorus to install catch basins or do other measures to prevent the phosphorus from going into the water system. And. We're constantly having to negotiate with the DC and the and the counties to provide funding to help do this when. The bottom line is this is near cities water. So I would just propose that the, the town board. Authorize the supervisor to send a letter on behalf of the town board. Supporting the letter of the east of Hudson coalition and reiterating that the state should provide additional funding for the town to participate in these programs, which, you know. Benefit some, we do, we do benefit from the reservoir, but for the most part, it's near safety water and the ongoing operation and maintenance of these improvements and things are. Something we also contribute to, so we are already contributing in big ways to this reduction and then the ongoing maintenance space. I will share a letter. I'm sorry I didn't get it uploaded here, but basically our letter would say that we support the comments of the corporation and reiterate the need for additional funding. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second. Any questions? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Do we have any public comments? No? Okay. Any board member announcements?

I just have one. Okay. Right before our next meeting on June 2nd at 5 p.m., we're going to have our annual Pride flag raising, which we have held on the weekends previously, but this time we're going to be having it on a Tuesday evening. So we hope you'll join us.

Great. Thank you. Also, at that meeting on June 2nd, we will have the John J homestead. Historical panels on display in the rotunda, which are. And it'd be fabulous there about revolutionary history and the neutral ground here in Bedford and throughout the state and John Jay's part in. Founding of our nation, and it should be really a beautiful thing. It'll be up here for I don't know how long, but a couple a week or more. I think they'll have the panels up here. So that'll be fun. And also next Tuesday is the next Tuesday. We have a committee boarding committee appreciation event here. For all members of boards and committees and commissions, we will start with a short. Maybe 45 minutes to an hour training with the boards permitting board zoning, planning, historic and wetlands. Um. just to review some of the town code and have them speak to one another about communications and things among their groups. And then we will have a little ceremony recognizing the rest of the volunteers on the advisory committees and there will be cake. I love the cakes. We also have our Memorial Day opportunities. Lazden Park will have their ceremony, the county ceremony on Friday, this Friday, 11 a.m. at Lazden Public Gardens and Veterans Memorial. And then in town, there's 3 opportunities. At 9 a.m. in Bedford Hills, 10 a.m. in Katona and 11 a.m. in Bedford village, the Katona American Legion and collaboration fire departments. And in some cases, the libraries or lions or other groups coordinate their parades and ceremonies and then the American Legion. co-sponsored by the town, hosts the barbecue at the American Legion through our Veterans Advisory Committee and financial contribution towards that barbecue. I think that's all the news. Anything else?

Okay, there being no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.