Town Board - Regular Meeting

I'm calling the meeting to order. Attendance, please.

Supervisor Holdridge?

Here.

Council Member Cassara?

Here.

Council Member Courtney?

Here.

Council Member Diffley? Here. Council Member Becker is absent.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The town will be paying bills in the amount of 167. Oh, I'm very sorry. Did everybody get a chance to read the minutes from the 26th and the 31st?

Yes.

Are there any questions, debate points, comments about that?

No.

Is there a motion to accept the minutes? I'll make the motion. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The town will be paying bills in the amount of $167,251.58. We have, before public comment tonight, a representative from our fire district, Pete Gastemachia. Pete, do you want to step up? Sure. Thank you for coming.

I just want to thank everybody for having me. I appreciate your time. I'm the chairman of the Chester Fire District. I'm one of seven commissioners. Many of you recognized me about a year ago. I came to you requesting approval for a $12 million bond and to renovate and expand and build a new firehouse, which was approved. I want to thank everybody for that. I appreciate it. uh for those of you that don't know the chester fire district is made up of three firehouses walton engine and hose which is located in the village sugarloaf which is located in sugarloaf and troutbrook engine and hose which is located on the south side of chester on lake toronto uh also we have the commissioners building which is located right in front of the sugarloaf firehouse which is right off of sugarloaf uh king's highway yeah I'm here to just update everybody on the projects and how they're coming along. The covert project, which has been going on across the street from the post office and behind the commissioners building. As of right now, we're on target. Everything's moving along well. That should be done by the end of the month. There seems to be a lot of talk, a lot of questions. No one's really come to the commissioner's building, but it's just mostly been a scutter. The flow and the shape and the size does not mean that that much water is gonna be traveling through that culvert and washing out on the opposite side. So the post office is not in any danger of being washed away. That was a big question that we had and a lot of people were concerned about when they saw everything was dug up. A lot of people were asking how come we didn't just put a cylinder back in there. So there was a lot of work that went into it. There were studies done. The Army Corps of Engineers was out there. We had a bunch of engineers come out and this was the best way to resolve the water flow and to restrict from losing. the rest of the roadway that we had on our side. So we understand now you guys are taking care of the other half of the roadway that's on you. Since it was opened up. Right. So we just wanted to let you know from our side, everything is fine and it's all been done accordingly to the scope that we have had. So that project there, That costs $886,336. None of that was from that $12 million bond. That came out of our budget. So out of our buildings and grounds budget, we used that money. None of the taxpayers' money went towards that. As of right now, we're attempting to reclaim most of that money back from FEMA. We've been approved, but nothing's been sent our way. We haven't gotten any money back. Nothing's guaranteed according to FEMA, but we plan on trying to attempt to get reimbursed, whether it is some of it or most of it, but we would like to try and get some help from FEMA to get that money back. As far as Troutbrook goes, the new barn is up. Presently that's housing the three pieces of apparatus that are in that building. Right now they're fully functioning, up and running. They were never down. um they're in tight quarters but uh they're making it work so the cost from the 12 million dollar bond for trout brook was 9 million 352 000 out of that budget walton right now they had um a complete gut interior renovation done to their building bay floors bathroom showers everything that was needed was added to the building That costs about $901,000. That project probably will be done by the end of the month. Right now they're on target to be finished and completed. If you've been by Sugarloaf, you'll see Sugarloaf is getting an extension onto the building for future apparatus. Also, they're getting another office, another bay, and their interior is being updated and modernized as well. Most of these buildings didn't have showers for the firefighters or bathrooms, interior. So now everything has been brought up to date for them. That cost out of the budget was $1,747,000. The good news is we completed our budget for this year as well. We didn't exceed it. We're not asking the taxpayers for any money. We're not increasing anything. Rest assured, we've done our due diligence to always come in under the cap, not to exceed it. And all the projects are here. I'm just here basically to update everybody, let everybody know where and what's going on with the money that we've spent so far. So if anybody has any questions or anything. first i just wanted to say thank you for coming in and you're welcome to come in anytime uh to give the public an update on everything thank you appreciate that are there any questions from the town board no no i think it's great that you came in and just gave everyone a try i just want to let the taxpayers know where their money's going and just update anybody and if anybody wants uh we meet twice a month the first tuesday and the third tuesday of the month our next meeting i think is the 19th or 15th Let's check the calendar. Sorry. The 15th. And it's at 7 p.m. Linda.

Yes. Thanks, Pete. I just have a question for clarification.

Sure.

So I heard you say that you're trying to reclaim money from FEMA. not approved yet by FEMA?

It was approved from FEMA. We've submitted bills that we've been charged and we haven't seen anything back yet. We're anticipating full reimbursement is what we were promised, but nothing is ever promised when it comes to FEMA's from what we're being told. So We have a FEMA person assigned to us. We have another person that's working with them in conjunction with our treasurer. So as we submit, everything goes through a portal. You're never really updated or told like other than it's received. We don't know like status, approved. We're kind of like in the dark. So we're keeping our fingers crossed to get through it. It's been almost five years. It's a long road.

Any other questions or comments? Thank you, Pete.

All right, great. Have a good night. Have a great day. Thank you.

All right, we'll go to regular public comment. Did anybody sign up?

Please. Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Brian Ross, a resident of the town of Chester. I just had one or two questions regarding grants that the town is applying for or may have applied for. One in particular goes back to the minutes of the meeting back to April the 22nd. and in that one of the comments had to do with congressman pat ryan's office will formally recommend the town's walton lake estates water infrastructure project valued at 1 million 250 000 in a federal grant program and supervisor holdridge expressed gratitude for the recommendation uh has there been any updates on that particular

No, unfortunately not. Congress is acting like Congress and taking a long time.

In the list of grant programs, it shows it here. that the amount requested was a million dollars and it's to improve the drinking water source capacity distribution infrastructure and treatment process in walton lakes estate uh is that something that if not taken care of does that cause a problem for the residents in that area um and if you grant you don't get the grant does that have any impact on the budget of the town.

Well, eventually that work is going to need to be done. So eventually that work will have to be budgeted for probably not all at once because budgeting for something like that would be incredibly harsh on the residents, it would probably be a project that we would bond out for and pay, you know, little bits over time.

Now the person that we're working on the grants, are these the same grant providers that work on the grants for the whole town? Yes.

Millennium strategies. Yes. Okay.

Okay. But they still haven't given you any updates it's been applied for, et cetera. Okay.

This is all on Congress now and Congress is, as we've seen, a little dysfunctional. And they've also been behind in funding themselves, so they have to decide on a lot of different things before they approve these sort of grants.

Okay. And lastly, again, I'm not that familiar with this, but I know that the town... was into purchasing land for permanent conservation. And I noticed that there was a New York State open space conservation grant program. And the deadline for that was on the back in April, April 15 of this year, did the town apply for any of those grants?

No, we didn't have the matching funds to want to apply for it at the time we're hoping with the passage of the Community Preservation Fund, which is on the ballot this November, that will be a space to provide funds to have the matching funds necessary to apply for those grants.

So if the town applied for $50,000, you would have to have $50,000 yourself in order to match the funds.

It depends on the fund. If the one that you're talking about is the Orange County open space, you said New York State.

That's what it says here.

I'm not sure about the specifics of that one. I know the Orange County one is 50% match. So if we apply for 50%, we have to provide 50%.

okay and do you think that by the time this comes up again which hopefully it will will the town try to do that because it seems like a really great program because you can really borrow up to yes a lot of money if this referendum passes absolutely that will be one of the grants that i'll be going after immediately okay thank you thank you there's no one else written on the sheet here did anybody else want to speak

Did anybody else wanna speak? Okay. Please state your name and your address.

Sure. My name is Peter Rollins, 29 Gregory Drive, Ocean, New York. I'm the Department of New York Disabled Veterans Service Officer. So I was asked if I would like to come down and speak on behalf of the 100% Disabled Veterans and IU. Yes, I'd be happy to. Some guys have a hard time speaking and telling their story of what happened. The first thing I do is thank you guys for taking care of your disabled vets in your area. Can't thank you enough. I was going to tell you the story that happened to me, but I can't do it. Sorry.

It's all right.

I break down a lot. I just want to let you know how the VA system works. I'm going to hold you up. The men and women you see on TV, these kids now, they lose limbs. If you lost a limb, you only get rated 60% for that leg. You lose two legs, it's 120. The VA knocks it down to 80. So they're not entitled to 100%. It's only 80% rating. To get the ratings that are 100% permanent and total, you've got to have multiple. multiple injuries or illnesses. I had 27 surgeries. I need more. I had cancer, tumor taken out of me. I got heart disease, diabetes, hypertension. I got all the good stuff. But just to let you know, I really don't think how much members in the area there is. Goshen's only 16 members. And we want to thank you again and also the taxpayers. I hope you guys don't take a big hit on this. I mean, people can be mad about why they're getting it and not us. This has started some negotiation. My thoughts were, why me and not you? I spent months in the hospital, months in the Army hospital. Again, thank you.

Of course.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Again, thank all of you for your service.

For those of you at home that don't quite understand what the gentleman was speaking about, the New York State recently enacted a law that made it an opt-in for municipalities to decide whether or not they want to provide a tax exemption for 100% disabled veterans. um to become a 100 disabled veteran you have to go through a lot of hoops and get uh you know designated that by the va um and we have been given the choice to opt into that tax exemption to give those that are designated 100 disabled uh the ability to have that tax exemption As soon as we found out this information, the town assessor and the attorney worked on the language for the local law, of which we just introduced at the last meeting. So there will be a public hearing at the next meeting, which is September 23rd, and I don't believe there's anybody up here that will be voting no on that uh that law that should pass with flying colors and we're proud to do it you guys deserve more than just that but that's what we're allowed to give you so that's absolutely what we're going to give you so um it's very important that we do that of course absolutely thank you for your service again Like I said in the beginning, before when we were talking, you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don't wanna. You've already done enough for us, so I don't wanna put you through more hell.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, is there any other public comment tonight? nothing online all right moving on then reports i'll start off tonight um first i want to thank the one person that came to my town town hall last night um of which it was councilman cassara um we had a spirited two-hour debate about many different topics uh and it was it was a good conversation um but You know, last year I held a town hall on the budget to hear from the residents and I had about a dozen of you come out or 10 of you that came out last year. I was very happy to have you. No one came out this year. So I'm going to take that one of two things. The first is that I'm doing an amazing job and no one has any notes for me, which I know is not true. The second thing is that people are busy or they have something else going on that they couldn't make it. As I've said many times up here, I do this job 24-7. I answer Facebook comments. I answer texts. I answer calls. I answer emails. I'm in that office more often than not. Please reach out to me. Please come to me. Please see me. Please talk to me. I'm happy to talk to you about everything that has to do with how this town board spends your money. We hold that very seriously, just like the fire district was just, you know, he was talking about it too with your money. So please reach out to me. I'm available and I want to talk to you if you want to talk to me. I'm gonna have my third annual budget presentation on the tentative budget once that's figured out, probably in the second week of October. That's when I go and talk about everything that formulated into the tentative budget, which is for 2027. So please keep that on your minds. That's pretty informative each time I've done it. So yeah, be on the lookout for that. But again, please reach out to me. I'm here for you and I'm ready to talk. Speaking of which, I've held every single department head in the, I've held a meeting with every single department head now, except for planning for the budget. That's what I've been doing for the last three or four weeks. All of them are done except for planning, but that's a very minor budget line. So it's not a big deal. We're gonna do that tomorrow, I think. All right. We've been holding building inspector interviews. I think we've held every interview that we've wanted to hold at this point as of literally an hour ago today. So hopefully we're gonna discuss that further and maybe a decision will be made shortly on that. I should have said this in the beginning of the meeting, happy Labor Day belated to everybody. Thank you to all the hard workers out there. It's an important holiday that kind of gets overlooked sometimes, the meaning of it, I mean. Coming up, we have the second annual Family Fun Day, Family Field Day, whatever you want to call it. It's on September 19th. Michelle, it starts when? 12 p.m. at the Chester Commons Park. Last year, we had hundreds of kids and their families coming out to it, barbecue, sports, activities. It was great, and we're happy to put it on again this year. We are going to have our third annual senior picnic with James Skoufis and Jesse Dwyer at the Carpenter Community Park. That's on September 22nd. So please RSVP to both of these events through the Parks and Rec Department. I'm going to have a Breakfast with Brandon event. I do these every sort of quarter. Bagels with Brandon, Breakfast with Brandon. This one's going to be at the diner on September 26th in the morning, probably 9 to 11 or 10 to 12. I can't remember right now. But if you wanna come talk to me, that's an opportunity to do so on the weekend. And then we have our regular reports here. That starts at 11 a.m., if I'm not mistaken. Carpenter Park, yeah. All right. All right, animal control. We had six calls for loose, lost, or found dogs, two calls for injured or deceased deer, one call for a person bitten by a dog, one call for a snake in a house, one call for a snake by the front door of a town building. I saw that snake, it was pretty cool. One call for a snake in a tree, not a cat in a tree, a snake in a tree. One call for a groundhog stuck in a sports net. One call for a stray cat, one call for a white bird with a tag on its leg, and one call for a bear sighting. Thank you to Animal Control and the police for all of that. EMS. 111 total responses, 81 transports, 115 total dispatches, and... for uh no unit available for second calls most likely dedicated chester units it was the average response time for that unit was eight minutes and 14 seconds the additional empress units were eight minute 18 minutes and 13 seconds and for a grand total of 9 minutes and 17 seconds uh call volume by units The regular was 100, the additional were 11. Additional unit reason for nine for a second call and two for a third call. ALS were 27 calls and BLS 66 calls. And I'm meaning to get, I spoke to a resident. They wanted to get the average response times for the ALS calls and the BLS calls. I need to make a note to get that, because that's probably a good thing to have for more data. Water department. regular gallons amounts throughout each district here. Test results came back in July on all districts, which were submitted to the Department of Health in August. Laboratory testing dates on August 5th and 19th. Mowing dates during the plants. Chemicals were delivered, starting installing meters at the greens for their COs. Sugarloaf was mostly quiet, replaced a old meter in the pit for 53 Wood Road, had an emergency water main break on Wright and Mary Road from fire department hammering the mains, blew the bolts out of a street valve, had to replace street valve and section of pipe, and then they also got help from Moodnut and Highway. Surrey Meadows, nothing to report. Lake Hill Farms, they replaced the hydrant. They had help from Mudna Highway and TAM due to an emergency that occurred. They had to replace bolts on two street valves at the intersection of Lincoln and Tyler. Help from Highway and TAM on that one as well. They replaced an entire service line at 40 Lincoln Road due to several leaks and old fixes. Walton Lake Estates, they replaced a stem and riser at 7 Poplar Drive with help from a highway. Field crest, nothing to report. from the PD this month. They had 14 arrests. They had Nine were charged for a motor vehicle with a suspended driver's license or registration. One was criminal contempt first and second degrees and harassment in the second degree. One was for criminal mischief in the fourth degree. One was for a creating an unreasonable noise. One was called for two were called for solicitations without permits and one was taken into custody on an outstanding bench warrant that actually. reminds me um i had a couple residents talk to me about there is a no knock registry here if you want to get on that please visit the town clerk's office that makes it so you have a little sticker at the front door to tell people that you do not want them coming up and soliciting them uh non-criminal activities 33 medical calls 17 residential and commercial burglary or fire alarms 17 reports of suspicious persons vehicles or activities 16 animal complaints 11 welfare checks four motor vehicle crashes with injuries 13 without injuries four crashes involving deer there were 186 uniform traffic tickets during this month uh 12 house checks 903 business security checks multiple different um activities performed uh by different officers in terms of community policing um no trainings happened in august and a few miscellaneous activities as well please read the full report for all the details thank you to the police again for all the hard work that they do um highway They repaired a catch basin. They continued to repair catch basins and additional drainage pipe projects. Catch basins are being cleaned of debris. Blacktop patching around town has begun, some from pipe replacements and others in general areas that needed attention. Road mowing continues around town. Trimming at Carpenter was done per the request of the Parks and Rec Department. We're very happy with the the quality of service there. We continue to have heavy bouts of rain. We'll continue to monitor and keep all drainage clear and flowing. This is the water department with a few shut off valves and water breaks. Sweeping continues throughout town. Mechanics continue to service slash repair our vehicles. It is time to start inspecting and evaluating the trucks for winter season to make sure we're ready for winter. Thank you to the highway department for everything that they do throughout town. The historian. has a lengthy report as always. He is very busy, keeps busy. He had a couple public inquiries in historical research projects, some with the Vermont Historical Society, Rutland Railroad Historical Society, and others in so far unsuccessful attempt to identify a 19th century photograph of Chester Railroad Depot. They responded to public inquiries regarding rumors that the famous Dutch quarry cave fluted point was for sale at auction. Clarified that the item in question was a modern resin replica. So that's interesting. Couple other inquiries about photographs. They collaborated with a few different municipalities. A little bit about Peter Townsend. They worked with the Village of Chester Revolutionary War 250th planning, attended the 250 stakeholders meeting at 1841 Courthouse in Goshen, and a few outreach projects that they worked on as well. Thank you to the town historian for keeping history alive here. And then the planning board. uh there were there's a next meeting on october 7th and the zba the next meeting is on october 8th yeah you're on it yeah that is it for me uh councilman cassara no report Councilman Courtney.

No report.

Councilman Diffley.

I had the pleasure of attending the emergency preparedness presentation by the members of our Air National Guard and the Army Reserve FDC Center. It's part of the New York State Department of Homeland Security. uh it was very interesting uh very informative um i believe there's another one in goshen did you tomorrow evening tomorrow evening six o'clock nine one one center in goshen at six o'clock if any residents are uh you know interested i i highly recommend it uh you know

That's it. Thank you. Education requests $885 for eight various training slash webinars between September 23 and December 10, as well as $175 for the 2027 Association of towns annual training school. This is for our town comptroller. Are there any questions or debate points? I've already received the email request. Seeing none, is there a motion to accept the education request?

I'll make the motion. I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Budget amendments. Everybody received the budget amendments. It's $3,000 each for Lake Hill Farms and Sugarloaf for various repairs. That's happened, as reported in the Water Department report. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

Seeing none, is there a motion to accept the budget amendments? I'll make the motion. There's a motion? Yep. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. New business. This came in kind of late. The Sugarloaf Car Show, which is happening on October 5th? 3rd. 3rd, needs a public assembly permit. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

And I believe Linda confirmed that they're sending over insurance shortly.

I believe they said they are. Yeah. They need to just file that application Mr. Chief?

Yes. All right. Are there any questions or debate points about the public assembly permit?

No.

Is there a motion to approve?

I'll make it. I'll motion.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Is there any other new business tonight?

Just an announcement. Sure. Bell Bell's open house, which is going to be held also on September 19th from 2 to 5 p.m. at 359 Gibson Hill. They put on a great... event for the community. They're gonna have a barbecue, hayrides, and other activities. And they welcome everyone there.

I got ahead of myself earlier. Does the town clerk have any report?

I do not.

Thank you. I'm sorry. I should have asked. That's quite all right. I don't believe there will be any other new business after our executive session. So if anybody would like to tune out, you can. unless something drastically changes, but we do need to head into executive session real quick. Is there a motion to head an executive session for litigation and personnel?

I'll make the motion. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Is there a motion to come out of executive session? I'll make the motion.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Is there any other public comment tonight?

Yes.

Thank you, Charlotte. That's for everybody, I think. I will take that. Thank you, Charlotte. Is there anything else? All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?

I'll make the motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye.