Town Board - Regular Meeting

Please.

Supervisor Holdridge.

Here.

Council Member Becker. Here. Council Member Pizarro. Here.

Council Member Courtney.

Here.

Council Member Diffley.

Here. Please stand for the pleasure. All right. Did everybody get a chance to review the July 22nd minutes? Yes. Yes. Is there a motion to accept the minutes?

I'll make that motion.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The summary bill is that the town will be paying bills in the amount of $641,548.09. And then the first thing that we have before public comment tonight, because I don't think he should have to wait for the rest of the night so he can go home, is we have a special guest here, former town supervisor of Warwick, Michael Sweetin, and current member of the Orange County Land Trust. Staff member, what's your position there? yeah um so uh i invited him here because i thought it was important for the community uh to hear firsthand from somebody uh who utilized a community preservation fund like the one that we are going to have on our on our ballot this uh this fall um to such great effects in our very very close neighbor of the town of warwick over the last 20 something years they have preserved over 5 000 acres of land um so mike why don't you step up and thank you for coming my pleasure thank you supervisor i've got some handouts for the board

It is a pleasure to be here and I appreciate it. I've been here before. I go back to Bill Tully and Steve Newhouse. We are good neighbors and partners. We've done a lot of good things together over the years. So I appreciate the fact that you invited me to talk about this. This is a historic opportunity for the town of Chester. You've already taken the first step, which is to trust that your voters will make a decision. Now, your voters may agree that it's a great idea and they may not, but at least they have the opportunity to weigh in on this. And I say it's historic for Chester because communities can get overrun, overdeveloped, or take the wrong path, and it can happen very quickly. And what having the ability of a transfer tax in your town for the benefit of preservation of critical things strikes the right balance. You're not trying to stop all development, but you are trying to protect critical either farms or open space or water in your community. And this gives you that opportunity. I'm going to explain how it does that. And I'm going to try to dispel some of the myths because I'm sure you've probably heard them already. The gut reaction that people start to hear is the first thing they say, tax. They hear a tax, right? Well, again, you're not imposing this. You're asking your voters to decide. And it's not a tax on them. It's a tax on residents coming into your community. Why are they coming in to Chester? Because they like what Chester is. They like the resources you have, the services you have, the convenience of being near the highway so they can commute the jobs if that's what they're doing. You're a center point in Orange County, right? So they're coming here for those reasons. Your community, your board, your current board, your past boards, your residents have built a really special place and they bought new ambulances and new fire trucks and they built buildings, right? And they built parks and your residents have paid that through their taxes. So now you're asking somebody that sees what a special place it is to come in and contribute. That's all you're asking them to do. So you'll hear that this stops people from buying homes and it's another tax, it stops, it does not stop it. And I would ask you when someone asks you that or tells you that, please show me the results of that. I will tell you that in Warwick, it is not the case. And while realtors initially- Somebody's talking right now.

Can you use the microphone more?

I'm sorry, how's that? Is that better? Yeah. Okay. So in Warwick, realtors, and this is across the state, they don't like the idea because, again, they feel like it hinders the sale of homes. It does not. But if you talk to realtors and they're honest in Warwick, they will tell you that this is a selling point for them. It has not stopped people from wanting to come to Warwick, and it has not stopped them from buying houses. tax paid by the buyer at the closing, and it rolls in generally to their mortgage. But it's a tax that's a targeted tax. You've laid out in your community preservation plan, which is the roadmap for what you want Chester to be in the next 25 to 50 years, exactly what you can expend this money on. And none of that money can ever be expended on anything that's not specifically listed in that plan, okay? And it can't be spent on it until there's a hearing before you folks. You have to vote in the affirmative of acquiring either the property outright or a conservation easement on the property, okay? There's the check for the residents to have an opportunity to weigh in on is this important or not, okay? Supervisor mentioned in the Town of Warwick, so we enacted this in 2006. It's been in effect since then in the Town of Warwick. We had bonded ourselves in 1999, a $9.5 million bond. You've done similar things with Knapp's View. You bonded for the purchase of that. So you and your residents have skin in the game, if you will, in preserving Chester. Now you're asking newcomers that are coming in to help you do the same thing. So in 2006, we put this before our voters and they approved it. Since that time, when I left office in 2023, the fund had generated $18 million. That is significant. it's more significant by the fact that we were able to acquire grant funding in an equal amount of 18 million dollars so we were able to leverage the money we had for another 18 million dollars and why is that important orange county today has an open space fund it only pays 50 you need a 50 match now there are not too many landowners that are in a position financially to donate the other 50 percent right so you become non-competitive if you don't have a match now you folks can bond right but in this day and age and a two percent tax cap and all the rising costs you have that's not something you're really excited about doing i can tell all right so um having this is a powerful tool the state of new york will provide 75 of the total purchase transaction cost and cost of an easement on a farm I mean, I have a lot of farms, but you have three key farms. You might want to see them continue in the town of Chester. All right. So 75 percent of the money is sitting out there. But I will tell you, the state of New York hates to give you an award if you don't have a match to follow through. They don't like it. Federal government will provide 50 percent on a conservation easement. OK, and there are other grant fundings out there. whether let's say you have a critical parcel that has some good water resources that you're thinking of the future of Chester, making sure that people have water to drink. There are grant funds out there to help you with that, but they're not 100%. So having this gives you that ability to secure those kind of things. 5,000 acres of working farms we've secured through conservation easements. Conservation easement, we don't own the land. Landowner owns the land. farmer still owns land, still pays taxes on the land, right? They just can't build houses on the land. That's been a boon for us, not only keeping open space, which people identify when they see farms, but also has allowed those farmers the money to invest in their farms and diversify. You can go to Warwick any weekend and go to a farm winery or brewery or whatever crazy riding through the fields on hay wagons, which I never would have thought would have happened as a young man growing up here. So, again, you're not burning your taxpayers with your owning it. You're not owning it. Putting a conservation easement. Critical land. There are people that want to preserve their land. They may not be farmers, but they may just love their land and they'd like to preserve it in perpetuity and maybe get something out of it. So you purchase a conservation easement on it. Generally, you can do that with a land trust or you don't have to. Municipality can hold easements. Town of Warwick holds all of our easements. We get partners, some land trusts, depends on who's playing in the field at the day, but you can do it. And it's not a big financial burden on you as a town to do that. There's a enforcement issue. We've had very few, but if there is, your building department takes care of it. It's not so much of a burden at all. What else can you do? In the handouts I've given you, there's a list of things that are eligible for purchase. So again, water is an important one. We run out of water, we're in trouble, right? So that's a critical one. Open space land, park land. We've preserved in Warwick a historic structure. William Henry Seward was born in the village of Florida. We preserved his home, his birthplace. Our other village, Greenwood Lake. Greenwood Lake, if you didn't live with a homeowners association on that lake, you had no public access to it, which is crazy to me. So we secured a defunct marina for them using these funds, and it's now a centerpiece of their village as a park. We also had a 16-acre piece right smack dab in the middle of the village that privately owned. People kind of wandered around on it. We secured it for them. It's now where they hold all of their fall celebrations, their Christmas celebrations, Hanukkah, the whole deal. It's a centerpiece, so it creates a special place. And you have special places. You have the village of Chester. You have the Hamlet or Sugarloaf. You can enhance... the economic benefit of those places with this ability to have these kind of funds. They'll say real estate prices are hurt. I will tell you that in 2008, the median sale price in Warwick was $370,000. The median in the county was $189,000. In 2023, when I left office, the median price was $450,000 and the median in Orange County was $250,000. So we've maintained more than a 45 to 50% higher median than Orange County itself. That shows that people value the community that we were able to build. And this was a big part of having done that. So again, You need to be able to just, because you're going to get, people are going to come up to you and say, you know, well, this is crazy. You're going to tax me again. No, we're not taxing you. We're asking newcomers that come here to help keep Chester the special place that it is, that you work hard as board members, because I know, to make it that. I can just, it's an education process to residents. Right now, people are You know, they're not liking the economy. They're burdened. They don't want to hear anything about a tax. But you have to really be able to explain to them that this is a very targeted tax paid by a buyer coming in here to live in the special place that the town of Chester is. So I'm happy to answer any questions. The supervisor has all my contact information. If you privately want to just ask me something, I'm more than happy to do it. I would tell you it's been a tremendous thing for us in the town of Warwick to have this ability. And again, securing another $18 million that are not from our taxpayers or even someone that's come into the community is huge.

With what you have left in Warwick as far as farms and open space, do you see in the future or near future where they would be getting the rights to more farms? Or is that going to do direct purchases?

No, in the pipeline, our focus in Warwick was conservation easements. You know, we don't want to, government's good at a lot of things, but it's not good at owning a lot of things. Absolutely. Right. So I didn't want to do that. Now, I will tell you that we took the opportunity. We had a camp in Warwick right before I left. It had been a great neighbor for us for so many years. Those folks decided that the model of bringing kids there didn't work for them anymore, and they wanted to sell it. and um they they told me about it and and i talked to my board about what do you think right uh this facility had pools it had a catering hall it had a whole bunch of good stuff right uh it's near the appalachian trail actually it butts the appalachian trail and um my board supported acquiring that and i'm telling you it has now become in just a short three, four years, a real focal place for the town of Warwick. So it was an opportunity that we would not have been able to do.

But you see other farms, are there other farms that are still accessible?

So currently we have four farms that are in the process of They've gotten an award, and we're in the process of closing them because it does take some time to do it.

Things are still moving in that direction.

Correct, correct. And I will tell you that landowners and farmers are smart, right, and they're pretty tough, and they have understood and seen that this is a – comparable relationship to if they just sold it right and walked away right and it's not right for everybody i'll tell you that um but they do see that they get value we've had several of our preserved farms sell and they've sold for more than what the raw land value is right so the value after the conservation easement so i will tell you that with the easement on it correct the easement if we do if you do an easement it is in perpetuity yeah so it runs with the land um And we've never had, I've never had any, I've had two issues with violations on, so it's 43 farms under easement right now. I've had two violations and those generally were because one was it's near, it's the right farm. It's nearest old subdivision of Warwick. And you know what happens in that? The guy puts his shed on the, he doesn't know where his line is, he puts it over. So you clear that up in the building apartments pretty easy. The other one was somebody from Texas bought a, farm and decided he just was going to do what he wanted to do. And we pointed out, hey, have you seen the conservation easement, right? It spells out in For us, it was with the federal government as a partner. So I said, you know, you can go to federal court if you want. And pretty much the guy left, and that was it.

So the easement kind of restricts a farmer to what he can build on the land afterwards.

It doesn't. So here's our approach, and here's my approach working for the Orange County Land Trust. Because I don't really work in Orange County. I've been funded. by Sullivan County to help them because they understand that they're under a lot of development pressure as well. Right. And so they finally realized we need a farmland preservation program. So I successfully got them a federal award this year and we're building a program for them. But lost the train of thought the question what can a farmer still do so again so so we take it we we come at it with a farm what i call a farm friendly easement right an easement is an agreement between the landowner and whoever's going to hold it and in most cases it's a land trust of some sort right because they have the ability to have insurance they have enforcement abilities all of the things that could be problematic right right but it's an agreement that both parties have to agree to or it's not done and we use a farm friendly easement that has been approved by new york state department of ag and markets and it essentially says you can do any acceptable farming practice on your farm right but as defined by New York State. And you define two areas. You define a small area, which is called the farmstead complex, which generally is where your farmhouse is, where you might have a farm market, where you might have a brewery in the future. All of those things happen in a small, usually about 10% of the acreage area. So that area is- It's defined and it's spelled out that you can do all of these things without the permission of the easement holder,

abiding by whatever town regulations you have.

And then the bulk of the farm is in something called the farm area. It's about 90% of the farm. And you can do any farming acceptable practice in it. You can build farm buildings in it. You can build farm worker housing in it. You just can't build all over it with houses you can't develop it correct okay so that's pretty that's a lot more clear-cut than i've been told in the past correct and i'm happy to provide to the supervisor and all of you copies of easements that we have that you can see exactly what it is i've worked with mike and with other clients um there's usually a plan attached to the easements yeah so what what you do is you do uh before you acquire an easement obviously do a survey and on the survey you delineate these areas this farmstead complex area small and the farm area and and then in your easement language it spells out in each of those areas what you can do what you can do by right what you can do with permission of the grantee and then what you can't do and generally what you can't do is most of them will prohibit uh mining right uh most of them will prohibit obviously residential development um and then depending on what the landowner is interested in some landowners those are two main topics development

yeah and as far as the water goes you is the water easement always open or is that something you have to add that has to be added to that contract also if you're looking to develop a water supply off of that property not if it's for farm use right so if you're using it for the farm no right let's say the town needed a piece of something you can modify an easement let your attorney talk to you about that but

it has to be agreed by both partners, right? And we have done that.

In order to use it for water, you have to outright buy it.

i i would say yes we did it on um lake station road it was a parcel near wickham knolls that was going to be developed the guy it was a contractor excavator and he was going to just store stuff there but we we had found back in the archives that they had drilled a pretty good well there right so we made them an offer we said because that that district for us the wickham village district was always under threat of no water

uh so we just bought it uh still not developed for the future correct and that's what we did dec generally requires 200 feet of ownership and another 100 yeah of ownership control by easement or something

Now, the second thing that I gave you is really was something designed for Sullivan County, but it has some important stuff in it. There's some QR codes to communities that have this in place, have already passed the law. And so you can go there and see their community preservation plan if you have questions. Community preservation plan, I'm sure you have groups working on it. It can be as complicated as you want, or it could be as simple as you want, right? In the town of Ward, we took a map of the town tax parcels, and we went through and categorized them, whether they were active farms, whether they were near water resources, and just categorized those, put them in our plan, and we had our planner do a nice blurb about why each of those things was important to our community. and then we had a hearing and we adopted it we're going to do that in the other yeah other other towns have you know gotten grants to do species categories and all that stuff you don't need to do that you just need to show your residents We have a plan for what we're gonna do with this, right? That we're not just doing it on the seat of our pants. And here's what we hope to accomplish, because I think as Americans, right, we don't look far enough in advance, but 25 years from now or 50 years from now, it's not that far away really. And if you don't plan for it now, you're never gonna get there. And so the CPP helps you focus on that. And I think it's an important task, no matter what happens with your referendum, but it is an important task to do because it'll chart where you think Chester should be. And that's why folks have elected you anyway, right? To chart that out so it's in the right direction. okay thank you i think uh it's a good place to stop for now um like the former supervisor said i have his contact information so if anybody wants to reach out to him afterwards let me know and i can put you in touch with him all right yeah and i do mean any any time just call if you have a question or someone says something to you and you think is that right or not right i can get you some samples all right thank you very much for your time thank you thank you

All right, we're now gonna have, we're gonna go into public comment. audience's notification. We have a very long agenda tonight and we have quite a few people here. So I am going to be enforcing the three minute rule for public comment tonight. Please take it away.

Okay. Cindy Smith, 195 Great Court Road, Chester. First, I wanted to find out, Steve Diffley, do you know why Woodbury canceled their contract with Monroe for the dial-up bus?

The way I understand it is that the contract expired. Monroe continued to provide the service without a contract and that they couldn't come to a contract agreement so the service was terminated. That's how I understand it.

And so the contract that we're paying into, that encompasses all of Monroe-Woodbury School District?

yes which travels down to tuxedo no no all of the all of the modern woodbury school district that's within the borders of the town of chester That's the contract that we want to put in place.

And that's what you want to do there. But I also had a land preservation question about how, what happens when, so I doubt if you'll answer this, what happens if a farmer wants to get in on the land preservation, but wants X amount of dollars, whatever it is, and just walks away from it? He doesn't want any of the property anymore. What happens then?

If we can't come to an agreement on the price, then there's no deal.

Right. But if you come to an agreement on a price, whether it's $100,000 or $200,000, I don't know. What happens if the town doesn't have that money? available right now? Where would they get the money from?

So if I mean, there's a few ways to have the money if we just outright have the money, then great. We can also get grants like the former supervisor said to match the amount that we have, or we can take out a bond that we put up against the fund. So then we use the future revenues that would go into that fund to pay for said bond.

So the bonding, that also improves interest, right?

Well, yes.

Yeah. And you don't have the list of properties as to what's available, farms or properties that are available for them?

Available? No, we don't go by available. We go by our wish list. And that is the wish list.

Well, that you would kind of pick out.

That we would be interested in. And that's per the community preservation plan. uh the draft plan is on the website um so you can go look at that yourself and if they have the they have the list of the uh the properties and the sbls on in the plan right now okay yeah that's that's the community preservation plan committee that put that together with the town planner um and i've been there as well uh to assist okay yeah that's it thank you susannah devine that was a perfect three minutes by the way so thank you

I'm going to try to beat that by going underneath, okay? Welcome, Susanna Devine. I'm a Chester resident, live off of Bull Mill Road. For nearly a decade, Republicans and Democratic elected officials, both local and in the New York State Assembly and Senate, fought hard to allow Chester residents this opportunity to vote on the historic Chester Community Preservation Fund. This bipartisan group worked together including our local reps, our current reps, Councilperson Courtney, Supervisor Holdridge, Senator Skoufis, and Assemblyman Marr. May I repeat that? This bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans work together towards a common goal. Let that sink in. For those of you who are unsure about whether you want to vote yes on the Community Preservation Fund, go to Warwick and see the fund in action. They've had theirs, as Mike said, since 2006. Now please go to Monroe. They just voted yes to try to get this enacted as of this week. I bet they wish they had theirs in 2006. Thank you.

Thank you.

Brian Ross.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian Ross. Can you all hear me? Yes. Okay, good. I'm going to be facing sometimes with the public and sometimes with the town board. I just spoke with the former town supervisor Warwick. I wasn't clear on something. It wasn't what I'm speaking about. But in Warwick, it appears that the buyer pays the transfer tax. Is that the same for Chester? Okay. The reason I'm asking that is that when I looked on the research, it clearly stated that the seller is responsible for the transfer tax. Can that be clarified, please?

Sure. So if this is adopted, there would be two transfer tax applicable. There is the New York state transfer tax, which is $4 per thousand of consideration. That has been in place from day one. That is traditionally paid for by the seller unless it is negotiated otherwise. The community preservation fund would be three quarters of 1% after the first $100,000. That is traditionally paid by the buyer. That is also welcome to be negotiated otherwise so long as somebody pays it.

That clears that up. Thank you very much. I also want to make a brief comment about how much work that entails to get this done. the people involved. I know that Councilman Courtney of Civil Rights of Holdbridge. I'm not sure about Mr. Skoufis. This is a very difficult process to get through. I know from firsthand experience because I've done it. When you go to a barbershop, every single barber in New York State is required to have an infection control program that they take, and they have to pass. And from there, then their license can be continued. That process took about four years, attending meetings, working with council people, working with all sorts of legislators, finally getting it to the governor's office, approved a very time-consuming and difficult process so those people involved really needs to be congratulated regardless of the party this is not a democrat it's not republican this is a tremendous accomplishment okay now what i wanted to speak about tonight is really two items uh back in april i got a summons for setting off an alarm And it was the second time within a six month period. So I came to the council board meeting and I requested that the fines not be as excessive. It's no problem for the first one, the second one's $100, the third one's $200, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't know the progress of that, but my research showed that in other municipalities, they're a little bit more lenient. get you two tries without any fine so i don't know where that stands i wanted to find out where that's going and what we can do about it because as you know affordability is basically the number one issue in the whole country that that's still being worked on there's no update tonight okay but i just wanted to just didn't want to lose that momentum because that's important especially for seniors because money is money And $100 may not be a lot, but with some people, it is a lot.

And lastly, yes, I'm sorry. You're over your three minutes, so I'll let you do the last one, though.

Okay. The reason why I went over is I wanted to compliment the people for doing the good job. So I didn't have to do that, but I did. So I need an extra minute. I will allow it. Thank you. And the last one is a tricky one. The last time I was at a meeting here, I did something and I had a difference of opinion between myself and most of the members of the town board, except for one person. And as a result, I got a lot of flack. I got a lot of comments. Not one of them was good, except for Councilman Becerra, who basically saw a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Now, I don't come here to argue. don't come here to make accusations i come here and treat everybody with respect that's all i ask but i didn't think i was and i got comments that are really unnecessary a couple of them really annoyed me because i sat down here and listened to them i didn't say a word i was a gentleman i have 30 more seconds to go The comment that bothered me the most wasn't the fact about the position and whether it's appointed or whether it was elected or all that. Yeah, that's water under the bridge. What bothered me the most is the fact of spending extra time of doing your job. When you are in charge, you're expected to put in extra time. It's part of the job. What I didn't mention and what was not mentioned is that I'm a retired school teacher from New York City. I know that teachers put in 50 extra hours a month to go and get paid.

Nobody says anything.

It's part of the job. But those kind of comments have to be put into a broader spectrum. That's all. I come here, I try to bring up reasonable topics like my traffic light, which is getting closer to fruition, because it's a dangerous intersection. And I'd like to thank, again, Superintendent Holbridge. But I did expect more from the rest of the council people, I have to be honest with you. You each could have done a letter.

How hard would that have been?

The more we get to the transportation- I just wanna, the letter was in- I understand that, but you did the letter.

They could have done the letter. I wouldn't have taken that long. The more, the better. This is what people understand in agencies. They do.

That's it.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Tracy Shue.

Good evening. Can you hear me? Yep. Well, first, I want to say thank you to Michael Sweeten for coming here and speaking on a very important topic. but due to your long agenda and time constraints, I will hold them off my comments till next meeting. Tonight, because I came tonight to speak to you about two development projects on the border of Chester and Monroe. These will directly affect Chester residents, our shared environment, and long-term health of the Trout Brook watershed. I will try to speak quickly because this is really important for the record. The first project is Henry Farms. Its development began nearly two decades ago. I can't get into all the history right now, but it illustrates the consequences of poorly designed clustered subdivision that's just over our border. It impacts wetlands and steep slopes. And unfortunately, the decisions were made behind closed doors with a stipulation agreement as a result of a lawsuit. But Monroe Planning Board still has a say on a few things. My concerns are water quantity and quality, aquifer recharge, because the proposal draws all this water under the site and then sends wastewater to Harriman. So you're not locally recharging. Now, over time, that's going to cause an imbalance and also complicated with the water source next to the unlined landfill. Traffic and community carriage is a problem. The access point is across from Camp Monroe intersection. There's also commercial lot proposed. And the last is habitat fragmentation, stormwater and flooding. It all drains into the tributaries feeding to Troutbrook stream. And the corridor has a history of flooding along Troutbrook road. I'll have more on that project later. The second project's more immediate for your attention. It's called Meadow Hill. There's a public hearing next week in Monroe. It may look like a modest six-slot subdivision on paper, but it's directly adjacent to a newly approved subdivision in Chester called Oak Woods. This appears to be another example of a bed cluster designed by Monroe, squeezing large houses between and close to wetlands. I previously raised concerns to both planning boards that this is what's called segmentation under Seeker. They allowed two adjacent projects by the same representative in two towns to proceed with separate environmental reviews instead of evaluating the combined impacts on the lot design. In addition to wetland integrity, clearing and habitat fragmentation, and more importantly, water quality when all ten wells are active. The cumulative impacts matter, especially in a sensitive watershed and historic flooding. And this is exactly the kind of cross boundary issue CEQA is meant to prevent. And that didn't happen here. The other issue is open space recreational connectivity. It's kind of falling on deaf ears in Monroe. The open space between the two projects could be combined and preserved into one larger lot for Chester as we're expanding this community trail in progress. And this wouldn't be the first time Chester has had open space from another community that you've done it with Goshen. and now part of that's being used for the school for recreation. So it's not too late for the opportunity to be explored again for Chester to have more open space to expand what you have and to give an access point on Lakes Road to that trail. So I hope you'll have a voice at this public hearing. It is Tuesday, three issues requiring offsite monitoring wells for Chester to make sure there's no significant impacts on the homeowners and their water quantity once all 10 lots wells are active between both projects. that the what i said about expanding the open case open space dedication it'll give you access to lakes road um to your preserved lands and improve the access uh built opportunities and ensure environmental impacts near the border are reviewed jointly not in isolation side note henry farms did a water test decades ago and the drawdown was as far as a home and pike court in chester so there's likely interconnectivity in the aquifer between henry farms meadow hill and oak woods to the homeowners in troutbrook neighborhood so I respectfully ask that the town maybe has their engineer take a look at this or at very least reach out to the Monroe Planning Board to extend you the time that you need to prepare given that this public hearing of Meadowhill is next week. And I really don't want to see them vote on this project until you had a chance to look at it. And then lastly, not just on this project, but all projects that this board receives public hearing notices on, I would like to respectfully request that they're read into record at your meetings and they're shared through your town email, notification, social media process to residents, and they're forwarded to your Chester Planning Board for review. These projects do not stop at the town line and neither do their impacts. Chester deserves a seat at the table when decisions affect our residents, our water sources, and our shared environment. Thank you for your time.

Is Meadow Hill on our side of Lakes Road?

Yes, it's directly adjacent to Oakwoods. They share a wetland. and the water and the stream and the flow of water goes through their project, from Henry Farms, goes through their project, goes through Oak Woods and gets down to Camp Monroe Lake.

You stole my thunder on Henry Farms. I was going to say that in the reports today. Okay. But I'm glad that you brought it up.

There's a lot to be said about it, but I know I was on a time crunch.

I know. Henry Farms is a 70, a proposed 70 house single family subdivision project right across from Cam Munro Road along Lakes Road. And there will be, like Tracy said, a commercial lot there. It's right on the border of Chester. So I definitely echo what Tracy just said. For residents who are concerned about the nearby development, I would be on the lookout for the Munro planning board meeting agendas so they can go and speak at the public hearings. Yes, you should. All right. Lastly, we have Robert Klein.

Okay, I don't know. My name is Robert Klein, 9 North Hudson Street, Justin, New York. I don't know if this is the appropriate time to do my public comment regarding the ambulance contract. This is the time. My concern to address the board as a whole is that the contract we have seen at the joint meeting with the town and village of Chester appeared to be a boilerplate contract.

not prepared by a representative representing the town of chester and the the attorney had yeah reviewed the contract at the time and worked on it but since then we have reviewed it further um with the village board and the attorney and empress and the town board and it's been refined since that meeting that you're talking about okay

Was it reviewed by a contract attorney other than Cassidy? I'm sure she's a very fine attorney, but I'm sure as a municipal attorney, she cannot wear too high.

No, she's very well equipped to handle something like this and she reviewed it and she's good with it.

So,

we need to look at the revised contract we do have nothing uh it was provided to the town board and uh to the town clerk so it was available to the representatives who are going to be and the village board and the village representatives so it's been seen by everybody who is going to be voting on it tonight so my next question is

I asked you at that joint meeting between the town and village regarding the amount of the insurance deductible on the van in case of a minor accident. At that time you said you did not know.

It's $5,000? $5,000.

Yeah. Does the contract as amended have impressed pay for the deductible or is it paid for by the town?

No, it's the town's vehicle, so the town would have to pay the deductible.

Even though it is caused by an employee of Empress?

There's appropriate insurance provisions in the contract by both the town as well as Empress.

So you think that's appropriate?

Yes.

When it may be a fault, even though there's no fault insurance, the employee backs up the van and hits something, damages the van, the town is responsible.

But there's also cross, there's demnifications in appropriate insurance language.

You think that's a good contract to allow that?

I'm comfortable with the contract as it was presented to my office.

Okay. My next question is, 4% increase every year when the state has a cap of 3% on expenses and budgets to stay under the cap. Is the 4% a reasonable increase given that the state has a 3% ruling on the cap?

I think those two things are distinct apples and oranges. We have a representative from Empress here tonight who's going to speak on the contract and the numbers and everything. So he'll be able to explain why that's their rate. But that is the smaller rate. compared to the three-year contract, which is a proposed 4.5% increase every year. So we went with a longer-term contract that saved money in the long run to choose a 4% increase year over year instead of 4.5.

So you feel comfortable with Cassidy reviewing the contract as a contract attorney for the town as opposed to hiring specialists? who only deal with contracts?

Absolutely. Liz Cassidy has helped us with a countless amount of contracts between now and when I came into office in 2024. I would be very confident in her ability to handle the contract negotiation for this process. And this, again, it's been reviewed by the full town board and the full village board. We gave her our notes. It was refined in the last month. And now we are all in a place where we're all comfortable with it. I've received zero negative feedback from both the whole town board and the whole village board. and we are very over the limit. So if you have a last question or comment, please feel free to make it now.

I think I am done. I made my comment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. I have nobody else written here. Is there anybody else who would like to speak during public comment? Yes, please.

Yeah.

Hello, all. My name is Salvatore Marchese. I live at 120 Creamery Pond Road in Sugarloaf. I've been a resident about 26 years there. Just recently, within the last few weeks, I went to the police department regarding a boat on my street that's been stored on the street in front of 132 Creamery Pond Road. I believe it's the owner or the occupant of that house that's been leaving his boat there. And the police department tried to help me. They said there was nothing they could do. There was nothing on the books. Officer Dunlop was very helpful. He even called me back a few days later after I went there. He said he spoke to the building supervisor, and the supervisor concurred that there was nothing on the books that can be done about having this boat removed from a public street.

About what we have in our code, and it says that no detached trailer.

And it was detached with out-of-state license plates.

It's not attached to a truck. No, it's detached. It's not insured. It's online.

It's detached, detached trailer with out of state plates stored on the street on wooden blocks. The police department said they couldn't do anything about it. You know, I was reasonable. I just wanted it moved. It's shouldn't be there. I don't live in a marina. This has been an ongoing issue. It was done last year. So you know, being a good neighbor, he should have moved it. He moved it. He was there for about a month. then it was moved for about a week came back stored it again not parked stored so there's a big difference and i contacted uh supervisor holdridge and he was in agreement that if there's nothing on the books i asked that the the town lawyers look into this and if there's something that's on the books that the law be enforced by the police department or building department or whomever And if there isn't anything on the books that consider writing and establishing a new law for the town that prevents this. So that's really all I ask.

The supervisor did bring it to my attention, so it's on my list. I will have a response to you by our next meeting. Great. So it is on the list.

Sal and I are neighbors. That boat is directly across the street from me. couple months ago neighbors asked me about it and I inquired about it I asked the building inspector that's no longer here about it and the response I got is that the trailer is two axles which is allowed on the roadway and it's under 10,000 pounds which my question to the building inspector now would be how did they determine it's 10,000 pounds unless you know have the registration you can't just eyeball 10,000 pounds or less. So we we would have to look into it further. Now. This is no longer there. We actually moved like five days ago.

Yeah, well, probably. Yeah, exactly. It's gonna be small. It's a sailboat with a man. You know, in my opinion, it's not parked. It's stored. There's a big difference. and has out of state plates, out of state plates, 30 days in an area, it should be registered at a home, at a house that's in New York, New Jersey license plates. So I could park my boat on the block anywhere in front of... Sure, why not? Yeah, just leave my boat there. I don't have one, but I could just arbitrarily park a boat or anybody could put one in front of my house. It's just not right.

know being a good neighbor that's all i ask you guys look into this sir can i ask you a question yeah um i know you sent photos yeah i i can't i can't find them right now okay but do you recall when you sent the photos was that was that uh

trailer uh attached to a vehicle no no it's not it's not attached i have the photos on me no it's not it has never been attached to a vehicle on the street it's it was on it's on wooden blocks the trailer it's on wooden blocks if it is attached it's attached to the pickup truck when it leaves and then it comes back yeah exactly that it's detached so it's never parked it's attached to a truck it's a road encumbrance okay so for the first he's been doing this or she i don't even know who the occupant is of the of the house there but uh it's been going on for the last year this year and it was there for about a month without movement and then it moved for about a week and then it came back and now it moved again and then you know

you know who has the most difficulty about it my daughter that's 18 just got a license backing up by the drive i believe it i believe it it just shouldn't be there and it's also you know aesthetically for the neighborhood uh could be a hazard fire department needs to pull up there's a boat all right thank you i appreciate it thank you all thanks

there anybody else public comment in the in the audience first is there anybody got anybody here no online okay so judging by the way they came in david ternsky regarding the Just real quick, the Goshen cost is $33,000 a year, and that's for the full town. And for the remainder of this year, it'll be just over $4,000 for the new contract with Monroe. for a full year starting next year. So if it was a full year this year, it would have been 9,000, a little over 9,000. Next year, it'll jump to, I believe, 10,000 or 11,000. I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's about a third. A full year contract with Monroe is about a third of the price for a full year contract with Goshen. Like I said online to Doug directly, just because we signed the contract for five years does not mean that we are locked in for five years. There are clauses in the contract that let us back away from said contract if we so wish with proper notification. Same thing from Empress's side. there anything else no that's all all right we're going to move on uh to the empress uh agreement the proposed empress agreement rob uh here from empress is is here very kindly um so if rob can step up just in case we have questions and such but uh i have a little bit of a rundown for the residents if i can just be allowed to get it up real quick All right, so in 2024, I began talking about the need for a new EMS service or ambulance service. And because at that point we were in, a gray zone of basically a handshake agreement with Empress at the time where Empress stored one of their vehicles here, but they were not dedicated to Chester. We did not pay them for any service. We provided the room downstairs. And the thought was for us, I guess, at the time before my tenure, that we would experience better service even though they're not dedicated here because they were stationed here. That may be true, however, uh i did not feel uh that it was good enough uh we at the time had a 17 and a half average minute uh response time um and we had an average 63 average uh first call uh response rate um we were getting calls 20 30 40 minute wait times complaints about those and to me that was unacceptable So the majority of the town board and the village board voted in favor of a new tax district in at towards the end of twenty twenty four. That would pay for a contract for a twenty four seven dedicated service with Empress. That was just under a million dollars, if I remember it correctly. It's like nine hundred and fifteen or something like that. And as soon as we signed that into existence in February of 2025, we saw immediate results. And to me, and I mean, not to me, just in general, life-saving results. We went from 17 and a half minute average response time to a nine minute average response time. We went from a 63% average response rate for first calls to 99% response rate. And that has been steady throughout the duration of this new contract that we have been under. Throughout that time, even though the service has been much better than what we had before, we started thinking about how we could make it more cost effective for the residents. Some of us got together and came up with an idea that we presented to Empress, who was open to it. The idea was, If Chester were to have more skin in the game, meaning we would own our vehicle, we would own our equipment, would we be and then have Empress staff that vehicle? Would we be able to get money back in the contract? Empress took a look at that and said, we would be willing to give you the billing revenue in return for us providing the vehicle and the equipment. The and I have the figures here, the estimate for how much we would... Well, I'll just read it here. The net charges from January to the end of May of this year in 2026 totaled $423,165.23. That showed that the Empress throughout those five, six months billed on average $84,633.05 per month for the five months. If you estimate that they will continue to make that much per month for the rest of the year, they could be billing somewhere around $1,015,596.55 by the end of the year. Their original estimate for the year of 2026 was $786,204. So given the current rates, we are set to exceed the estimate from Empress in the amount of billing. So the estimated savings in total compared to when you put it against the total amount for the contract, which is around 1.3 million that is being proposed is $410,000. $410,474.57, which would be around $230,000 more according to the actual figures, increased amounts of $230,000. So all in all, we are set to save money compared to our current contract. Now, some of you might be asking, why would Empress do that? Well, the win-win, and Empress can speak for itself, but from when they spoke to us, the win-win is that they get to send their current vehicle somewhere else and make money that way, free up a vehicle for more business that they would like to put somewhere else. Some of you might be asking, what about the liability of having your own vehicle? If something were to happen to our vehicle, which it's only a $2,300 increase in our insurance every year for the vehicle, and it's a $5,000 deductible, If something were to go wrong, but if something were to go wrong, Empress would provide a backup vehicle at no cost until we were to get a replacement or get our vehicle repaired. This agreement has been looked at for the better part of a year now between the town board and the village board. I believe we're at a point where we have full, I believe we're at a point where we have full buy-in from the board members up here and the village board. This will only, per the hard numbers that we have been provided and that we looked into, and that we re-reviewed, we are gonna be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars without losing any ounce of quality service that we are getting. And that's going to, after the first initial costs of buying the ambulance and buying the equipment, that's going to equate into lower taxes for the residents out there in the tax district. I think it's a win-win and I think it's a really good deal. But Rob, if you would like to say something about it.

Sure. First, I'd just like to kind of go over some of the numbers, because I want to just answer some of the questions that came through. You know, we've been partnered now for basically two years. I think we started in February of 2024, actually dedicating the service. And, you know, we hit 850 in average response times for 2025 as we kind of learned and got into the system. We're at eight minutes and 30 seconds currently as of today. You're right, we're at 99.1% in coverage. But we've also had, over the last two years, some really horrific calls here in the town that we've kind of shown what a dedicated service can do. Fast response times for those Just Monday night, we had a pretty horrific rollover here. We had two ambulances, a paramedic supervisor fly car, two minute and two second response time for the dedicated truck and transported five patients without disrupting any other resources in the surrounding community. So I think we've kind of proven in our two year relationship that we know how to run an EMS system. We want to partner with you, and we want to continue to provide that service. The same holds true for, you know, this is a new contract for us as well. And we kind of said that as we started talking about this a little over a year ago. It was a unique idea. We looked at it. We were interested in it. But it does bring risks on both sides. So we came up with the insurance. You own the vehicle. You've got a little bit more skin in the game as well with the risk. We have more skin in the game with the risk of the revenues and the operational costs. And that brings us to the 4% increase each year. We are a union shop. We're currently in negotiations for our new CBA. It's going to be somewhere between 3% and 5%. We don't know. We don't know how long it's going to go out. that four percent is basically going to cover our salary increases in our uni contract all we need is fuel to go up again or some sort of operational cost so we're all kind of taking risks in this um where it's beneficial to us is yeah we get to get our equipment back and kind of deploy it somewhere else um you got some you know skin in the game with the insurance and stuff so we're saving some costs there so we're able to pass those through um and i think uh you know, when it comes to the revenue it's a risk on both sides. You know, we were, I ran the numbers as of this morning, just to see where we were through the end of July. And we're at the 777 mark. So we are right on target with, you know, we still got five months left. The volume seems to be increasing. It's been a busy summer so far across the board here in Orange County and the other counties, you know i think we've already processed over 700 calls in in the town of chester uh last year was uh 1099 so we do the math we're on track to surpass that that also means more revenue coming in so this is a really interesting uh concept we're looking forward to partnering with the town and seeing how this model kind of develops because it may be something we want to explore, you know, in other areas, but we're excited to partner with the town on this. And I think, again, from a service standpoint and a risk standpoint, we're all in. And I think we've kind of shown that over the last two years.

I did want to know, we have a village representative here tonight, Mayor Tom Bell, who's here to represent our friends. Does anybody on the town board or the mayor have any other questions or concerns for Rob or just in general for the board to hear about.

Just one question that comes up now that you're saying that you have a union shop. How does that affect coverage? Is there a possibility of union shop ever going on strike or that's not allowed? That's not allowed in our sector. Curiosity thing, that's all.

And Rob, just to clarify, so the cost of the town, it shows here at 516, 825, 43, right? But as the cost of the town increases year by year, because of that 4%, does the revenue estimate also increase as well? Or is everything just based on number of calls?

It's going to be based on one number of calls, which continually goes up each year. So the more calls you do, obviously, the more revenue you're going to get. normally we get uh you know medicare is the biggest payer in the ems system you know those are that's the demographics that's usually dialing 9-1-1 uh usually we get between the two and the three percent increase a year uh on the medicare um it all depends on you know how the federal government handles that but you will see an increase each year in your biggest payer insurance companies Go back and forth. But over the five years, there will be an increase. It could be a 6% increase. I know we're looking at things at Medicaid. They just approved treatment in place. Chester is not a big Medicaid population, so you're not going to see a big revenue increase from that. But there have been movements in ambulance billing to try to help support the fact that it's become unsustainable to communities without the cost of the service actually being covered by health insurance or Medicare. Yes, I don't know what that is, but obviously we'll share that in all the data each year. And then Medicare is obviously Medicare, Medicaid are published rates. So we'll see that probably around November, mid-December, what those increases are.

But regardless of what you see in insurance increases, no matter what contract we have, we're going to see increases anyway. whether it be with this contract or the basic contract that we have currently, we're going to see increases above what you're going to see from insurance.

Again, the risk here is shared. So what happens is, say, Medicare comes out and gives us a 4% increase this year, and the insurances give us a 3%. We wind up at an average of 5%, 5.5% increase. Our cost is covered. So we don't have to worry about it anymore because that was always our risk of, you know, we priced it out. Did we collect enough? Did we cover our costs? Did we lose money? You know, we're going to get our costs covered. And now if that money comes in at a higher rate, then it's going to go down. The price for the town is going to go down. We're fairly confident in the projections that we gave. Only because we've been doing this so long that we can predict the current volumes and what the revenues are going to be. But yeah, you come in with an extra 200 calls, that revenue could increase by $50,000, $60,000 and bring that cost down even more.

Another question I have. I try to be as fiscally responsible as possible, right? This 4% for five years, it's just something that I dislike. There is no negotiation for that 4%. There is no room.

Not to my knowledge. I mean, we've kind of went back and forth with this as we put the contract together. The issue is we're again taking the risk on this one. We know there's going to be at least a 3% to 5% increase per year. just on the salaries. So that's all we've applied to this is what we're going to pass through on.

I tell you, I wish I got three and a half percent of my job every year.

Now you're going to get me on a tangent, but can you limit me to three minutes? This is too important. The issue is, and we're very proud of where we are as a company and what we've accomplished even through our negotiations with the union. Ten years ago, EMTs were making $15, $16 an hour, and medics were making $20, $25 an hour. And every company out there, and there was a lot of them at the time, you know, they'd offer 50 cents more and an EMT would jump. You could never keep employees. And EMTs and medics were working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. We are no longer there at Empress. Our medics are somewhere in the upper 40s, $50 an hour. The EMTs are in the upper 20s, $30 an hour. They're able to work one job. They have some other perks with the union where they get double time, they get overtime time. They get a whole other group of benefits that didn't exist in EMS. Now that changed how we had to operate too. So when you look at our price, where did this come from for the price of an ambulance? We can't get it through reimbursement. But if we're not paying our employees, then we can't keep retention. We couldn't keep staff. So one way or another, we were going to wind up not in business. So our model was we're going to have to charge what it really costs to pay our employees to keep them. One, not only to keep them, to make them better clinicians. fact that they don't have to work two or three jobs. They're more rested, especially here. They have a nice little place where they have their downtime. They don't have to worry about running to a B job. So yeah, it is.

So if it would stick with the 4%, would there be a possibility at least having a shorter term, like a three-year lock instead of a five-year? Five years seems a little too long. I know there's a termination clause in the contract that we could end the contract whenever we want. No reason needs to be given. But a shorter period would be something that I would be more in favor of.

again i can i can definitely work with my team and look at that but this is again where the risk comes in because we're not going to have the risk of being able to charge more or the revenues are being returned to the town so if we get hit with uh you know a five percent increase and we're locked in at four percent could look at it that's just a matter of doing business right i mean that's what happens sometimes the risk is on both sides so yeah traditionally we would control the revenue so if we had the extra call volume then we would see the extra revenue we're not gonna we're we're giving you one price and that's it we're locked in there's there's no movement for us in that price and if we're purchasing an ambulance why wouldn't we want to log your contract we're in we're buying an ambulance we're in it for a long term

well again because i've been involved in long long contracts and they're not always the best no the shorter contracts are better they turn over quicker and you can renegotiate and sometimes you get better deals at the end of the five years or at the end of a three-year deal we're going to look and see this is a necessity for the town of residence and i want this for them but i'm also looking out at the dollar signs as well

I would hate to not vote on this tonight. This is the contract that was presented to us. We had asked the question and they were pretty confident or steadfast in their position on 4% over five years. Do you honestly believe that there will be wiggle room even after you going back to them another time?

I I'd have to look at it. I mean, we, we did bounce it back and forth. I think the three year was actually at four and a half. Yes. So we kind of came down a little bit to lock in to a longer term agreement.

But why does it have to, Why does your percentage have to go up for a three-year versus a five-year? I mean, it's not much difference. It's only two years. Can it stay at 4% for three years?

I've seen this a bunch of times with other contracts and other services and such that it's the risk factor. Am I not correct, Rob? If we lock in for longer, you're more comfortable with a shorter, with a less costly increase every year for us on our end.

Is that not correct? From a budgeting standpoint, from a financial standpoint, we know what our revenues are for five years. We know what our costs cover. We're taking the risk of maybe we're going to go over a little bit. Maybe we're going to be under. Maybe the revenues are going to be extended. We're confident in this agreement on both sides. I don't know that we're going to do any better than we could look at maybe doing... We're not going to be able to change the 4% over the five years, but I may be able to drop the four and a half to four for three years, but I can't commit to that this evening.

When does this have to be signed by? When's the latest? I know we wanted to vote on it tonight. Do we have time to- There's no deadline.

It's just that every single day, every single two weeks or three weeks that we wait in between meetings is just another delay to the to the order of the vehicle, of which I've already had the guy who is holding our vehicle through the state bid system keep it available to us for over two months now. And he just called me on Monday saying, you know, I got to get rid of this thing. You know, when are you going to do it? So, you know, He's getting antsy and every single time that we delay is another chance that we lose that vehicle and then we delay it because this agreement is not in effect and it's written in the contract until we start providing the vehicle and the equipment is ready. to go. So even if we sign it, even if you authorize me to sign it tonight and I sign it tomorrow and deliver and get countersigned, it's still not in effect until we get our vehicle delivered and our equipment installed and everything is tip top shape and ready to go. That's when it's actually in effect per the language of the contract. So every single time we delay is another chance we lose out on a vehicle that's already ready for us. And then we have to wait longer it's it's about a three or four month you know turnaround time even with the vehicle being available right now uh according to the according to john purcell the you know the guy that you provided through us uh for us and we checked if it was under state bed and if this one is so i would be very remiss to want to delay this further and miss out on the opportunity Because every single time we delay is another chance we're going to be delayed further with the vehicle order. And then we start. And it's just to me, that's revenue lost because we're not going to start collecting the billing revenue until we start providing the vehicle. There is no deadline, but to me, it's an as soon as possible. And I thought we were going to be ready for this tonight to do it.

I'm good. Can you explain if there's any difference in the billing practice with this contract versus what is currently in place?

No.

No difference.

There's no difference.

So.

Because the only thing the town owns is the equipment. The certificate is Empress's and the EIN number is Empress's. So, or the TIN number for that one. So all billing. is going to remain exactly the same under Empress. And then as it's written in the contract, it'll be returned back to the town on a monthly basis, obviously accruing more and more each month. So probably around May or June is when you really start to see large numbers coming in.

I saw you had a question. Yeah. First of all, I don't know if it was stated tonight, but can you, tell me what your position with EPRS is, what you're actually... Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm the executive director, so I run everything in Hudson Valley.

Okay. My next question is, I'm assuming during... I wasn't involved with the negotiations with other board members or... I'm assuming that this percentage increase has been negotiated. I mean, that popped up and everybody said okay right no no we actually started at one year and then with the three year with the five years so we we threw back a whole bunch of different so this has been a protracted negotiation already probably for a good part of the year is that safe to say is that is that accurate yes yes okay that's all oh actually i do have one more thing saturday morning an ambulance was called to my home

six minutes the police of course were there less than four minutes but the response from our our dedicated efforts rate was was six minutes and you're 100 on we were coming out of town hall monday night after doing it oh yeah we would we've seen we've seen the fly car and the other ambulance coming ours was out on the road right away probably the first one after briefing the pd got rolling to it so so you're definitely your response times are

i hear it i hear it all the time from people so no and we appreciate that but that's what we that's what we do that's what our folks downstairs do not so much me um but you know we we put those times in and it's a it's a new concept you know when we came up into this area in orange county there really was no dedicated services um and then you know the city of newberg and the city of middle family also service our experience in the same you know the same response time uh really not a hard formula having that readiness just like police and fire having that truck downstairs ready to go and not doing other things is extremely important to keeping those response times down and giving good patient care so thank you though can i ask one more question yeah um so i know you guys are eager to vote on this tonight

would it be possible to move forward vote on this but pending you would get back to rob get back to us about a three four year at four percent i would say if it was not possible it was a minor issue that was technical in nature but that's the substantive issue of the contract so i would gotcha i would suggest it if that's it either has to be tabled or it has to be voted on tonight is that your return yeah okay

Is there anything else from the town board or the mayor?

The whole board. Very good.

The last thing for me is for those of you out there who have said something about trusting a for profit company with the care, trusting their word and everything. I said the same things when we were talking about this in 2024. I had been originally in favor of a town run service. The town board and the village board was not in favor of that. So we did not go in that direction. We've had a very good relationship with Empress. They've provided us a wonderful service, and they've been good to us so far. And I believe that's going to continue. And with this agreement, for those of you who want a little bit more independence, this agreement actually does give us that. By us owning our vehicle and our equipment, if something drastic were to go wrong with Empress, whether that's internal or external, God forbid, in no disrespect meaning, we then own our vehicle. We have options at that point. So that gives us that freedom and that latitude. So I just wanted to put that out there for the public. I think this is a good win financially, and it's a good win in terms of independence, and it's a win-win for Empress, as Rob's already explained, his benefits.

and just even, I'm gonna piggyback, so I've been quiet tonight. You know, the 4%, the residents need to understand, I mean, that's a contractual piece to it. Then you have the insurance piece, what they pay for their medical. I could tell you the town of Chester got an 8% increase bill in the beginning of this year, if I'm accurate on that. So if you want to add the insurance increase, which is gonna happen every year, it's never gonna decrease, never gonna stay the same, and 4%, I think we got a very good deal.

yeah again the risk is on both sides here we've just we've just expanded that a little bit um but we've been i've been doing this long enough we've been doing this long enough we're confident we're comfortable with this maybe we lose a little in one year we make it up in the other year it's going to go back and forth but i think and and to your point there were other towns around the same time looking and some did jump into the into the business i'm not going to call them out here you know who they are, you may want to take a look at their budgets online. As we had said in the beginning, even the traditional contract that we had for the past year and a half, almost two years, was still a savings than some of the smaller towns that jumped into it. So you've been right on track and we're just looking forward to this next kind of partnership. Very good. Thank you, Rob. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you, Rob. Anything else from the town board? Nope. All right. That being said, then I'm going to offer a motion to accept the contract, the agreements with Empress EMS for the new hybrid service where we will be providing the ambulance vehicle and the equipment and Empress will be handling the billing and giving us the billing. They will be providing the staff and they will be working with our staff directly for requisitions for the equipment, you know, resupplying the equipment.

I'll second it.

Any debate? Seeing none, Call to question. All those in favor. Oh yeah, roll call vote, please. Yeah.

Supervisor Holdridge?

Aye.

Council Member Becker? Aye. Council Member Cassara? Aye. Council Member Courtney? Aye. Council Member Diffley? Aye.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. All right, next on the agenda to get this rolling is authorization to purchase a 2026 T-350 Transit Type 2 van, AEV, all-wheel drive. This is a $122,215, all-wheel drive. sorry 122 215 ambulance vehicle uh to be owned by the town chester uh for the purposes of fulfilling the new agreement with empress ems is the same exact model uh that empress has in their fleet that is their uh their model so we wanted to get something that uh was cost effective and uh something that the staff is used to so there will be no uh change in quality of service um And we're pretty happy with this one. So are there any questions or debate points on this?

Have you determined a financing plan for this or it's an outright?

So this is going to be, what's all we have money from the budget that can be put towards this. We are going, we have not determined it yet. We're going to, what I need is authorization to move forward with it. Once I get that, we're going to, I'm going to go to the dealer tomorrow and then decide, you know, I will not decide, but get what the two options are in terms of the hard numbers. And at that point, I'm going to go back to you guys to get your your verbal support for outright buying or financing. I imagine we're gonna go with financing, but we will see tomorrow when I go back to the dealer.

Okay.

So with that being said, is there a motion to authorize me to go out to purchase this vehicle?

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

All those in favor? Aye. right uh next one we have to table uh because we want to make sure that we are doing the procurement correctly on this uh plus i believe one of the quotes is a tad bit too old um so this is the first set of the equipment that is needed for the uh vehicle and it is going to be paid for uh by all if not most depending on what the updated what's it called, what will be, by a SCUFUS grant of $48,000. So thank you to Senator SCUFUS for partially starting to pay for this thing.

Do you have a turnaround on any of this equipment yet, or are you going to re-evaluate the cost?

I'm going to get it tomorrow. I just got updated paperwork.

I also, we have one bid. My understanding, it's sole source, I think. So a monitor defibrillator system is above your procurement policy. So I need to confirm that sole sources.

And we also want to look at the fact that we're going to use the same equipment that Empress uses now to stay in line. Yes, that's fine.

I just needed to document it.

We want to stay in line with that so that if we do take a replacement vehicle from them, everything matches up.

in the handout that i gave everybody um at the last uh the village meeting um and i emailed everybody the equipment that's here on the paper and the equipment that we that will be on future agendas for us to purchase uh or finance is everything that empress uses it's an exact match of everything that Empress uses. So that's- We have familiarity with the employees. There will not be one centimeter of that truck that will be different from what they use now. Very good. So motion to table, item 10. I'll make a motion.

I'll second it.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, reports. I'm going to start with the... the council members first before we get into everybody else. So Councilman Kassar, do you have anything tonight?

I participated in that art in the park this week. It was a nice time with the kids, dying t-shirts and looking forward to future events.

Very good. That was a good event. Deputy Supervisor Becker.

Okay. Attended to a village board meeting last month. Attended to a meeting last night. with the supervisor. The new venting system has been installed for the air sap system down at Moon to Basin at station A3A. And right now they have some issues with the system because the injector that injects the air into the line is undersized. So they have to increase that because they were blowing airlines. So that's in the works. I also received numbers from Modena Basin. I just want to bring this to the attention of the board. I think I did forward it, but at 3A, that's the plant down by Camp LaGuardia that basically receives effluent from the village and parts of the town, meaning Sugarloaf and Surrey and the greens in the future. We work from a daily usage of just under 500,000. And during the past storms, it went up to over a million gallons in infiltration in one day. So with the thought process I have, I think we need, with the cost of infrastructure replacement, we need to start somehow coming up with an answer on doing work in house. Somehow we got to come up with an answer on that, because that's the only way we're ever going to get anything fixed, repaired in a costly manner. So that's something I will look forward to work on in the future.

very good um councilman courtney i don't have anything tonight all right and uh councilman diffley um i just want to uh you know just briefly with the uh bus the agreement that that um you know with the town of monroe i know there's been a lot of uh misinformation out there i just want to make it clear that our agreement that um hopefully is passed has nothing to do with the village of south looming grove it's strictly an agreement an inter-municipal agreement between the town of chester and the town of monroe just want to make that clear and that's all i have very good thank you uh i believe the town clerk has a report and some other probable announcements

want to comment that I was I happen to be at the village concerts last night which are always great and it was very reassuring to see the Empress Ambulance Park there you never know when something can happen and it's you know they're right there so I prepared a report just some statistics for the first half of 2026 and in how my staff and I have assisted the public. We offer a lot of services in my office, and as notaries, which we all are, we perform We issue dog licenses every day. We're over 440 currently. There were seven dog impoundments that we would process. We had two transient merchant permits because we only have one guy, the hot dog guy, who is our very happy customer. So we issue his transient merchant permit. We had one temporary assembly permit which was permitted to the Sugarloaf Community Foundation. We probably issued more than 29 hunting licenses because it just opened August 1st or 3rd, but as of June 30th, it was 29. We did issue 60 false alarm notices that would include both first, second, or third. alarms that the police would have to respond to. We issued 80 handicap parking permits, 12 easy pass, and for our short-term rental taxation, we have also issued 15 certificates of authority for those businesses to collect that tax that comes back to the town, 4% on their revenues. As the records management officer, I have responded to over 78 FOIL requests this year. process six local laws, two of which have been sent to the board of election to appear on the November ballot as a mandatory referendum, the highway superintendent, as well as the transfer tax for the conservation plan. As a registrar and my deputy, we have issued 11 marriage licenses, an officiant's license. We issued one home birth recorded 12 deaths and four genealogy records. We had our town-wide shred event earlier in June. We served 75 residents of the town and recycled over four tons of paper. We've receded $14,242 in associated fees of which 12,205 have been remitted to the supervisor and 2,038 to the various other agencies as required by law. The water district's billing totals for the first six months was $285,000. Of course, we receive those monies as well on a daily basis. I'm happy to say that the boil water for all three issues that occurred very recently have been rescinded. The water is safe to drink. We found that many residents called up a bit confused uninformed when we explain to them that if they register for either constant contact or our emergency notification system that they could receive that information via email text or phone message or download a download and alert app many people found that sign up it's very easy it's located on the town's web uh website at the very bottom of the home page you can find a texting for the emergency alerts or if you prefer to have email or a phone call you can go into that program and set up your account you can unsubscribe at any time the same is true for constant contact it does only allow you to receive email but you would also get other email anything that you're interested that the town puts out events other important information So I did want to stress that. I understand that the parks and rec coordinator is conducting an alerts program through homeland security on september 9th at the senior center at 10 a.m and i believe there's a registration requirement that information is online and i believe i'm sure on facebook michelle probably has it out there and i attended this class just recently with the Town Clerk's Association, and it's very informative. It's totally well worth your time to attend. I would highly recommend it. And also another vehicle for alerts throughout New York State is alert.ny.gov. That is through New York State. You can get traffic, weather, all types of alerts by location once you subscribe to that. And lastly, just so people are aware that we have instituted the voluntary donation to the Warwick Valley Humane Society, which when you renew your dog license, you would have an option to donate to that cause. And that's all, thank you.

Thank you to our Town Clerk. I believe Town Comptroller Meyer has a quick half year update as well. Yes. Yeah, you should. If you need to. No, because that one went.

Once again, thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. So just some quick things that I wanted to bring to your attention. As you know that we brought up at this board in the past, the sales tax with regard to the county, that has been restored. and we have received all payments from the uh from the county that we needed that caught us up so we received the first and second quarters as well as um whatever they owed us that quarter percent or three quarters of a percent we got that as well and uh the only thing we didn't get which we were told we were not going to get at all is the interest that on the money that they held of course so we kind of knew that we asked we didn't get it um that just sort of goes hand in hand um the other thing i wanted to bring up uh that the supervisor asked me to bring up was that uh about two months ago we had there there are all new scams that come out and there was a check fraud where somebody endorsed a check that we had sent to a vendor and they put it into their account. I want the board to understand we do have really strong controls in this town, okay? And we make sure that we reconcile all our accounts and the bank accounts are reconciled on a monthly basis, usually probably within three or five days after month end, right? And you have about 45 days after month end to report a fraud. OK, we found out about the fraud probably within three days after month end by our assessor. We were notified he reconciled his account. He saw that a check that we had sent out was not was not applied to the account. We looked into it further. We saw it was endorsed by somebody else. We notified our bank. We notified the PD of the check being stolen. We got our money back within, I would say, probably about 45 days. We were refunded the money by the bank. That is part of our internal controls. Not only that, it's part of the controls we have with the bank. So the town has suffered no loss as a result of it, but I want the town board to understand we are constantly under threat. Great, our bank accounts, everything. We have done everything we can to ensure that we have proper controls in place here to make sure that we minimize any losses to the town. And in this case, we had no loss. So I wanna make that perfectly clear. With that being said, I wanna move on to the summary sheets that I gave you, which are the top sheets. Basically these highlight the revenues and expenses for the town and what we budgeted for interest and what we've received to date. This is as of June 30th. So I want everybody to understand this is half year. So we hope that the second half of the year is just as well but as you can see everything's pretty much on target revenues and expenses um look pretty good our night class interest as well as our other interests look pretty good i'm gonna have sheets related to the interest later um but that's the revenue and expenses for you guys to see if you guys have any questions on that let me know um You know, as I said, we're pretty much on target with everything. The cash position report basically gives us our cash position as of June 30th. One of the things I like to remind the board of is that most of your revenues are received at the beginning of the year. And then you draw down on those on that cash throughout the year with your expenses. So this is why we invest so much in our investment portfolio to earn interest on that money that just sits there for most of the year. So this is our cash position report. You can take a look at it as of June 30. General Fund had roughly about $2.5 million. The The part-town fund had $2.6 million. The highway townwide had $1.5 million and the highway part-town had $1.1 million. So all of those are pretty good cash. What I did do is I provided the town board with a cash projection. um for each of the funds uh you can go through that on your own but the general fund um this is actually tracked pretty true i'm gonna be honest with you so uh i've been monitoring this each month throughout the year. And it seems to be tracking, which is good news, which means that we seem to be projecting correctly on a month to month basis, what our expenses are. So in the general fund, it looks like as of December, we'll have about 860,000 in it. In our part town fund at year end, I don't want anybody to be worried, but it looks like we'll be, like we did last year, borrowing a little money from another fund to basically get us through that beginning of the year. This is just a timing difference as of year end, because we have that fourth quarter sales tax revenue, which we receive usually sometime in February, which is about $400,000. That gets included in your budget in the revenue side. OK, but you don't receive the money until after you're out.

So it creates a time actually for this year, but we won't get it until later.

Right. So it creates a little bit of a timing difference. It's not anything to be concerned about. We are aware of it. We know it's going to happen. We can plan for it. It's fairly easy to do. We did it last year. And last year, I think we did a loan from our highway part-town fund. And it was literally like, I think less than a month that we did that loan for until we got the money in from our taxes. uh highway town wide uh as we know you guys had agreed last month that you weren't gonna make the big purchase for uh the truck so uh by year end we'll have approximately nine hundred thousand dollars there um and the highway part town fund uh will be about 330 000 um at your end so We're looking pretty good. The water funds are a little bit harder to judge based on the way we get revenue in because we bill on a quarterly basis. So that has become a little bit more of a up in the air, but I'm working on that. And hopefully I'll have better numbers for you. But I think that these are going to bear close to accurate. Still up there by January. so it's right so it's still pretty good um so and it's better than biannually right so you guys can take a look at those those uh those sheets as well um and then obviously getting to the last sheet which is your night class sheet your investment sheet um i just want everybody you guys to understand right this is how much we currently have in our investment funds So you could see night class as of June 30th, we had 6.1 million. In Epic, we had 1.2 million. And in Webster, we had 3.5 million. The Webster includes some of our escrow monies and stuff like that that we have in there. So not all of that is the town's money. but um you can see our night class and epic funds uh we we've been doing pretty well uh the current interest rate on night class is 3.5 percent the current interest rate on epic is 3.69 and webster we're getting 1.56 so uh i've pretty much moved for all our major funds into night class or epic and then i draw down on that throughout the year as we need the money you know, in accordance with the investment policy. If you guys need more information on that or you guys want it handled differently or anything like that, you guys have to let me know and, you know, I'll do whatever you say on that stuff. But I think we're doing pretty well in that respect.

How often do those rates change between the two?

Usually rates change when the federal government changes the rates.

Oh, this is pretty steady then.

So it's pretty steady. For the most part, when we, I think, entered night class, we were around a little over 4%. Then they came in with a rate reduction of, I think it was like a quarter or half percent. So this is where we currently stand. um epic we're earning a little bit more on so what i've been doing is is using night class to draw down on first because we're earning less interest there so i draw down on that and then if i need to hit the epic you know um i'll hit the epic accounts i think diversifying and have multiple investment options gives the board a lot more options um you know as to what to do with the money you know moving forward As for the expenditure year analysis report, You guys can look through this on your own. There really isn't much to highlight. I mean, basically, as you can see, we're about halfway through the year. For the most part, everything should be 50%, right? I mean, unless you have a big, you know, except your insurance, which you pay at the beginning of the year and your retirement, which you pay at the end of the year. For the most part, everything should be around 50%. If you look at the fund totals, that we've done, right, you're about 50% on all your funds. So, which is exactly where you should be. What I do wanna point out to the entire board is one of the reasons why you get some of these budget amendments is we didn't budget based on last year's budget, okay? As I mentioned to you a few years ago, one of the reasons why we built out your chart of accounts was to create a more accurate budget, right? In other words, what are we actually going to spend versus just creating some type of random estimate out there? So we wanted to make sure that the amount that we put into your budget is what we're going to spend. And in this case, we've done a pretty good job. I'm going to say, with the exception of maybe a few lines here and there, we're pretty much on target. We've done a pretty good job of building it out. And I really thought it would take us a lot longer.

So all the departments are doing a good job of letting you know what they're going to need.

I think for the most part, I mean, there are have been a couple of surprises that have come up. Nothing major, but we've done pretty good. And all I ask is that we do we continue to build on what we've what we've done here. When you get into budget season, The idea being, if there are projects that the board wants done or our department head wants done, we get those into our budget. We build those into a plan that moves forward, okay? We try to eliminate the emergency buys as much as possible. okay i understand they come up i understand things happen but our goal should be right to come up with a strong accurate budget right that we can all kind of be happy with and move forward and is good for our taxpayers and if we can go to them and we can say you know this is this we're budgeting just what we're spending money on we're not padding fund balance we're not doing any of those sort of things i think it would speak better that we're actually looking at the actual cost of running this town and uh and i think you guys have done a very good job in putting that together um for the for the 2026 year and as i said as we get more of a trend Because remember, we built the 2026 budget, the supervisor built the 2026 budget based on half year information from 2025. Because that's all we had at the time. Okay, so now we have a year and a half. do this so the more information we get the more accurate our budget is going to become over time and i think i mentioned to you last year and probably the year before that it was going to take us about three years to get a good trend model i think we're doing a very good job in building that right now and we're making sure that department heads are managing their budgets appropriately right and we're holding them accountable to their budgets as well as um making sure that that that we're not you know going outside you know uh the budget that we need to yeah so it's it's doing pretty well and also too i didn't congratulate congratulate you purposely but why don't you tell us about your recognition you got oh uh i became a credentialed uh municipal finance officer So I was granted that designation. I found out at the end of last week that I was granted that designation. So by the New York State Society of Municipal Finance Officers. So thank you very much. I appreciate the recognition. I couldn't have done it without the board support and sending me to the trainings and helping me to you know obviously put in place here a strong accounting environment for you guys that you guys can feel confident in what we do in in our department thank you thanks are there any questions i have one sure earlier you mentioned about the check fraud being in the assessor's account it wasn't in their account they manage one of our one of our accounts so they they manage i'm going to say one of our vendors right they one of the vendors just like the one of the lowes accounts for the water as you're the water administrator is is under your name he manages one of the other um vendor accounts that's yeah so it's not an account that you said it's not a bank it's not a bank account it's a vendor account yeah yeah it's a vendor account congratulations thank you appreciate it anything else for the town comptroller i'm good thank you thank you guys thank you neil

rights moving on we have a letter here from the conservation advisory council the chester conservation advisory council wishes to express strong support for the establishment of community preservation fund and its placement as a referendum on the november ballot as of as our community continues to grow it is essential that we take proactive steps to protect the natural historical and agricultural resources which define it A preservation fund provides a structured and transparent way to safeguard open space farmland and environmentally sensitive areas. The benefits of such a fund extend to every Chester resident. Preserving open space helps maintain our community's rural charm, protects water quality, reduces flood risks, and ensures that future generations can enjoy the landscapes that make Chester unique. It also has the ability to strengthen property values, support local farms, and enhances recreational opportunities, thus creating long-term community stability and enhancing everyone's quality of life. Equally important is the fact that the Community Preservation Fund can be designed so it will not allow a place so that it will not place a new financial burden on local taxpayers. Its targeted revenue source transfer fees on certain real estate transactions generate meaningful preservation capital without increasing property taxes or imposing new costs on residents. This will allow Chester to protect its most valuable resources in a fiscally responsible way. For these reasons, we respectfully urge the town board to move forward with placing the community preservation fund for Chester on the November ballot, which has been done. So thank you to the Conservation Advisory Council for their letter. Other reports, we have Mudna, who had regular maintenance throughout the month of July. There were a few emergency calls. I'm going to, for brevity's sake, I'm going to try to skim down these reports, but all of them will be available in the minutes. Emergency calls, there were a few emergency calls in the month of July, and then there was more routine maintenance done and a couple of tanks that were cleaned. from the highway. They completed the milling and paving on Pine Hill Road. Johnson Road Nova Chip is complete, which was through the grant project, $150,000. They're continuing to do pipe projects. Road mowing continues around the town. The second session is in progress. One of their large mowers were out to the town parks to help clean brush back per the request of the Parks and Rec Department. There were... There had been a lot of torrential rain over the last couple weeks. We've had to monitor and kept all the drainage clear and flowing. They assisted the water department with a couple of water shutoff valves and a break. Sweeping continues throughout town and their mechanics continue to service repair town vehicles from all departments. Thank you to the highway department. We have the historian who, again, I can't stress enough, please go to the minutes and read the full reports because these departments and officials actually put in a lot of time and effort to make these reports, so there's transparency. The historian attended a bunch of events, public ceremonies, exhibits, historic preservation meetings, He assisted a few residents with public inquiries and research assistance, including myself. I had a question actually. that he helped me with. He, what's it called, assisted with a few publications and exhibits and special projects in Sugarloaf and some black dirt farms. And he continues his professional education with a few trainings and classes throughout the month of July. So thank you to Cliff, our town historian. Police report, there were 467 incidents that were reported to the department. They drove a little over 15,000 miles during the month. There were 13 arrests. There was a slew of non-criminal activity that they assisted with. They did 29 house checks and 958 business security checks. They also continued the child passenger safety seat checks and installations. A few trainings were attended by the chief and a few miscellaneous situations that they were also involved with. But please go on to the minutes to read the full report. Animal control, seven calls for loose, lost, and found dogs, four calls for injured or deceased deer, two calls for animals in a condemned residence, one call for a bear sighting, one call for a loose horse, one call for a possibly sick box, one call for a deceased goose, one call for a dog bite, one call for an injured hawk, and one call for a whistle pig stuck in a sports net. I was going to say that. Exactly. It's becoming the hour. Whistlepig. I'll have to look that up. Yeah.

I don't have a pig at all.

And we have a Parks and Rec reports. There were 242 congregate lunches served during the month of July. And we received the $2,895 reimbursement from the county for that with only a $112 town contribution. Bingo in Philly trip went great. Art in the Park was a successful event on August 5th, which we had approximately 60 children. I felt like there was more, definitely more than 60. Wind Creek Casino trip is happening August 31st, planning the family field day, our second family field day events for September 19th. Scufus Senior Picnic with the Town of Chester and the Town of Warwick is tentatively scheduled for September 22nd at Chester Carpenter Field. And the Family Field Day, again, is September 19th at Chester Commons Park. And we submitted a grant for an upgrade and repair to the lighting at Carpenter Field for the baseball field and softball field. Thank you to the Parks and Rec Department. And we have a report from the Water Department. It's normal operations for most of it, other than the issues at Lake Hill Farms. There was also an issue at Pine Hill and Creamy Pond Road, which was fixed. Walnick States, there was a water main break at 3 Maple Lane overnight, which they also had to fix. And Fieldcrest is all quiet. Thank you to the Water Department. They were definitely going through it for the last couple of weeks here. Okay, another thing is you might've seen on my social media today, we received a $8,481 check, a dividend check from PERMA, our workers comp provider. They had a really good year. So they decided to issue a dividend checks to all of their clients of which we are one. So that's $8,481 that we just got. for free basically, very nice. And then I have my half year reports that I'm going to quickly read due to the time. All right. So I personally assisted at least 25 of our neighbors in various constituent services cases. These are issues like potholes, garbage issues, building department complaints, flooding, financial concerns, state and federal resource services, and more. Under this administration, the town of Chester has either received or been awarded approximately $1,489,182 in grant funding. So that is from the beginning of 2024. We have either been awarded new or have actually received in hand $1,489,000 in grant funding. um that this year specifically that has paid for um the upcoming family field day uh the upcoming senior picnic the new art in a park day which just happened uh a senior podown event that's gonna happen in the future uh new playground equipment for the chester commons park uh in the future about two hundred thousand dollars for that uh new fire department equipment and more um Affordability, as I believe somebody earlier here said that, it's a very important topic. We signed a union contract earlier in the year with the Chester PBA that does not affect or alter the officer's benefits, but it keeps the salary increases at a reasonable rate of 2.25%, which will save money for taxpayers at the same time as preserving the quality of life for our officers. We lowered, I repeat, lowered the town tax rates for Village of Chester residents in the 2026 budget. So taxes went slightly down for Village residents paying their town taxes. um in the in the year 2026. uh we sold off our sugarloaf performing arts center last year which significantly lowered our financial burdens this year as reflected in our budget we reverted a full-time town position back to part-time and we did not replace a clerk position in the town clerk uh town court office saving taxpayer dollars in the long term We accepted a less costly energy and cleaning contracts for town properties. We started earning more interest in our funds as our controller just went through. We are the we were the first town, I repeat, first town in the county to submit its yearly audits. We also have no new recommendations from our auditing firm, as opposed to the multiple pages of recommendations we used to get prior to 2025. We've cleaned up the accounting and financing in Chester to a great degree since the start of 2024. As some of you may have seen out in the news, ICE is back in the news, specifically in Newburgh. Most elected Democrats and Republicans are on the same page about an ICE facility coming to our community or community nearby, hurting our quality of life, our tax base, our environment, and potential for economic development. Our community would have lost over $500,000 in yearly tax revenue if a facility came to Chester. specifically in the Pep Boys warehouse. It would have also put Chester residents, visitors, officers, and detainees at risk here in our peaceful town. We had 68 Hudson Valley elected officials sign my letter to oppose the proposed facility from both sides of the aisle, and we successfully fought and kept ICE out of our community here. We passed a couple of local laws, one of which is the entity disclosure local law that forces developers and other entities to disclose their funding sources and connections when they have applications before any of our boards, namely our planning board. This will increase transparency exponentially. We also just passed our comprehensive plan and zoning amendments, which bans data centers bans battery storage facilities, creates a special use permit framework, reinforces the mixed use zoning for the Hamlet of Sugarloaf, and converts industrial zoning on Lake Station Road to suburban residential zoning, cutting down on potential warehousing development in that area. Quality of life is a huge focus of mine, as many might know. We've repaired the playground slide and installed a security camera at Oak Street Park. I've worked with our town highway department, county DPW, and state DOT to keep our roads free of potholes and hazards throughout the winter. You may notice that any pothole that forms on the 17M bridge does not last long. That's directly because of those efforts. Our investment in the winter tarps paid off in a healthier field for our sports team at Chester Commons Park. And additionally, we have reduced the speed limit on Sugarloaf Mountain Road, increasing the safety for vehicles, pedestrians, and animals. Looking forward to the rest of the year, we would like to do our best to keep your taxes and cost of living as low as possible. After stabilizing our finances in 2025, we kept the 2026 budget under the tax cap. And as I already previously stated, we reduced town taxes for village residents. My goal, and I believe everybody up here, our goals will be to continue or improve on that status quo there. I had written this about a month ago. We had just passed this in this meeting, the new contract with Empress EMS, which will convert into hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings over the next few years, which will be a boon for our tax base here or our tax payers here after we get rid of some of the initial purchases. And then finally, I would like to continue working on projects like the additional playground improvements, passing new tax exemptions for our residents who are disabled and or veterans, which we were actually working on now, putting on all of our parks and rec events and programs, expanding our dial-a-bus services, which we are hopefully about to do, and fixing and updating our infrastructure. That is the half-year reports from myself. And if there is no other announcements for reports, we will move on.

The only announcement I have is that we did receive mortgage tax receipts from Orange County for the month of July. The amount was $42,372.30. Okay.

Moving on to the Dial Bus regular agenda item number 12. So we've talked about this for a couple months now. Since I have become not only supervisor, but even before then a councilman, I've received many complaints over the years from the, quote, Monroe side of town, which will, you know, for most people consist of the lower half of LaRue Road, Bull Mill Road. Wind Ridge, Walton Lake Estates, Lake Hill Farms, Beverly, Sunfish, Pickerel, Pike, Minnow, Trout Brook, Camp Monroe Road, that area of town, Lakes Road, that they do not benefit enough from our current dial-a-bus service. We have a current contract, longstanding contract, almost two decades now, I wanna say, with Goshen. Goshen provides service between Chester and Goshen anywhere in both towns. However, personally, growing up on the Monroe side of town, I can vouch for everybody who's been complaining. A lot of people on that side of town do not benefit from that service because they do not travel into Chester or Goshen. Most of their life is in Monroe. So the service that we currently have does not take them to Monroe. With this proposed contract with the town of Monroe, we will expand their service into the town of Chester for about a third of the town. The residents that are located within the Monroe Woodbury School District. and I'm gonna pull it up here. So for the first year, the rate is $9,750, but that is prorated obviously, because we are more than halfway through the first year. So for the next five months, the cost will be $812.50 per month, coming out to just over $4,000 for the rest of the year. The second year, it will jump to $11,750. And the third year, it will jump to $12,750. And then in the final year, it will jump to $13,750. So it's a $1,000 increase per year for the next three and a half years. It is a $2 per ride fare, but it is actually half priced for those who are 55 and older or legally disabled. So it's $1 for those residents. We have a lot of language built in here to protect the town in terms of liability, in terms of insurance and such. I have a few comments from some people who actually wrote in that I would like to show here. I'm not gonna say the name just in case, but this is a Lake Hill Farms resident. I hope you're doing well. I'm waiting to express my strong support for the discussions between the town of Chester and Monroe regarding extending Monroe Dial-A-Bus door-to-door service to residents of Lake Hill Farms. This service would make a meaningful difference for many members of our community, particularly our seniors and residents with limited mobility. While the current pickup location at Grant Circle is appreciated, having the bus provide door-to-door service would greatly improve accessibility, safety, and convenience for those who rely on public transportation for medical appointments, shopping, and other daily needs. Although not every resident may need this service today, it is an important investment in the future of our community. As our neighborhood continues to grow and age, having reliable, accessible transportation available will become increasingly valuable. I appreciate the efforts the town is making to explore this opportunity and hope an agreement can be reached to bring this service to Lake Hill Farms. Thank you for considering the needs of our community and for your continued dedication to serving the town of Chester residents. And then I have one other resident who wanted their thing read, if I can find it. Here it is. I believe this is a Walton Lake Estates resident. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. This is another Lake Hill Farms resident. I was glad to hear you and Councilman Steven Diffley are trying to expand the dial bus service for Chester residents and you are in favor of it. Chester, my family and I will utilize it as many, as well as other Lake Hill Farms residents, especially having the bus pickup at our front door. Thank you again for all of your efforts and Councilman Diffley's. This service should have been offered years ago. I also would like to add, I put out a survey, earlier this year in the spring about transportation needs in general in Orange County. And I had one of the questions in the survey specifically asked if people would like to see a expansion of dial bus and public transportation services in general, and all, I'm sorry, all but one, So it was 19, I'm sorry. Yes, it was 19 out of 20 people who responded to the survey answered yes to that question. As one of the residents noted in this letter that he sent to us, he was thanking myself and Councilman Stephen Diffley. Councilman Diffley was integral in the part in the negotiations with Monroe, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to speak on this as well, if he so wishes.

You know, being from that side of town myself, you know, I see the importance, a lot of, you know, a lot of the residents in that, in that, on that side of town have a, every part of our town has its own identity. You know, you're, you're a villager, you're a loafer, you're a, you know, yeah. monroe woodbury side of town you know a lot of people you know especially the ones that have monroe addresses identify with monroe or the chester and as brandon said you know you know their life is in monroe um when i say their life is in monroe that's where their errands are that's where their doctors are that's where their shopping is um and for a lot of the residents yeah that's where their post office is They can't do business the same way at the Chester Post Office because they can't pick up their packages there or whatever. And if they're going to have a P.O. box. So I think it's very important that I mean, the see it in my own development uh we still have a lot of people that are original owners in that development of second owners and they're aging and i i'm watching a lot of my neighbors not being able to drive anymore and uh i just think it's important um and i will say that of all the I haven't seen, come through my email anyway, any letter that was not in favor of this. I don't know if you have, I haven't. Everything I've seen has been in favor of it.

The only negativity that I've seen is on social media. And I will say most of it is directed at who we are signing a deal with. There's a lot of concerns about who the other party is in this agreement, that being the town of Monroe. And I'll just say this. As Councilman Diffley said earlier, there was a negotiation between Monroe and Woodbury for their existing service, and that fell through. And then they stopped providing the service. That happens all the time. Now, I'm not going to get into the details and the nitty gritty of... what happened and whose fault is whose and about what that is not my concern what my concern is are we going to increase the quality of life for chester residents and are we going to protect uh the town in terms of liability and in terms of our financial investment I believe this deal does all of that. There's, there's a clause in this deal. Like they, like I was talking about with the Empress deal, uh, if we wish to leave at any point or if Monroe wishes to leave at any point, we both need to give, uh, a proper amount i believe it's 90 days a proper notice uh to the other party uh so no rug is pulled from from out from each from everyone from from either party and we're not paying in lump sums we're paying in quarterly installments uh so that being said i believe we're protecting the town and we're setting ourselves up to to bring in a new service that will directly improve the lives of the people the people who need it most, which are, like Councilman Diffley said, mostly most of the time aging residents who either have trouble or can no longer be mobile on their own. So I think this is a really great investment. A lot of people always ask, I pay all these taxes, what do I get out of it? I can't think of a better item to spend your tax money on, which is going to have a literal direct impact to helping people who need it most.

And just to piggyback on it, I believe the Goshen dial-up bus only goes to the Goshen side. They don't go down to Monroe. No, they don't. So a lot of folks on the Monroe side, because I've heard it myself, and you know they have that they don't think doctors are down there they shop down there so it's not it's real it's a real issue and i'm glad we had the opportunity to address it yeah

And as I've said to many online, I see this as a dipping our toe sort of contract. Like I previously stated, this is right now going to service the Monroe-Woodbury residents of the town of Chester. It's about a third of the town. If we see that there is a desire or a need for expanding the service to the rest of Chester, we can do that. Monroe said that they were open to that. And obviously it would be the fact, the only factor will be how much money are they gonna charge us to expand? I imagine it's gonna be triple the amounts that we are currently paying because it will be another two thirds of the town that we would have service for. But if there's a desire, that's something that we can talk about in the future. But we first wanted to try it out and dip our toe in the water to see how it would work for those who we believe will need it most, which are the Monroe Oldbury School, district residents that we have here in town. So I think it's a good step into the relationship with them. And if things go sideways, we're protected. And if it goes well, then it goes well.

Can I make a motion?

Well, I just want to give the opportunity to the other. Is there anybody else that would like to speak or let's make a motion?

Yes. Quick question.

I told you we're in a long one. Yeah. Go ahead.

What does the thousand dollars cost yearly cover?

That is for the increase of their costs on their side for like, literally like Emperor said, the increase in pay for their salaries and benefits and such like that.

Okay. And use of their equipment.

Yes. And the wear and tear on their equipment. Thank you. Yes. The wear and tear on their equipment.

That's what I figured. It was probably part of makings. Okay. Thank you.

Yep. All right. Anything else? make the motion yes well actually i would like to go ahead to counseling i'll make the motion and then i'll second it yes there you go all right uh all those in favor aye very good All right, budget amendments for $4,100 from the friendly visitor program that we are no longer participating in, but we had money budgeted for this year to the dial bus services to pay for this. So we're not gonna be taking anything out of fund balance. This is already money that we taxed on. So we might as well use it for something. And this is good use for it, I believe.

I'll make the motion to use the $4,100 out of the friendly business fund.

Is there a second? I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. All right, GASB 75 OPEB report service contract. The comptroller explained this in the email to everybody. It's a $3,450 contract from Jefferson Solutions to compile an annual reports for the state comptroller's office. Are there any questions or debate points?

No. Nope.

Is there a motion to accept the contract?

I'll make a motion. I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Building Department Services, we already started with them, but this, and everybody here agreed to it, but this is the follow-up formal resolution. It's, Lank and Tully is going to be providing us services in the building department 20 hours a week at $135 an hour until we find a replacement building inspector. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to accept the services from Lake and Tully?

I'll make a motion. I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Senior Rec Center Generator Project Release of Retainage. Basically, there was an escrow, for lack of a better term, for the generator that we got two years back from them. Lake and Tully did their review, and they are comfortable with us releasing the money that was held there. Are there any questions or debate points?

No. I'm in the motion.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. All right. We need to go out to bid. We need to advertise or notice for the highway garage metal roof replacement project. Everybody received that in the email or any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to authorize?

I'll make it. I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Did you get that?

Yes.

Senior Rec Center rental fee waiver requests from the Chester Historical Society for their penny social on October 4th. Ever to receive the email or any questions or debate points?

Nope.

Is there a motion to grant the fee waiver?

Motion. Is there a second? Now do you actually do the, you're reducing it? Because last year we actually, I thought we had set a new policy where we, you want to go with that, Michelle? Don't we have?

They are. Yeah, they have. They have. They said in their email that they will be paying the clean because me and Bob actually covered that for them last year.

I thought there was still a percentage. They just got a reduction in cost.

I believe they had a full waiver last year.

OK. We still all game for that Bob. OK, so we'll cover the cost of the cleanup for them. Very good.

All right, is there a motion to approve the fee waiver request though for the rental? I'll make a motion.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, Parks and Rec Department equipment auction requests. Everybody received the email for the John Deere bucket and John Deere tractor. Are there any questions or debate points? No. All right, is there a motion to approve putting these items out to auction? Oh, yes. Please, is there a motion to declare these two items surplus equipment?

I'll second it.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Is there a motion to approve them to go out to auction? I'll make a motion.

I'll second.

What are these? Auction International?

Yes, our normal site. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, Best Buddies. What? Was there, no? All right, that's all. Okay.

Keep it going.

I'm going.

I'm going real fast here.

I told you all it was going to be a long night. Pass my bedtime. All right. Best buddies. This was on the agenda about a month back. I went back to them after we approved the car show, and I spoke to them about rerouting, and they were... very open to it and they have done so. So now there is no conflict. They're gonna go up the bypass instead of the regular Kings Highway. There is no road closure request necessary for it. So all they need to do, all we need to do is approve the agreement like we've done in the past to allow them to travel our roadways. And the chief has also looked at this and he is comfortable with it as far as I understand. Is there a motion? I'll make the motion. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. budget amendments um there's various uh neil had outlined them to everybody in his email are there any questions or debate points on them no i'm good no this is from the general fund the part town fund the surrey meadows water uh accounts and the lake hill farms water account are there any questions or debate points no no i'll make the motion is there a second second all those in favor aye aye Event request. The town historian would like to attend the Orange County Historical Society's 2026 annual meeting for $35. Any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to approve his attendance there?

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

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. West Side Story Parks and Rec trip refund request. Everybody received the email on this, $175 for Rose. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to approve the request? I'll make it.

I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Same thing, $115 each for Michael, Chris, and Regina and Francis for the bingo trip. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to approve the refund requests?

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

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Linda had emailed us about the updated IRS mileage reimbursement rates, the rate increase per federal statute. Are there any questions or debate points? No. $0.76 increase in the mileage. No, up to $0.76. I'm sorry, and up to $0.76, sorry. Are there any questions or debate points?

No.

Is there a motion to approve the new reimbursement?

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

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Road closure request, the annual block party on Gilmore Way. It's from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. Are there any questions or debate points? The chief had approved this.

No.

No, we did not. We never had. no questions or debate points is there a motion to approve the road closure i'll make the motion i'll second all those in favor aye aye is there a motion to head into executive session for potential litigation and personnel i'll make the motion i'll second all those in favor aye aye we will not we will most likely not have new business but oh as always no no promises

Michelle, let's do the first one.

Are you getting a red light?

Strain for the bitter ends.

You know the cylinder's probably gone in the front door. Not you. I couldn't get my key to turn.

If that happens, it's... Yeah, I mean, I've had to change that tumbler.

Thank you. What?

Find another, find another.

Thank you.

Okay.

. .

We're going to be able to do that right now.

Do you want to wake up, Paul? All right. Michelle, let us know. Is there a motion to come out of the executive session? I'll make the motion. All those in favor? Aye.

Is there any new business? I have a concern as far as new business goes. So over in Sugarloaf for the closure of the road. for the car show we've seen some an email there where we have a concerned business that is going to potentially lose business because of the closure yeah and i'm not sure where that's going but it would be my feeling that i would like to rescind that until that problem is corrected

That problem has been corrected. The car show sponsors or producers or whatever you want to call them, the people who are putting it on, went through the Hamlet and spoke to all, and I don't know if I want to say all, but they spoke to 24 individual businesses, including the one that you're referencing, the Tap House, and 23 out of the 24 are in favor of the car show, including the Tap House.

Okay, and how does this affect... within that email also was the fact that the county has two promotional things going on that day. Will they have the parking they need?

The car show will not affect the county parking. The car show parking is going to be handled by the firehouse, as Giuseppe might know.

Just making sure we're.

Yeah, they had agreed to the car show. Producers have agreed to speak to the to the to Matt at the at the the pack about cooperating and collaborating. I don't know if that conversation has happened yet, but as far as I know, they're not using their parking lot at all. And the road closure ends at the intersection of the Performing Arts Center. So there are two other entrances to the Performing Arts Center.

i just want to make sure that the decisions that we're making are not adversely affecting businesses in a negative way that is hurting them i'm going to throw my two cents in behind tom i think we have to be careful because you know we've talked about that's our economic engine that's our downtown business improvement district we put sidewalks in and and now we're going to close down roads that we're not we're going to i don't even know what the tax revenue is you know remember my february question um you know that's that's our economic engine so we i think we have to be careful on how we do this kind of stuff because can some of this stuff be some of it i know is to help enhance the businesses but when you close down the road I don't know if you're enhancing the business.

The 23 out of the 24 businesses that were surveyed by the Community Foundation who are putting on this event are in favor and excited about another event. I think they are apps in their prediction that there are going to be a lot of people who come to the car show, and they're going to see all the shops and the restaurants, and they're going to want to shop.

Is one of those weekends during Apple Fest?

It is right before Apple Fest. It's the day before. And they also know that there are a lot of partners who might not care about cars and will be there to shop and eat.

So... Is the one that said no the one that is in the email?

No.

Okay.

And that one didn't actually say no. They just said that they didn't care. Okay.

I just don't want to hurt any businesses over there. Road closure when...

my understanding is that matt's still in discussion with the committee yes there they are they haven't like made a decision but they have three different options that are on the air so they're going to come to an agreement on where to have it and it's a possibility that the road may not need to be closed okay very good and both of them cut the ride sounds good so i've been in touch with them and uh reach out to them again and see where they're at that

Understood. Thank you. I'm done.

Any other new business? No. You got a comment? Well, first, for the person in the audience, is there any comments? I want to thank Mr. Reale for staying throughout the duration.

I think it's deserved.

I usually don't think personally, but it's 9.48, so I'm just going to do it. Thank you, Mr. Reale, for staying. Is there any comment online?

yes ed mullen does the town intend to garage

We have no plans to do so at this moment. I do think, yeah, we want to consider putting up a, just a very cheap, like pole barn, you know, prefab type shelter for the winter, but we don't want to make a new building or anything crazy. We want to be cost effective, but in order to be cost effective, we also want to protect the maintenance, I'm sorry, the equipment that we own, which is the vehicle, and we want to protect it from the elements. So that is under consideration. But no crazy building, no new anything crazy.

Carol Mueller, who does the actual building, the town or Empress?

Empress.

Lydia Quadros, I do not understand why the town wants to purchase a $122,250 ambulance.

Is it...

If you rewind the meeting, I basically go through all of that. The only new question I spotted in there was the lifespan of the vehicle. It's a little over a decade. I'm sorry, it's actually a little under a decade. It's about eight to 10 years if you take care of it correctly. So we won't be looking to replace it anytime soon as long as we take care of it correctly. And just overall, the hard numbers that we have reviewed over the last year prove out that the revenue from the building will outweigh exponentially the startup costs and the regular maintenance and replenishment costs for all the equipment. We will be saving money on this deal. That is why we had a full unanimous support from the whole town board up here and the whole village board. Okay, great. Is there a motion to adjourn?

I'll make that motion. Is there a second? I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned.