Town Board - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everybody to the August 20th meeting of the town of Southeast. If we could rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Just to remind everybody of the exits, we have two exits in the back of the room on each corner and one exit up here in case of an emergency. I would ask everybody to turn off their cell phones or put it on vibrate. Appreciate that. I'll ask the clerk for roll call.

Councilman Cypress, absent. Councilman Larca? Here. Councilwoman Lewis, absent. Councilman Mazzotta? Here. Supervisor Castellano?

Present, thank you. Okay, first item on today is public hearing, so I'd like to make a motion to open up a public hearing for Verizon New York LLC. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, if anybody would like to speak about the non-exclusive cable franchise with Verizon New York LLC, step up to the podium here. Well, I didn't get any feedback from the public the last couple of weeks or anything about it. And with that, I guess we'll make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. Second. All in favor, thank you.

Aye. Aye.

All right. We'll move on to our regular work session. Item number one for discussion is the building department update from Michael Levine, our town building inspector.

GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. JUST HAVE A BRIEF SUMMARY TONIGHT. REVIEW SOME WORK ACTIVITIES FOR REVIEW SOME WORK ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR DATE. 946 permits compared to 1266 for year end 2025. We've issued 414 certificates year to date compared to year end 2025. We did 601 building inspections this year. We've done 1120 year to date compared to year end 2025 where we did 1125. Fire inspections, year to date, we've done 246 compared to year end for 2025 of 266. Notice of the violation, year to date, we've done 266. Year end for 2025, we did 378. Revenue, year to date, 446,880. compared to year-end 2025 of 471,761. What these numbers reflect is that our office remains busy. They also indicate that our work volume for the year is on par, trending higher than last year. Our revenue for 2026 already exceeds the budgeted amount for the year. So fiscally, we're in good shape. as a department anyway. One of the biggest challenges the building department faces is dealing with contractors and property owners that do not comply with our local regulations and New York State code requirements. The time and cost expended by the department in addressing and correcting compliance issues is tremendous and it impacts opportunities for efficiency. Examples range from people that pull permits, don't close them out. So we have to chase after them, try to compel them to renew permits, close out their permit, and to bring the property into compliance. um other examples would be somebody that applies for a permit does not submit a complete application and we have to chase after them to get them to submit the the proper documentation clearly and probably the biggest issue is property maintenance violations. People are not maintaining their properties in accordance with the code. And that's not just residential properties. Commercial properties that don't maintain their their property in accordance with the code, create a situation where public safety is at risk. So all of these issues, and of course it's part and parcel to what we do, but there's I think a lot of what we seem to experience is something the public needs to take responsibility for. They don't seem to take the fact that they take out a permit seriously. They don't look at the permit, they don't look at the scheduling requirements. And over time, obviously it's a liability, but it's also, it's a big cost issue. And it would be something that would be nice if we saw more compliance rather than less. As provided to the board, we're beginning to see attrition in the department as anticipated. And I've provided my current recommendations to the board in recent correspondence. Looking ahead to 2027, we'll prepare and train for the implementation of software upgrades to provide an online permitting portal. The portal will provide contractors, professionals, and property owners the ability to submit permit applications electronically. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to thank my staff for the work that they do.

and if there's anybody that has any questions on the board i'd be more than happy to address them sure any questions mike uh has that um no show fee helped at all for uh was it inspections that we put in i mean

I don't think that you'd ever really see a big impact with that because it's kind of somebody that is a no show that is charged the fee. Of course, they won't do it again.

Right.

But it's not going to impact the hundreds or whatever other people that are scheduling appointments.

And thanks for the analysis that you and Alex worked on. We saw that come through and we'll be discussing that.

Yeah, I thought that that was beneficial. I appreciate being asked to go through that exercise. It was good.

Yeah, it's always helpful to go through that, both from your perspective to lay it out on paper and see how it looks from a present state to what a desired future state might look like. It helped us too because- Sure. we don't want to be in the position to to guess what you need right because you're the department head you know exactly what it is but to be able to spell that out on paper to help us like connect dots I know for myself it helped a great deal so so thank you for doing that sure I had a question regarding two items that you mentioned. You know, you mentioned how, you know, onus on the public to some degree to assist in being more compliant with their permit requests.

Right.

So how do you couple that when we, once we get the online permitting software up and running, do you think that will assist or make that maybe the public more compliant because it's more user friendly, easier to manage, may be easier to communicate. So do you think, ultimately, when we roll this out, that will yield a benefit to the department? I hope so.

You know, the online portal is kind of an interesting application for building department. I personally feel that you're going to have a lot of people that are just going to kind of continue to do it the old fashioned way because that's how they do it. There are going to be people that, you know, like let's just say like a plumbing contractor that might submit 75 applications a year. Certainly for that contractor, it would be very beneficial if they can do it online because they could probably knock those out very quickly. The person that I have concern is, where they try to use the portal and they experience issues and we have to engage you know continuous kind of phone dialogue or email dialogue to try to help them through the process so i think that that's kind of a concern of mine But at the same time, I think that when we go through the training process, we have to make sure that we have a standard or a system in place to address those questions as they come up.

yeah faqs on a website are always helpful you know with ai now there's there's chat bots right which which you feed the information to which certainly could be useful so i hope when we deploy the software we're also kind of bringing that other technology right behind it because it would address many of the things you just spoke of so that you're less staff reliant

Yeah, I was actually thinking about it yesterday because I was on the phone with a robot and I was asking the robot questions and it was providing me with very capable responses and I was like, how do you get that into what I do for a living? And so it's definitely, I guess that's where the world is heading in a lot of ways.

Yeah. I'm glad to see the increase in activity in the department. You guys are doing a great job keeping up with it. So compliments to you and your staff on that. Definitely looking forward to the online permitting issue. I think that it's the next step for us and I'm looking forward to it and try to help any way we can. So I appreciate that. Super. Okay. I think that answers any of the comments or questions.

Thanks for getting all the solicitors. Thank you, Peter. Hopefully the sheriff's department gets them too. Thanks very much.

Okay, have a good evening.

Thank you. Number two for discussion, we have Putnam County District Attorney Robert Tendi here to give us an update on scamming that's affecting Putnam County.

Speaking of AI, Suzanne? Okay. I want to thank you for letting me come here and talk about this because this is something that four years ago was a concern. Three years ago was more of a concern. Lately, it's just gotten really, really crazy. And as this has been happening more and more over the past several months, and I've been going to various senior centers and various social groups and talking to them about it, People are still getting scammed a lot, not just in this county, but all over the world, certainly in America, and certainly seniors are hit more than most. So I thought it would be a good idea to come to each town and talk to the board, but more importantly, it's on, it's televised, so people can watch it and see it because these are, I'm gonna give you an example of what I'm talking about. A very good friend of mine who's an international attorney, a very bright man, he travels all around the world, he got scammed not too long ago out of $250,000. He's a really bright guy. It was an email and a phone scam. It was very, very sophisticated. He thought it was a bank. He thought it was a client. And he fell for it. Fortunately, he has commercial theft insurance, so they covered it. But that's a lot of money. I mean, he's a multimillionaire. It's not a lot for him, but it's a lot of money. And it's how they did it. It was so well done that this sophisticated businessman actually fell for it. So I want to go over a couple of some of these scams you've all heard of. But even though you've heard of them, they bear repeating because people keep falling for them. In Putnam County two years ago, we had a woman who was scammed for $120,000. Fortunately, we caught the person who did it. It's very unusual that the person's actually in the country. But in this case, the person was. Not too long ago in my town, Putnam Valley, a woman was scammed out of $50,000. Recently someone was scammed out of $15,000. Some people have their bank accounts used as conduits to transfer money because they think they're speaking to a friend and they're not and they get told the story. But I'm going to go over some of these examples and you really need to be vigilant. One of the things that everybody, it's probably the oldest scam in the book as far as phones go, is the grandparent scam. Your grandchild calls you and says, I'm in Mexico and I'm in jail and I need money to get out. You may all be familiar with it, and you're like, how could somebody fall for something like that? They do it all the time, and they fall for it all the time. Sometimes you get a call from somebody claiming to be your grandchild's friend. Your grandchild's been in an accident. They're in the hospital. They can't contact their parents. We need information for the doctor. Please give us your credit card number, something like that. People are still falling for these scams. If you get a phone call from somebody who says, I'm in Mexico and I'm your grandson or I'm a friend of your granddaughter or whatever, just don't even say anything. Don't say, oh my God, just hang up the phone. It's a scam. It's a scam. That's all there is to it. Speaking of AI, I speak to so many people who think they're being clever when they get a phone call from an unknown party and they start talking to them, grilling them, asking them questions, thinking they're gonna like, I'll show you I know you're a scammer. All they're doing is cloning your voice. They're recording your voice, and they're cloning it. And if your kid does it, or a relative does it, or a neighbor does it, and these people are very, very sophisticated, you will eventually get a call from your neighbor, or your daughter, or they might get a call from you. And it's going to be your voice, and it's gonna sound real. And all you have to do is go online and look at these AI videos. I mean, they look, they're amazingly real. I just saw a video there that's spectacular. I'm so proud of this lion. It raised a rabbit. It's amazing. It's fake. My son-in-law had the opportunity to go to Egypt recently. And he did an archaeological dig. And he sends me video from Egypt. And he's surrounded by all these ancient places and he's digging and he's talking to me. He was in Walden, New York. The whole thing was fake. He wanted to show me how easy it is. I'm like, I didn't know you knew where Egypt was. It looked great. I was like, what the hell's going on here? I really almost believed he was in Egypt. Bank scams. If you get a call from your bank, and your bank says your account's been compromised, we think it may have been hacked, we wanna go over some information with you to make sure that what's going on is legitimate or illegitimate, give us your last four digits of your, don't do it, don't do it. If your bank calls you, hang up the phone. Get in your car and drive to the bank or hang up the phone, go online, get the real bank number, call the bank number that you're used to calling and talk to them. Don't accept the phone call from the bank. They are so good at that scam, it happens all the time. You may have heard a news reporter in Los Angeles about two months ago fell for this. They called him up and they wanted his banking information. And he went all the way to the point of actually going to the bank to take out money for them. That's when he realized, this is crazy, this can't be real. But they're so good at it. They're really good at it, so don't fall for it. If somebody calls you and they say they're from the IRS and they're gonna garnish your wages, just hang up the phone. The IRS, when it contacts you folks, is too late. When you get contacted by the IRS, it's gonna be by a bank, account garnishment, wage garnishment, et cetera. You get a call from the IRS, just hang up the phone. Then if you want, you can call the IRS, but don't ever do anything on a phone call. It's like when you're a kid, your parents tell you not to speak to strangers. You don't speak to strangers on the phone. It's that simple. You just don't do it, but everybody falls for it because you get comfortable. This scam is very, very dangerous and it happens a lot in Putnam County because we have a lot of power outages. The NYSEG scam, if somebody comes knocking on your door and says we're from NYSEG, there's been a power outage, we have an indication that there might be a short and a wire going, can we come in? Don't let them in your house. It's really, really dangerous. They'll either hurt you, or when you're not looking, they're going to steal something. Do not ever, ever let anyone in your house if you don't know who they are. It's really, really dangerous, and it happens often. The debt collection scam. You get a call from somebody who says, we sent you a notice four months ago. You haven't responded. It's for $2,500. It's at this address. They give you the address. You're like, whoa, wait a minute. That's my neighbor's address. and they go, oh, well, we have your address, we have your information, so we're gonna garnish your wages, and you wanna call an attorney, that's fine, and you get all upset, and then they say, well, I tell you what, we'll put everything on hold, but we gotta make sure that you're being legit with us. Give us $500, give us your bank account number, or give us your checking account number, your debit card number, or even your credit card, give us 500 bucks. And you do it. You're talking to a stranger, a total stranger, and you're giving them personal information and money. Don't do it. Anytime you get a call from anybody, or anytime anybody, if you don't know these people, and they ask you to transfer money from your account, or give them information from your bank, just don't do it. Please don't do it. And this one is very common among... I guess you'd have to say seniors, and it hits me really, really hard because I'm 70 years old now, and if I get a Facebook request from Destiny Love, and Destiny Love tells me she really likes my posts and she's really interested in me, she wants to know more about me, Destiny Love doesn't give a damn about me. Destiny Love just wants my money. And at 70 years old, I have to admit it. Even at 30 years old, you should admit it. There is no Destiny Love. It's some guy in Thailand who's trying to get in my bank account. But you'd be surprised how many seniors in Putnam County have fallen for this, where they get in touch or somebody from their old high school days gets in touch with them via Facebook. And before you know it, they're talking to this person for three months, four months, they're exchanging pictures, they're exchanging family pictures, they're exchanging information about where they live, their vacation homes. And next thing you know it, your friend from high school who was maybe your boyfriend in sophomore year is asking you if he can transfer money into your bank account, not out, into your bank account. And you say, well, I don't want to give you access to my bank account. He says, well, I'm just transferring money in, I'm not taking it out. And you're 75 years old and you give him access to your bank account. It's really common. So, how do you prevent this from happening? It's really very easy. Don't talk to strangers. It's that simple. Don't talk to strangers. Don't give them information. Don't give them banking information. Don't give them any information. If somebody calls you and you don't know who it is before, on my way here tonight, my phone's ringing. I don't recognize the phone call. I could have hit answer on my car. I didn't recognize it. No message. It's just a scam call. Everybody gets them. But sometimes people pick it up. Lately, you're getting calls from numbers that look like they're from this area because they're creating fake phone numbers to appear on your phone. I forget what the term is. And you say, oh, it's an 845-225 number. It's got to be legit. Maybe it's a friend of mine. I haven't had a call in four hours. I'm lonely. I want to pick up. And you pick it up. And you say, hello? And there's no answer. And you say, hello? And there's no answer. And you say, is anybody there? And they're recording your voice. And every time they do that, they get more voice information on you. But not only that, I was speaking to a gentleman tonight, says family members getting a ton of these calls. What happens is every time you pick up the phone, that's a data, that's a data post for all these scam artists. They know that you are likely to pick up the phone. You pick it up once and talk, you're gonna get five more calls. You pick it up twice, you're gonna get 20 more calls. So just don't pick up the phone. Don't talk to strangers. You don't recognize the number? If it's somebody you know, they're gonna leave a message. If anybody says to you they want you to be part of the investigation, hang up the phone. If anybody comes to your house, and this has happened, because it happened to the woman who lost 50,000 bucks in Putnam Valley, they actually came to her house, and they convinced her that there was a problem going on at the bank, and she gave them all the banking information, because she thought they were agents. This is really important, and it sounds silly, and it might be a pain in the neck, but it's a good way to prevent any scams, especially from family members. Have a code word with your grandkids or your kids. Just keep it to your family, whereby if your grandchild's gonna call you, or your child's going to call you. Your child's 38 years old. Have a password. So I see my son's calling me. I pick up the phone. Password, tomato feet. I know it's him. Password. Oh, come on, Dad, stop. Click. Hang up the phone. It's serious stuff. So I hear tomato feet all the time from my kids. Password, tomato feet. If they don't say tomato feet, I don't use tomato feet. I use something much better than that. I hang up the phone. And it's no nonsense, and I have to say the same thing to them, because it's too dangerous. This is happening, last year in the United States, over $20 billion was stolen, 20 billion, from scams. So it's something that's really, really serious. If you just stay vigilant, if you don't let your guard down, if you don't talk to strangers, you're not gonna have a problem. They only are able to steal from you because you talk to them. So please don't do it. It's very easy to avoid it. Don't let your guard down and you'll be fine. All right? So I really appreciate the time that you gave me to talk to you today. It's a very important issue. It's very sad when I got a call from an 82 year old male or female who I know and says, I just lost 30,000 bucks. I said, why didn't you call me? And the answer was always the same. They sounded so real. It's always that they sounded so real. So if you think you may be a victim of a scam or you have questions about it, even mailings, you might get, oh, this is a great one. I'm sorry I left this out. A fellow I work with who's in the cybersecurity business received an envelope in the mail from a law firm. saying that he's part of a class action suit, which he was three or four years ago, and that he's got money coming to him, even though the suit that he was in was settled. So he's thinking, well, maybe there's more money. So he calls. And as he's talking to the person, he says to himself, wait a minute, wait a minute, what am I, crazy? Hangs up the phone. He takes the paper that he got. He looks up the law firm online. It doesn't exist. The whole thing's fake. But he was about to talk to somebody because he thought he had money coming to him. So they look up to see what law firms you've been in. They look up to see what lawsuits you've had. This information is easily accessible to anybody who's really good at technology. They can get a whole bunch of information about you, and they do. So just be very careful about anything. And if you have any questions, especially if you're a senior, don't ever hesitate to call the Putnam County District Attorney's Office. All you have to do is say, I'm a senior. I want to speak to Mr. Tendi. If I'm in the office, I'll take your call. If I'm not, you'll speak to one of my investigators. But please call the office, don't do like two friends of mine did, who did not call me, and they're friends. I said, why didn't you call me? Because they sounded so real. Just call the office, or call the local PD, or call somebody, but don't talk to these people, because you're gonna get scammed, and it's gonna hurt. 50 grand is a lot of money to somebody who's 82 years old and living on a fixed income, that's their savings. It's really rough. So please be vigilant. Please be careful. Any questions?

I'm good.

All right. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming out tonight. You're welcome. Take care. Thank you.

okay uh number three on our agenda tonight is the 2027 putnam county real property tax services contract um we have this on the agenda i i know uh laurie bell our tax assessor is here could you talk to about this um item

Hi, good evening. So every year, the town enters into a contract with Putnam County for various services, mostly printing of tax bills, change notices, the assessment roll, the tax roll, a few other things, tax maps. And so the director over in Putnam County was trying to come up with a more um a fairer way to price those items depending on what which town one of which services so a hard copy of tax map is a certain dollar amount a digital copy is a different dollar amount and some towns still want the hard copies some are okay with the digital how many copies of the roll do you want two one whatever so she worked through that contract last year to come up with a flat rate per parcel for basic services and then almost like a like a chinese menu you just pick whatever else you want and you add it to the contract and That's those are the items, almost all of them that I've checked off for that contract for 2027. And then they'll calculate what the total cost of the town will be. I think for us, the way she broke it out, we're going to spend a little bit more, but I guess it's fairer to some of the other smaller towns, but there's no change in the services that we're going to get from the counties, the bottom line.

Okay.

And they decided in the past, they would start the signatures at the county level and circulate it back to the towns. It makes more sense that sound signs at first, and then you get everybody else's signatures. That's why you have it prior to January 1st. We weren't getting the fully executed copies until like April, halfway through the year. So that's all that is.

And you're comfortable with it?

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any discussion on this item?

No.

Item number four on our list is New York State CREST grant application. Recently Senator Pete Harkin reached out to our office to tell us about a potential grant application that we could apply for. So I did speak to some of the department heads and we're just trying to narrow it down. The application is due on September 11th this year, so get ahead of it make sure you know we get a good application and hopefully have a fair shot one of these grant applications a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money certainly to the town of southeast um in speaking with mike burdick our highway superintendent he does have a shovel ready project that he has at the highway department that he would like to apply for, and certainly I think it's a good idea as well. It's to rebuild the salt shed that they have. It was originally installed in 1998. They put a new roof on it in 2020, but it does need some renovation and painting. And he has some estimates that cost about $150,000 to $160,000 on that project. Obviously, $100,000 would cover a substantial part of it. um so that's one project that uh i got from uh some of the department heads also from uh our parks department uh we had a discussion about lake tanetta there was an old well at lake tanetta that is no longer active they stopped using it years ago no one really seems to be quite sure when they stopped using it but they do have water that's supplied to the to the restroom over there and to the lifeguard room the snack shack and we were thinking about potentially putting in a well there so we'd have good drinking water available to the people that go to that park it also would help with the restrooms because the water that they're using it kind of causes some plumbing issues as times goes by we have a A rough estimate that it's going to cost about $100,000, maybe a little bit more, so it would be a great thing to apply for, whether it's this year or maybe next year, but something to think about. Another item that came up was security cameras for all our properties, our well systems in our sewer districts. You've seen it on the news a lot lately. There's a lot of chaos going on, and having good, legitimate security cameras would benefit this, and I think we could- have a good application for that as well. But those are just three of the items that came forward to me. And if anybody has any other ideas, certainly we have a couple weeks to think about it and talk about it. And then we'll put in an application to the Senator's office. Any questions or comments?

Joe, I see that they're deemed at public safety. Does that mean, I mean, we're allocated the money. But is there any reason, if it wasn't public safety related, that they could deny the application? If it was a salt shed, for instance.

I asked that question and really didn't get an answer other than everything goes towards public safety. Does the salt shed qualify? We're gonna have to make that decision in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, I'll provide salt for the roads when it's snowing.

No, I'm sure there's a way we could connect dots. Yes, right. It's for the safety. During a snowstorm, we're definitely gonna need salt on the roads. It seemed very vague to me when I asked about it, so it seems like it's open to a bunch of items. Originally, it was like a police car, but we don't have a police department, that kind of stuff. Security cameras were one of the first things that came to my mind for security purposes. And the health and well-being of the park would be another thing. We'll look at it and try to narrow it down to something that's, and the Senator's office was great, very easy to talk to. I'm sure they would assist us and say, you're way off, that's not going to make it. Yes, I think they will. Yeah. That's why I'd like to get ahead of it before September 11th. But we'll continue the conversation, I guess, unless you guys have any other questions. Okay, item number five on our list here is a discussion for 1460 Route 22 Tax Map 57-1-14, a performance bond establishment. Let's see here. So it was sent to us from the planning board, architectural review board. It is in the amount of $15,500. This project has outside storage. It's a construction company that's looking to take over the property. So estimated site improvements, which totals $39,300. There's inspection fees and others involved there, $4,500. And it's in front of us to set up a performance bond. Any questions, discussion? No.

Okay.

Okay, item number six, we have discussion for APAP Land Management LLC, the Putnam County Industrial Development Authority. This is payment in lieu of taxes, a pilot agreement for tax map 35-2-6.

It's an old thanks for coming back. And I just I asked for this to be added. I know we're going to vote tonight, but I did have some questions since I wasn't here at the last meeting. I watched the video, but I don't know that they were answered there either. And I just want to confirm some things. So just to confirm your we're not being asked to approve the pilot itself. The pilots approved. And this is to vote to authorize the supervisor to sign some paperwork that allows us to be able to invoice the IDA for the money per the schedule that's being presented as part of the already approved pilot.

That's correct. We've gone through the entire, well actually the whole project has gone through the entire process approval process and we don't authorize the project until it's completed all of those authorizations okay and then what we're asking you to do is we're notifying you that yes we've come to this part now and because the IDA has taken hold of the property Okay, we are a tax-exempt operation, and when we lease it back to them, we send that to them so that they would be tax-exempt. But rather than do that, the legislation has set it up this way, and our own unified tax-exempt policy has set it up so that we create this pilot payment in lieu of taxes program. where you get the value of the assessed property that was originally there so that that whatever the taxes on that is that continues and then you get a portion in our case the typical portion is 50 percent for uh the first year and then it goes in a cascading uh amount up to paying full amount over 10 years for the rest of the benefit or the uh improvements. Okay. The improvements. The improvements of the project. Okay. And so that's what we're asking you to do is just basically sign the agreement so that we can facilitate the processing and the administration of that process.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. We've gotten, or I've been on the board with other pilots and we've gotten beat up like we are giving a discount and we shouldn't approve it but if we we're not approving that we're just approving a signature to get money or we get no money that's it those are options so i do have two questions you just actually hit on one i didn't hear it last time but um my understanding was that the pilot only applies to the improvements but the ida takes title of the property leases it back to the owner so does how does

The land value or the property pre improvements does that stay on the tax roll or is it calculated that full amount today that's lost 50% of the part of the arrangement is that you would get the value of the property. The property is uh the the tax bill that we get from lori is uh is a bill that shows us the full value of the property and then the value of the the assessed value of the improvements with the discount based on the pilot and whatever year it's in and that's the bill that we pay so the bill comes from from her office Okay, as opposed from the regular tax laws.

Okay, so the whole property comes off the tax rolls. that's correct they pay 100 of whatever the land was or pre-improvement value plus 50 of the improvements that's correct and that's well the first year and then 45 you know and then and then we invoice for that amount that's correct okay um and then my last question is about the clawback not has nothing to do with these two projects but there are um or is a pilot on other big projects. And part of that calculation was jobs. There was supposed to be a few hundred, but it doesn't have to be specific about that. But if job count commitment is not met, does that warrant a clawback?

It can and it does. It gets, you know, it gets looked at in the case of one of the projects that was along Route 22, the company had gone bankrupt. And so it got a little crazy because we didn't give back and turn the title back over to the town so that they could completely take care of it. This was in the town of Patterson. And it complicated things, but uh the clawback is something that's decided on by the board but our we have a policy for it and basically in our uh authorizing we establish goals and then we review those goals and if they don't make them, then there's a possibility, depending on what the problems are, that we can claw back certain percentages and we have a schedule that we would look at based on their failure to meet the goals.

And if there is a fallback, does that get dispersed to the taxing authorities?

I don't know because I've never done one yet. But I believe it does. It comes back and we get, I think it goes back to the state though. Okay. Okay.

I just think southeast is the best town in Putnam County for development and economic growth. And I would like to see some more solicitation of businesses in. But anyway, you've answered my questions.

That's the important thing that the IDA and the whole economic development team in Putnam County is trying to do is develop our commercial base so that we can ease the burden on the residential

I guess the last two have been here already. But anyway, you've answered my questions, so thank you. Okay.

Thank you very much. Unless there's any other questions. Any other questions? We're good.

I just have, Bill, at the end of the pilot period, the property reverts back to the property owner, correct? Yes, yes. At that time, we return back or-

We return the title to the property owner, the original property owner, and it goes back on the tax roll. Right, at the full value at that time. Do they have to refinance it at that point? Excuse me?

Do they have to refinance it? How does that work with the title change?

The title, no, that's part of it. In our case, it's like a $500 fee just to return the fee, the title. But it's just part of the closeout of the whole lease agreement. Thank you.

okay uh item number seven is the exact same uh situation with the kinsley group for development we won't rehash it again but it is the putnam county industrial development authority uh payment in lieu of complaint this pilot agreement for tax map 7-2-25-2 but everything was just uh discussed so i don't think we need to deliver that anymore and then i'll go to item number eight that's discussion on the ag districts that we're trying to have um Would you like to speak to that one at all? Because we don't have, unless we have somebody here tonight.

Yeah, there's been an ongoing issue with some confusion around ag districts and what protections there are or aren't. We've invited the members of the Ag Board to come. This is like the fifth time they were supposed to be here tonight. They did let us know two days ago they wouldn't be able to attend. So I believe they're going to attend the next meeting, so we'll put it on for discussion at that point.

Hopefully Thursday, September 3rd. They indicated they would be here, so hopefully we'll see them. Okay. With that, I'm going to make a motion to go into our regular meeting. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Item number one, I'd like to make a motion to waive the reading of the correspondence. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Number two, I'd like to make a motion to approve the vouchers in the amount of $1,701,401.72. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Item number three, I'd like to make a motion to waive the readings of the budget transfer and accept such transfers as submitted. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Great. Item number four is the supervisor's report. I just want to give a brief update on some of the stuff that's going around in town. We remain in great financial shape. We've begun the budget process for the 2027 year and started speaking to all the department heads. Everything's moving along nicely, so we're trying to stay ahead of the curve and get everything taken care of so we're ready for the budget season entirely. We're looking to make some improvements here at Town Hall and at Lakeview Manor. We're in the process of getting some new doors for both the Town Hall and Lakeview Manor, and that's moving along well. Also get some new windows here at Town Hall, so hopefully we'll see some of these improvements in the next couple of months. Additionally, we're looking at resurfacing the field in front of the gazebo and the lecture zone field. As many of you know, it used to be a baseball field or a softball field. There was a lot of clay in the middle there. We got a lot of calls from youth sports that wanted to use the field. I think it'd be ideal for younger people to use the field. but in order to do so we're going to have to tear up all the clay fill it with topsoil our highway department is ready and capable of doing it so we've already had some discussions with them and then we're going to seed it and hopefully by next year we'll be able to use it for youth soccer lacrosse peewee football or something to that effect with that I went to the village of Brewster board meeting last night to discuss they have the tri-state parking lot there right next to the gazebo a lot of the feedback i got from the school and people that wanted to use the field was there was no place to park there's minimal parking there but we have this big parking area that's called a tri-state parking that's owned by the village the village was very interested in participating and allowing us to allowing these groups to use the field Whenever there's an organized event, they were very kind to have the Sunset Concert Series use the parking lot during that time period. So late in the day and on weekends when there's an organized event there, they're going to let us use their parking facility, which would be fantastic and make it much nicer to get there. Certainly it's a gateway to the village of Brewster and it's a gem in the town of Southeast with the reservoirs in the background and I'm hoping this all comes to fruition as we move forward. And I had the honor of attending Putnam County Sheriff's substation naming in Nelsonville today after late Sheriff Kevin McConville. It's a great ceremony by the Putnam County Sheriff's Department. dear friend outstanding guy and it was a really beautiful event they had over there so i was glad to attend on behalf of the town of southeast uh finally i'd like to tell everybody that uh we got our first uh film permit issued which is uh exciting and uh you know hopefully more to come in the future we just passed the past it not recently and uh like the next day i got a call from somebody who works for netflix and they're going to be they got issued a film permit so good stuff for town of southeast And that's all I have for a supervisor's report. So we will move on to item number five, setting of the meetings and dates of public hearings. All meetings will be held at 1360 Route 22 in Brewster, New York at seven o'clock, unless otherwise noted, for next month, Thursday, September 3rd, 2026, and Thursday, September 26th, September 17th, 2026.

Second.

Second. Make a motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. And next on the agenda we have. I have a resolution authorizing the supervisor to execute a non-exclusive cable franchise with Verizon New York Incorporated. So I'd like to make that motion. Do I have a second? I'll read the resolution, sure. It resolved that the supervisor is hereby authorized to execute a cable television franchise agreement with Verizon New York Incorporated for the provision of cable television service within the town of Southeast in a form and substance that is approved by the town attorney and to the extent authorized by New York State Public Service Commission. I will make that motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Great, thank you. Item number seven is another resolution we have. This is then going back to the pilot agreements that we had before that we just discussed. The first one is for APAP Land Management LLC, resolved at the town of South, Resolved that the town board of the town of Southeast hereby approves the town's participation and in acceptance of its application shares of payments made pursuant to the pilot arrangement approved by the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency based upon the following schedule. Actual only to increase the assessed relation of subject premises. attributed to the improvements made in connection with the project first year is 50 second year is 45 third year is 40 percent year four is 35 percent year five is 30 percent year six 25 percent Year 7, 20%, year 8, 15%, year 9, 10%, year 10, 5%. And be it further resolved that the clerk of the town of Southeast is authorized and directed to transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency and the assessor of the town of Southeast and the town of Southeast receiver of taxes. I'll make that motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, moving on to number eight. This is the Kinsley Group Resolution. It's the same as we just discussed a moment ago. It resolved that the town board of the town of Southeast is hereby approves the town's participation and acceptance in its applicable share of payments made pursuant to the pilot approved by the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency based upon the following schedule, only to increase the assessed evaluation of subject premises attributed to improvements made in connection to the project. Same schedule as before, year one 50%, year two 45%. Year 3, 40%, year 4, 35%, year 5, 30%, year 6, 25%, year 7, 20%, year 8, 15%, year 9, 10%, and year 10, 5%. And be it further resolved that the town of Southeast is authorized and directed to transmit a sort of, be it also resolved that the clerk of the town of Southeast is authorized. and directed to transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the Putnam County Industrial Development Agency, the assessor of the town of Southeast, and the Southeast Receiver of Taxes. I'll make that motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Moving on to item number nine. This is a resolution of the 2027 Putnam County Real Property Tax Services as previously discussed tonight. Resolved that the supervisor is hereby authorized to execute and deliver to Putnam County a Putnam County Real Property Tax Service contract dated as of the 1st of January, 2027 for the 2027 tax year. In the form and substance annexed here too. And be it further resolved that the town clerk shall forward a copy of this resolution to the assessor forthwith. I'll make that motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Item number 10. This is involving the 1460 Route 22 site plan, tax map 57-1-14 performance bond establishment. The project name be resolved. Let the bond in the amount be established for this project set forth the project name 1460 Route 22 Commercial Site Plan. The bond amount, the site improvements is $89,300. The erosion and settlement and sediment control, $15,500. And be it further resolved that a certified copy of this resolution shall be transmitted by the town clerk. to the Planning Board Secretary and to the Building Inspector, Fort West. I will make that motion. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Item number 11 this evening is Big Geyser. This is 22 Sutton Place, tax map 78-2-16.3. This is a release of a performance bond establishment of a maintenance bonds. Resolved that the town clerk is hereby directed to cancel and return the original performance security for Big Geyser site plan 22 Sutton Place in Southeast. Tax map number 78-2-16.3 in the remainder of the secured amount of 22,500 and to return any and all original bonds deposits, letters of credit, additionary, and of secured posted connections with the project upon the express condition that the applicant owner first file a landscape maintenance bond in the security amount of 13,000 for a period of two years and a storm water maintenance bond in the security amount of $14,500 for a period of four years. I will make that motion. Is there a second? Second. Yeah, it's $14,500. You seconded? He seconded. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Then moving on to new business, if any town board member has any new business they would like to bring forward. I do not. Okay, being none, we'll open it up for recognition of the public for public comment. Please come up and state your name. If you could, state your name and, yep, right up front here. And you're at, and you reside at Southeast. Hi, good evening.

My name is Joy Saro, and I am a resident

And I would like to make the town aware of an incident that occurred on July 29th at the building department in connection with a FOIL request that I submitted. I wanted several copies of documents, most of which could be copied at the building department, but weren't because the clerk assigned to assist me was incapable of making photocopies. I was told that I was not allowed to assist her. Ultimately, I was told that I would have to return on Friday to pick up the photocopies that I could have walked out with on Wednesday while I was there. I was also told by this clerk that the copies would be made at a fee of the hourly rate of the lowest paid employee of the town of Southeast. I was not told what that rate was, nor was I told how long the process of inserting the single 8 1⁄2 by 14 page and 26 11 by 17 inch documents into a document feeder to copy would take. Mind you that the consumer protection laws clearly state that employee time may only be charged when the request involves other records, those that are larger than nine by 14 inches or which are maintained electronically, and even then, only in circumstances in which at least two hours of employee time are needed to prepare the records. I picked up the documents on Friday, July 31st. I was charged 50 cents, for 27 11 by 17 inch pages and 25 cents for the one eight and a half by 11 14 uh the eight and a half by 14 inch page whether this was computed as i was advised it would be or in some other fashion i can't say because the invoice i was presented with did not indicate Contrary to the consumer protection laws governing FOIL requests, I was not shown nor advised of a published fee schedule prior to fulfilling my document request. I also needed copies of three map size pages that I was told had to be sent to the town engineer for copying at a fee of $15 paid in advance. I paid the requested fee and I asked for a receipt on town letterhead acknowledging the payment and noting the names of the two documents I was paying for. The clerk refused to note the names of the two documents on the receipt. Not only is it entirely reasonable for me to have asked that the names or a clear description of the documents be noted on the receipt, failing to do so cannot create a record of which documents my prepayment covered, effectively leaving me without proof of payment for the documents in question being reproduced and leaving the town vulnerable to a claim that they failed to provide the requested prepaid documents. I waited three weeks to receive those three pages. I would like to point out that under FOIL, records must be available for inspection and copying. This is a direct quote, i.e., at all reasonable times, i.e., during all hours that the entity is regularly open for business, end quote. There must also be a published schedule of fees if more than the 25 cent per copy allowed by law is to be charged. I'm pretty well versed on FOIA law. New York State Association of Town Clerks, Association of Towns, and New York State Committee on Open Government all offer online courses on FOIA law, as does SUNY Albany. I'm awed at the egregious incompetence of the clerk that I dealt with. Not only did she lack the basic skill of photocopying, she had a huge chip on her shoulder. It is disconcerting that the town, with our tax dollars, pays for the services of such an unskilled, ill-mannered, and unprofessional individual. I left there incensed and I wanted to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office and let them decide if in fact the consumer protection laws were violated by the actions of the town so that the town can be guided accordingly in the future. It is pretty sad that I even have to come before this board with such a narrative. So that is what I have to say. Thank you. Appreciate your time. We'll certainly investigate it. Thank you. I'm getting a microphone here, sorry. It's okay. And I waited two weeks to come here so that I could be civil and not name names. detail the shenanigans that I had to put up with.

Well, we appreciate you coming out tonight. We'll take a look at it. Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

How are you?

I'm fine. My request is going to be simple then. what would be really helpful i'm really interested in when the ag districts are in front of you and i was very interested in the idea and i'm not sure how you can do this or if you can do this and certainly you don't need to hold a public hearing but is there any way i mean tonight Bill's still here, but is there any way to accommodate the public by allowing them to ask any questions at that point, or does it have to be in a public hearing? It's just, or, because I don't want, I mean, no one wants to hang out until the end of the meeting until public comment, so that's my question.

For certain things, we've, like, your favorite topic, Maple Road, you know, we've kind of opened the floor up.

I know, and that was really rough, so I understand why it's not, it's difficult.

You know for the at. I thought about this for the AG board. I didn't know if any of the. Ag property owners would come in if they had. I would have, you know, asked the board if it was OK if they could speak, but you know. I don't know if you're asking for like every topic but you could always I mean there's usually like six people here you could always throw your hand up and we're pretty good at recognizing people that want to talk I think because I really don't believe it or not I don't like to be disruptive during your meeting but I do and I do love public hearings even when on the planning board but

I'm just trying to think of how we can make it user-friendly without being disruptive. Because I know the Maple Road one, I think, went off the rails and lasted really much longer than we would have thought. I mean, I was grateful to Joe, but I think it was rough.

It was... I think we've talked about this. It's always good to let people get it out. But, I mean, if you want to ask a question and Bill wants to answer, I have no problem with that. Will and I talked about this at one point. I wanted to make Maple, or it may have been another topic, a public hearing, but it's not a public hearing. So you can't make it a public hearing, but you can kind of open the floor up.

So it could be case by case or if someone were interested they could get in touch early and say that's something they want. I mean, because I admire Ms. Zarrow had to, you know, waded through this meeting to speak her piece and I just think it's so important to hear the public and I know

Yeah, I don't disagree with you at all. 12 years on the legislature, we had endless committee meetings on topics, and we always had a great opportunity to talk to people, and you've been to plenty of those meetings as well. We had great conversations with people, and then when we had our full meeting at the end of the month, or beginning of the month I should say, for the legislators to make a decision and then hear afterwards. So it's a learning process for me as well, but I am always open to, if somebody raises their hand, to allow them to speak. I think that's always the best thing to do in government. But case by case, like you said, and certainly calls in advance any time.

The other thing we've done sometimes is we've acknowledged it's controversial or that people are here, we've asked that person to stay. Like I think for CAC one time we did that and it turned out to be a disaster because we made them stay for two hours. But we have done that in the past too, which is helpful.

Well, any way that this board can be accommodating would be really appreciated, and I understand it's case by case. And I have no problem calling it advance, as you know, so that would be great. And I do have one question, if you don't mind, Bill. So if the town, and I think this was handled really well, but if the town didn't sign on on these two parcels, because one of them certainly has been in town for years, Would the IDA really not withhold our share of the taxes?

That's a hypothetical question that I can't answer because I've never heard of it happening. okay because it yeah it sounds to me it's like hi you know yes we could have taken all the money off the tax roll and you guys would be hanging but the answer is that the legislature when it said this said that we had to set up a system where we would get back the money that rightfully belongs to the towns giving the benefit and the incentive benefits that we want to the project and that's why we have that universal package that policy that sets this up and that's that's what we do so the answer is Number one, I can never see somebody saying, no, we don't want your money. And number two, we're trying to make it as easy as possible.

Well, I think it's a case of, and I know we don't want to go back and forth, but I think it's a case sometimes of the town really would like the full bill to be paid, not not have a pilot, in some cases, not all cases. And I think that's fair enough. I'm not a big fan, as you know, of pilots. But it seems to me, and I am not accusing anyone of a crime, let's be very clear, but it seems to me it's kind of, if you don't do this, I mean, life is full of this, but you're not going to get here. If you don't vote for this, even if you have good reason, we're going to withhold money from you, even though you're entitled.

And that's not the situation.

Let me just chime in here, because I was thinking about this, too, just now as you were talking. The way I see what we approved, and it's been so... misrepresented in the past of what our actual role in this is. When I rewatched the meeting from last week, something that clicked was that we have to invoice you for the money. And this just seems purely administrative, like any company is set up like a, we're almost setting up like you as a vendor of ours so that we could send you a bill. So I think if we voted no, and again, hypothetically, and we said hey where's our money you guys would say sign this paper and send us an invoice right so it's almost like this this whole thing about pilots it's it's it seems like a dog and pony show and a little bit of jazz hands thrown in there's like a horrible show that nobody wants to watch yeah yeah it's something i really don't like but i appreciate your sticking around and um that that

Does clarify. No, but anyhow, thank you all. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dashiell, I'm a resident of the town, and I also represent the Hudson Valley Transparency Project. I recently attended a meeting at the Brewster Central School District, and what they tend to do at the beginning of their sessions between the work and the regular session and the Pledge of Allegiance, they'll have two public comment sessions. They'll have one at the beginning that's for agenda items only, so that people can ask questions of some people that might be there early in the meeting. And then they have a public comment that's just general. It could be on action items. It might not be at the very end of the session, which I think that might alleviate some of the concerns she had with not being able to ask questions of people who are going to speak here later. I think that might be, I can't think of the word, but a consideration for the board to take. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

School board member back there. We also don't have time limits.

Yeah, three minutes. Three minutes, that's all you get.

Scott Seaman, Times Southeast, Brewster Board of Education. I'd like to thank him for making the comment. I was gonna make the same exact suggestion.

We'll do that if you get rid of time limits.

I have no trouble getting rid of Tom. When I first joined the board, the time limit was two minutes. I suggested five and they re-agreed on three. And most people, if you talk past three minutes, you're out of control and there's a problem anyway. We're full into finishing up construction, getting ready to school start in a couple weeks. On Monday, we do have the Back to the Den school event again, where we have a lot of members from the school, the sports, all the activities. We also invite our community partners down to the turf field and people come and talk and meet everybody and get a better feel and get the young men and women prepared for school. Everything else is, we're hoping to have the ROTC center and some of the interior work done at the high school prior to work. Of course, we thank the town for all the work they've done on all the adjoining roads and to get ready for school and to get as much done before we send our 100 buses out onto the road and back up traffic. And over at CV Star, we're hoping the cafeteria will be done. Obviously, it won't be done at opening, but I think the plan is either November, October or November, it'll be done so those students can be the first ones to actually take place in having their own cafeteria and their own gathering area. Right now, they have to go to the middle school. And that also frees up space that we can give back to the middle school, alterations, changes, pull out, a lot of additional work can be done. And as always, we thank the town for the work you do on our behalf, and if there's anything we can do, please let us know. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay, unless there's anyone else. Recognition of the town board for town board comment. Any comments? No comments. Okay. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.