Town Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, I'd like to welcome everybody to our July 23rd meeting of the town board. If you could rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. If I could just remind everybody of the exits, there's two emergency exits in the back corners, and there's one emergency exit over here. And also, if you can turn off all electronic devices or put them on vibrate, we'd much appreciate it. If I can ask the clerk for roll call.

Yes. Councilman Cypress? Here. Councilman Larca? Here. Councilwoman Lewis? Here. Councilman Mazzotta? Here. Supervisor Castellano?

Present. Thank you. We just had executive session. I'm going to make a motion to come out of executive session. No action was taken. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Moving on to... our regular work session number one for discussion we have an update from the assessor uh lori bell is here you can give us a update good evening hello

Is that on? I'm loud. So most of you already have a really good idea of what me and my office take care of on a regular basis. Primary job is to value all real property in the town at a uniform percentage of market value. And we also have to administer exemptions and maintain the inventory so we know that we can fairly distribute the tax burden amongst the properties as fairly as possible. We are at 100% every year, and it is certified by New York State Department of Office of Real Property Services. So currently we have about 7,400 parcels, just under 500 of those are in the village because the village shares the assessor duties with the town. There's only one of me. They otherwise have an independent government. There's about 600 commercial parcels and we have 1,500 individual condominium units because when we did the countywide reval, The town adopted the Homestead Act, which allows for the split tax rate between homestead and non-homestead, and that also allowed us to value the condominiums at market value as individual units as opposed to an income approach, which makes more sense to the market value. We have in the past committed to four-year annual assessment cycles for New York State. We entered into a contract with the state that we're going to maintain the assessments at 100%. And then in the past, I've put in for what's referred to as cyclical aid. I've done that for several years and received almost $120,000 in aid over those past 20 years. speaking of the split tax rate homestead and on homestead I had circulated to the town board earlier my annual adjusted base proportions that is not a fun report to do it's not a fun report to try to read and short and sweet it describes where the how the tax burden is distributed between basically the residential and the commercial parcels homestead is residential non homestead is commercial so in 2010 Just as a frame of reference, we had a 65-35 split where the residential class was carrying 65% of the tax burden. Over the years, for multiple reasons, market values, other shifts, the shift has been in favor of the residential parcels with the commercial parcels picking up a larger percentage of the tax burden. So now we're at more like 63, 37. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it does help when it comes to the figuring of the tax rates and the overall impact to the residents. So my office has completed over 1,100 exemption renewals. We also oversee over 700 of the enhanced star exemptions that's currently being overseen by New York State, but we still have to process all of those, as well as 1500 basic star exemptions. We get deeds weekly from the county. We review those for accuracy, for whether or not they're valid sales, and whether or not there's exemptions on the property that need to be either removed or amended, depending on what the situation is with the sale. Another item is the IDA projects that are either currently in existence or under contemplation. My office is the one that handles the drafting and mailing of the pilot letters that goes out to the properties that are benefiting from the IDAs. Those payments are either sent directly to the receiver of taxes for the school collections or the town accountant for the town and county collections. Also whenever the planning board has approved a subdivision or a lot line adjustment or anything like that, that gets processed again through my office. I have to create the parcels, merge them, whatever. I'm also in charge of E911 addresses and new road names as They become necessary. We have one project currently in front of the planning board looking for a 280A, which is fancy language for private road that we have to assign a name to. One, I've agreed with the owner as to what he wants. There's another one that's currently on the books, not approved yet. It was a prior subdivision with an approved name. The prior owner merged the lots. The new owner wants to resubdivide it. I explained to his engineer that we already had an approved name. But that's apparently not acceptable to the owner, so we'll be working on that. When people go before the planning board or the zoning board, they need to do mailings to notify the adjacent parcels who are within a certain 300, 500 distance. So my office handles the creation of those lists and labels. that the applicants then pay for. We have a regular ongoing updates to our photos, the parcel inventory, the property record cards, that includes everything from zoning to class codes to decks and every little thing you could think of that might be on your property. We assist the building of planning departments on a regular basis with information, reports, 911, updating municity every month. Everything basically that happens in town at some point funnels through my office when it comes to parcels. In addition to that, on an annual basis when the new assessments come out, grievances are filed, those all get funneled through my office. Anything that the Board of Assessment Review declines, Petitioners have the right to then file go to the next step, which is certiorari or small claims. Small claims are handled by me. Certiorari I work with the town attorney on, and we attend court as necessary in regards to those petitions. So my year is May 1st is the tentative assessment roll. Grievances are received by the fourth Tuesday in May. Final assessment roll is published July 1st. Most small claims and certiorari filings have to be filed in my office by the end of this month. So by the end of this month, I'll know exactly how much we'll have to deal with. Aye. We. Aye. The adjusted base proportions have been completed. I just need your approval on those so we can file those. And then in about two weeks, I'll be sending my file to the county for the processing of the school bills. And then we send these senior citizen exemption rules out the same time the school bills go out. That allows the seniors to come in, make one trip, pay their bill, and give us their renewals. They don't have to worry about coming in in the wintertime because March 1st is the deadline. So again, I'll be sending my file to the county for the town and county bills in mid-November, and then we mail the rest of the exemption renewals at the end of the year. So that gives everybody about three months, two and a half months to get them into us. And that's my update. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you. For the first time in four years, Laurie, I didn't ask you to re-explain the split to me. I know.

I'm very impressed.

Okay.

Moving on to item number two of the discussion with our special districts update. Bruce Bridges. Hello, all.

Fortunately, there's no great big news to report, so I'll consider that to be a victory here, which is breaking it down district by district. Blackberry Sewer, we finally got the EQ line completed, reburied, certified by the county. So that's done. At the Blackberry sewer plant, there are three devices there called RBCs, also known as rotating biocontactors. I'm sure everybody's familiar with those. Three of them. One of them is 25 years old but working. The second one we repaired recently with a motor and bearings. The third one right now is being rebuilt. That's what we went out to bid in May, I think, and that should be done in August. We definitely want to keep all three in working condition and probably have backup parts for them on the shelf. If they go down, then we're going to be looking at having to pump sewage, and that gets pricey very quickly. Still in Blackberry, there's two pump stations. That's for lifting the elevation of it to continue on down the sewer. One of those is in the process of being rebuilt. The other one is working, so we're running on one pump. Again, with these, it would probably behoove us to have backup items on the shelf for the same reason. Blackberry water, no real issues in the past quarter, ongoing regular maintenance. One thing we're gonna have to do at Blackberry in the remainder of this year and at all the districts is have all the tanks inspected. That has to be done every five years. They come in, depending on the size of the tank, either have a diver go in there and investigate it clean it or they could do it with an ROV but again that has to be done every five years for compliance over to Brewster Heights sewer Over there, there are two mixers or aerators. We had one of them rebuilt last year. The other one should be rebuilt in the near future. These are devices running 24-7, 365. The one that should be rebuilt is 40 years, so it's already more than seen its life, and we have to get ready for its eventual termination and bruce do you want to say out loud with the downfall of those what's the uh i don't want to guess but fleshable wipes oh oh we're getting to those separately hold on and we got an update on those too on the filters um and maybe you're going to cover this but um you're saying that needs to get done are you looking for approval from us or anything we will be in the near future are grants available to apply for that uh we can try uh we're putting in for a grant for spring house right now but i'd have to investigate what's available for these i mean this is not of that size scope i mean 35 000 is a lot of dollars but it's Not the cost of what Spring House is going to be or the other PFAS remediations.

There's two that need to be rebuilt. Aren't there three? One was rebuilt.

No, no, no. You're talking about the sand filters at Brewster Heights Water. I'm talking about at the sewer. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. There's the oxidation ditch. And these are big paddle wheels, essentially, that keep the stuff circling around and aerated so the... Biological breakdown can occur right now. It's running on one The ditches were have Hans starting to look at that that is a very significant project Because we got to do something with the sewage while the ditch is being drained and investigated so It's gonna take some engineering work to come up with a temporary solution and engineering work to do whatever we have to do to try to add life to the existing ditch. More to follow. We did get the storage shed installed down there at Brewster Heights sewer, so now VRI can keep More stuff on hand, which just speeds up repair process and ultimately saves money. The Lincoln pump station. There's two pumps in there. We have replaced one with a larger pump that has the capability of grinding up some of the debris that comes in there. What's really screwing these pump stations up are quote unquote flushable wipes. that might be flushable in terms of going through your house and coming out in your septic tank, but when it's time to go through a town municipal system where they start getting in the mechanisms there, they bind everything up. The new pump was working just perfectly at Lincoln until somebody the other weekend either, I'm going to say, inadvertently flushed a washcloth down and seized the pump up and it had to be rebuilt. So one washcloth caused the pump to be rebuilt and what was... Cleaned out, taken apart and... Like maintenance, not rebuilt. Exactly, didn't have to be reconfigured. Okay.

But the flushable wipes are a real problem, and they've done a great job on noticing the resonance in every mailing on the website. They've tried everything, and it doesn't seem to help, but it does. When the numbers rise, this is part of the reason.

I got the alert on my phone a while ago. Can you send those out weekly?

The wipes?

Yeah. There was an alert that went out. Yeah.

No, there's been alerts. There's been notices in the quarterly bills, postings on the website. Sure, we can.

Can we push alerts to the Heights like once a week until they get it?

You can have that scheduled for weekly.

Okay. We can certainly do that.

Annoying always works.

I think, you know, we talked about this a lot. I don't think anybody's equating that to the cost.

It's about $250 a visit from VRI to clean those out.

Yeah, the one I got on my phone that went out, it had that in there.

Yeah, it's, you know.

I send it out weekly. You can do that. Every Friday before Christmas.

Then it becomes white noise. But no, that's a good idea. Try it.

See what happens. Brewster Heights water. That's where the sand filters are that you were talking about? Yeah. Okay. That's a couple years in the future, but something that's going to have to be done. So up at Brewster Heights in the past quarter, a number of new valves were installed, street valves. It was done ahead of the paving that was done up there, along with risers for the sewers and the other mechanisms. The DEP was recently through and recertified the Drewville Pump House, the meters there, the gauges. Coming up in the next month in August, there's gonna be hydrant flushing up in Brewster Heights. Another request for the heights in all water districts. VRI, our operators, have to go door to door to try to get water samples to do testing, and it's getting harder and harder for them to have people either being home, which is understandable, or allowing people to come in the house. and they for certain tests they have to draw vri has to draw the water directly from the faucets you can't just use a hose connection you can't just give them a sample bottle and pick it up if they can't have more success with that we're already investigating about having to go around and put in stations throughout each of the individual districts to be testing stations that'd be about fifteen hundred dollars a pop uh each district would need at least a few the bigger districts might need five six we're waiting to hear from the county on that so if we could get people to be a little more understanding and let people in let vri into the houses It would ultimately save money for everybody.

Is there something we can do to help that? Or is there, could there be a fee if you don't let them test your water to fund certain things?

I guess there could be. I mean, I just think... making people aware that vri is i mean they work for us they're uh you know they're walking around with their names on their trucks on their jackets and whatnot i can understand people being hesitant just to let some random individual in the house but i mean they will show identification they're doing what we're paying them to do so we don't tell them in advance that they're coming we don't have enough control over it because the county regulates uh you know how many houses in what area you have to do you know so vri could give you a better explanation of this but we can't just go and knock on it in like blackberry three houses at random we need one house in the first 20 we need another house in the second 20 to make sure it's a good sampling of the whole but could we say on this week you might get a knock on your door from vri and it's okay like send an alert for that to everybody again i i guess we can i mean i live in blackberry and They've always been doing that, so nothing has changed except people's schedules and people are probably a little more hesitant to open up their doors.

Yeah, which I get.

Oh, no. Unfortunately, it makes sense.

How far in advance do you guys get the list?

I'd have to check with VRI.

Okay, so I'm going to write that down and we'll talk this week and try and figure something out.

Yep. Yeah, if you know, like, the week...

range Wendy and just send them there and be like someone might not yeah maybe we can legit you know do an excel sheet or something and just we'll figure it out absent that it's going to be an additional cost to the district to get these alternative sources set up maybe we should explain that and communicate that to them that like the wipes I mean right no but this seems like this is a problem that we can probably solve together we'll figure it out I'd like to hope so all right let's put hope on that

Lastly, that brings us to the PFAS, PFAS situation. So just some updates here. Star, we're waiting on the Department of Health to sign off on the plans. That is basically overdue. So hopefully we could put that project out to bid before the end of the year.

Just to clarify, this particular wait on the Department of Health is the second submission. So the primary submission took place, they handed it back with a couple of simple adjustments, and we had to resubmit the plan. So now we're just waiting for that final thumbs up, hopefully.

With Birch, it's largely the same situation. We had submitted plans, but it turns out that the gallons per minute of the pumps there were actually a lower number than had originally been submitted, which is actually beneficial because It allows us to build a smaller filter. We're waiting for WRT to get back to us with the revised plan that we could turn around and submit back to the Department of Health. So we're waiting there. Spring House. We're just completing a grant submission. It'll be filed tomorrow or Monday at the latest. We have plans engineering reports that are all being submitted as part of that grant application which will be announced i believe it's december and it's going to be hurry up and wait for that but once that's completed we have what we need to then submit the plans to the department of health hopefully they approve them quickly and then the building phase could go the bidding and the building phase could commence

that's essentially it okay thanks bruce thank you bruce thank you okay next on our agenda is a we had a discussion with um district attorney robert tendy um He wanted to give us an update on some scams that were going on in Putnam County, but unfortunately he called me the other day and there's been a conflict with his responsibilities at the DA's office, so he just asked to reschedule for another two weeks. So we'll put that on hold for our next meeting. Item number four is Volts Cloverleaf 1051 and 1055 Route 22 Tax Map ID 68-1-2 and 3. This is a bond performance lease. It's a simple bond release that was referred to us that we'll have tonight on our agenda at a regular meeting. Any discussion? We'll move on to item number five. This is a discussion on filming the fee schedule that we're looking at. In our backup, we had a bunch of local municipalities that we looked up to see what they charged. We're trying to make sure we're in the same ballpark as them. I'd like to make a recommendation tonight after reviewing some of these numbers. I think the most appropriate thing for us to do is to charge a $500 fee per day. If they're in need of security, they're going to have to contact the county sheriff's department or state police, as we don't have a local police department. But I'd like to keep it as simple as possible, and within the application, it would be a $500 fee per day. Does anybody like to add to that or change that or make another?

It seems fair based on towns that are similar to us.

My only question is, and I don't want to complicate things, but private property. How would that work if someone wanted to film something at my house? Does the town have any... Or does the town have a say as to whether or not that takes place?

Well, I think we've discussed this with Will in the past, that it's still a commercial act on a private piece of property. So if a filming company wanted to do a film shoot at your property, they'd still have to put in an application to do so.

At the town?

At the town.

Okay, so the process would be the same essentially, okay.

And I did see some of the towns charged different from private property and public property, but I thought just to keep it simple. Yep. No one's banging down our door at the moment, but I thought let's start at $500 for anybody who wants to fill per deck, and we'll see where it goes from there.

Okay. Sounds good to me.

Am I missing anything on that, Will? Yeah. Okay. Any other questions or comments on that?

Nope. I agree.

Okay. Next up for discussion is the food truck inspection law, which we've been made aware of. for uh fire inspections on these food trucks um we do have a permanent process that they have to apply for when they come in front of if they plan on setting up shop here in uh the town of southeast what i would suggest this is a a one-time fee that has to be con one-time inspection that has to be done by the town It would be difficult if the food truck was having one event on a Sunday for us to go out and inspect it. So I thought the proper thing to do, and this is just a suggestion on my part, is to have a $50 fee if we have to send someone to inspect the food truck on the given day, which is not a regular business day. however if the food truck again this is an annual license to operate comes to our makes an appointment with our department that would oversee this we would waive the 50 fee this way they come during regular business hours and we can conduct the inspection i'm sure they'll pass and they'll get their uh their certificate to allow them to operate any time in a given year so i'd like to put that forward um i don't know if anybody has any questions or any other ideas on this i i feel like

We've received some conflicting information on whether we have to do it or not. And I don't know who decides who's right. Like, if you're saying we 100% have to do the inspection ourselves and we can't accept one from another municipality, then I'm fine with their suggestion. But I'm still not, I guess, convinced that that's 100% accurate, because we've seen both. And everybody we ask, we get a slightly different answer to.

Yeah, this is new to everybody. And certainly, we've gotten conflicting information. But our most recent information is that it is our obligation to do it on the town level.

That's an opinion that comes from the Association of Towns. I think the ultimate arbiter of this would be the Department of State, which oversees code compliance. Okay, is that right? Yes.

So, I mean, we could- And I believe their answer, Will, was that it's up to our town law. And that's why Eric and I recommended updating that language about accepting other people's permits. But maybe we can recap it all and you can review it.

Could you repeat the first part of what you said?

I thought it was them that said that they don't determine who does it. It depends on the town code or town law.

This is the Department of State said this? That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah.

Somebody said that. Like everybody we ask, we get different things. So that's when, you know, I suggest. It would make a lot of sense to be able to use. From a practical point of view. Perfect. Yeah. Inspection, but. So Eric found, Eric Larga found recommended language to make our code or law comply with what they suggested. But then Kathy got a different answer saying, no, you can't do that. Right. So.

Well, I think the association takes a very conservative approach. That's why I think the ultimate, if you really want relief, it's either going to come from the governor's program for removing some of the onerous regulations that they have, which isn't going to happen anytime soon, or get a firm commitment, a determination from the Department of State Division of Code Compliance, Division of Codes, to indicate that if somebody's getting a one-day permit and they're from outside of our town, that we have to do the internal inspection. fire safety inspection. I just don't know how quickly, or if at all, we would get that determination from the Department of State. So I think in the interim, it's probably best to follow the conservative approach of the Association of Towns. And we have to charge them for it. We have to charge them for it. But we should we should.

Yeah, I mean on like Joe's suggestion is if we want to take that approach that's fine. I think Joe's suggestion is mostly reasonable. But I don't want to have to do a fire inspection on a Sunday and I don't think $50 covers it like I'd rather not do one day permits if that's the case, frankly. You know, most towns, you get a food shop permit for the year, regardless. And if there's going to be all this extra burdensome requirements, that's where I would lean.

Just out of curiosity, is our code, and I should probably be able to answer this myself, does our code require that if private homeowner is going to have a food truck at their house for a private event, we don't require a permit.

We do not require a permit on private property.

Is there a timeline for this to go into effect? Can this be effective January, or does it have to happen immediately?

I'm getting the impression that it's in effect now.

Okay. This is the most ridiculous law, and if we have to put together a permit for someone to sign on this, we should put something on top that says, we think this is a ridiculous law. But can this... inspection be good for a year regardless of the food truck permits yes okay so the fire inspection they could come on like a tuesday that'd be good for the entire year for that company and then they would get permits according to our normal permit profit uh process correct but would it be for the it would still be valid it'd still be valid for a year

for a year from today correct just like their insurance or anything like that it would be valid for a year so from today's date July 24th to July 24th 2027.

23rd of the following year could we make it good for two years I think I think the regulations require annual inspection okay Kathy what are our two food truck fees um twenty dollars for one day 250 for a half year and 500 for a full year okay

Yeah, I don't you know, I think where will was going about residential was that's a scenario where maybe you need a one day food truck permit. But other than that, I don't see the benefit to us offering a one day.

Well, like for instance, when when the town is sponsored, the the food truck rally or whatever they call it, we call it up at the park. They they each got one day permit.

Correct. Well, at that point, when we're planning, can't we just say, can we inspect your, you know?

We should recommend them all again. This is so ridiculous.

How many one-day permits have we given out over the last year?

We average between, like, 10 and 15 per year.

All right, so right now what's on the table is a $50 fee on the weekends. We're outside normal business hours for a one-year permit.

For one-year inspection, not a permit. So for a one-day permit, we're going to tie up the town clerk and the fire inspector for $70.

If the person does not get his truck inspected during regular business hours and asks us to go meet them on an event day on Sunday.

Okay, so even worse. So we'll still tie up the town clerk and the building inspector for $20.

Well, that's been the fee that we've had for some time now. So we're not changing that fee.

You can always change the fees. Yeah. It just stinks, you're going to have a party. You're not going to have a party. Oh, yeah. Right. It doesn't apply to that.

Little League utilizes food trucks at their events fairly often. Who?

Little League.

They like them. You guys like them.

Use the same one each time.

It usually is.

I wrote a note down.

You want them.

I had them the other day. They were good. They're very good.

So at this point, we do need to get this permit inspection done, we believe, from the town. But we can still, I mean, I think we can do a little bit more investigation and get a definitive answer from the state. Because it seems to me like the local municipalities all operate differently anyway. So maybe we could just buy a little more time before we make any changes to get a definitive answer from the state.

Yeah, I agree. I'll find what I think was the conflicting comments from the state and share it with Will and see if he agrees with me or not. And then we can just go with your suggestion. Okay.

That's good. Any other questions or comments? No. Okay. Moving on to item number seven, the Cultural Arts Coalition one day liquor license. And would you guys like to come up and give us an overview?

My name's Daniel. I've been emailing with Kathy because we were doing events at the Old Town Hall Theater and also at the studio around the corner downstairs, as you know. And we would like to be able to offer alcohol, wine, and beer for sale during our events because it's a good way to generate extra income for nonprofits. In order to do this, we looked at the New York State, you know, what's involved in getting single event permits or whatever they call it, one day permits. And we had to get permission from our landlord. So there's a form which I sent. It needs to be revised because some of our future performance dates have changed. And basically, we need you guys to, somebody has to sign to say, yes, it's OK. And then we can apply for the permit from state liquor authority. And that's it.

So one question I had was, The difference between serving and selling, I guess. I'm thinking you pay a $50 fee to go to an event and hopefully get a couple glasses of wine or something to that effect. Or you guys would actually be selling

i'm assuming wine or beer or whatever at a rate that it's always like everything we do is always by suggested donation so nobody's like you know that'll be five dollars sir right but the the rules are very clear if you don't have a permit that you absolutely cannot even you have to say there's complimentary wine which we do sometimes right but you can't have the donation jar or anything even close to that area right they're very strict about that understandably so Whereas we can kind of say suggested donation is $5. We usually have people at the events who are monitoring all the tables of food. So nobody's using the free privileges, the sort of suggested donation for food or whatever. So we have somebody kind of keeping an eye on things but it's not like uh we're hiring a bartender or you know what i mean it's not a it's not going to become that kind of service ever it would always be somebody would be there sort of tending but not actually like serving people right just making sure that if you had you know that they're pouring maybe they're pouring the wine you know i would assume that would make sense because you don't want to just let the guests pour their own wine right because that could lead to abuse right but anyway we can't even look into any of that without your permission right and and that's the first step and then we can apply and see what the regulations are that surround you know a non-profit getting a single event and we're just talking about single events we're not trying to apply for a liquor license right it's these single event permits through the year as a non-profit they grant you 21 in total i think that you're allowed to do for events like this, right? Like theater events and whatnot.

Okay, that's interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's good. Anybody have any questions or comments? No. Go ahead.

I was just going to say, if we're in favor of this, what would be the next step? What do you need from us?

I need you to sign this. That has, because it's a... basically a piece of paper from the New York State Liquor Authority that's like, have your landlord sign this. It has all the dates that we are trying to apply for the single events. Once I have this, then I go to the State Liquor Authority and get the actual licenses.

Did you say you had to change that or something? I did, yeah.

I can show it to you because I emailed it to Kathy to you. Oh, this is the new one that's correct? This is a new one. I just printed it and just scratched off the dates that are wrong.

Is this something we would have to vote to authorize a supervisor to sign?

should because basically it's permitting an additional use of the of the premises and i know that when in the past when we've had uh events at other um other venues, people who rented Lakeview Manor, for instance, if they served alcohol, they had to have certain insurance in place.

Yeah, and we can do the certificate of liability or whatever you guys need.

Well, yeah, an alcohol rider would be, but I think the Liquor Authority also requires a bond, but that's my 30, 40 year memory coming back to me.

You guys know I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this and it has nothing to do with cultural arts or town hall. It's just in general. Is there a way we could do this where when eventually we hopefully start renting Lakeview again, that we're now in a situation where people expect to hold an event at Lakeview and sell alcohol, because I really am not in favor of that. Is there a way we could figure out how to limit it just for them, for this property or something? Well, you can have rules and regulations for any facility.

Well, your town code says that it's by special permit, and you have the right to say that.

Well, that's for parks, and Will says the building's not a park. So this is something different. I was told it was, actually.

Also, we are signing as the landlord. Anybody using Lakeview, we wouldn't be their landlord. It would be our facility, so maybe that's a different thing.

We're licensing them the use of the facility.

So we are. But they're our tenants.

where somebody renting lakeview would not be our tenant not a tenant but to be a licensee yeah i mean 67 maine and what they're doing is very unique right and if you could convince me we could legally do it just there i'm fine but if this is somehow opening up the door to selling alcohol on town property it makes me uncomfortable

I guess I was trying to make a distinction here. Can you make a distinction that the Cultural Arts Coalition is a tenant in one of the properties that we own? We don't have, that I know of, tenants that rent other properties from us. So this is for our tenant who we have a lease with.

I'm not sure what you're saying.

I'm saying so we could do it for that.

He's trying to accommodate me saying they're unique. I think you can. I think you have the discretion to administer the properties as the majority

right she's fit i mean uh so then we could offer a to sign this for our tenant who we have a lease with and that is different from somebody renting lakeview that solves my concern yeah my interpretation was totally your discretion right either way but

Yeah, but I don't know.

And I can't even articulate it, but there's something about it that makes me nervous. And then, you know, we'll set up buildings around the park. So I just wanted to make sure we were doing it right.

Yeah, yeah. I understand what you're talking about.

So again, to be completely comfortable with the idea of you're selling individual drinks as opposed to you coming to an event and serving alcohol.

Even if you were to charge an admission fee and alcohol was included, you'd still have to have a license.

Right.

Yes, that is correct.

I guess I don't like the idea of buying alcohol at an event like that. I mean, the way you explain it is perfectly fine. I'm sure everybody will.

In the eyes of New York State, there's no difference. And I feel the way you feel. But I'm OK with it in that building for them, the way they use that property. So if Will could make that language, I'm fine.

So your first event on here is the September 26th? Correct, yep, fall festival.

So we have an event that evening. I think we gotta redraft that a bit.

All right, so we will look to approve something, I guess, at the next meeting. Yeah, we can put it on the agenda. Or propose something for approval or vote for the next meeting.

Can we make a motion tonight to approve this? But we need to rewrite this.

You could, and have it subject to the approval of the town attorney. Okay.

It's a language. So we would authorize Joe to sign this agreement?

I think that's an authorization, is it?

How do they- Landlord authorization form is what they call it.

So it's authorizing Joe to sign an authorization in form and substance satisfactory to the town attorney.

I'm assuming the permit process is not speeding, or do you know?

Well, actually, they say it's relatively fast for this, that it just takes, because they ask for 15 days in advance. Okay. Okay, that sounds good. I have a little bit of time, yeah. You should have said it was long. I should have said it was long, yeah. Well, regardless. Yeah, but for single event permits, I guess they try to speed things up. I mean, who knows when we actually go to do it, what's going to happen, but yeah.

So can we make a motion to authorize? You could waive the rules to add an action item.

And then if all are in favor, then you make someone make a motion to authorize the supervisor to sign the authorization. to make an application to the state liquor authority for certain dates.

If I'm pushing this, I'll slow it down and we can push it out two weeks. I don't want to misspeak here, but I do think we have to reconfigure this form to meet your needs. It'll be fine. I'm not in disagreement with it at all, but maybe we should wait two weeks to make a decision on it.

I mean, personally, I'm comfortable authorizing you to sign it as long as Will is comfortable with the language.

I'm generally very uncomfortable voting to have you sign something that we haven't seen the final draft. But that specifically says landlord application. And to Eric's point, this is the only time we're a landlord. So I'm OK with that. OK.

I'm good with it.

Solve a motion to waive the rules. Well, we're going to have to go to regular session. It's a work session. Bear with us. But we will do this tonight. I will do that later. You're the next topic. Yeah, don't go anywhere.

Okay. So yeah, number eight is Cultural Arts Coalition again. Application for NYMS downtown anchor project grant installation of a fire exit stairwell, stairway at 67 Main Street.

That's it.

That's what I'm asking for so that we can get some money to put that fire stair on the building on the east side.

Do you have a cost estimate on what this is going to cost?

I think it's on the resolution. It's around, if you count administrative fees, around $220,000.

$220,000.

And they'll cover like three-quarters of it if we get it.

$162,840. Okay.

Can we have the rest in the bank?

And you have it in the bank as well.

And then we have our share, but we just have to come up with the money first to start the project, because it's a reimbursed grant. So that's what we're working on. But in order to apply, I need the resolution. OK. Thank you. Thanks.

Any site control issues on this one, or site control issues?

No site control issue on this one, as far as I can tell. Not like the New York Council on the Arts. OK.

Was this the one that you also needed from the village, or is that?

Yeah, I went ahead and got one from the village. I didn't want to. I definitely couldn't tell which one I really needed, so both should be even better.

You think?

We'll see. All righty.

Okay. Any other questions? No. All right. Thank you. Okay, number nine on our list tonight for discussion is the Wells Park lease agreement. Just wanted to give everybody a quick update. I did speak with Mayor Schoenick this week about it. The Wells Park lease runs through July 23rd, 2029, and the Markel Park lease runs through July of 2030. So there's a year gap in there that he wanted us to address. So I'm not really sure why they got misaligned or what the issue was, but they're off by a year and they really should end at the same time. After speaking with the mayor, I think the simplest solution would be to extend the Wells Park lease by either one year or six years when it comes up for renewal in 2029, so they can run concurrently. Of course, this would be up to the boards of both the village and the town in 2029 to make this decision, but it seems to be the simplest solution. So in 2029, they'll make a decision whether to extend wells by one year or by six years. So if they do it by six years in 2030, both liens would expire in the same year, and it should be a non-issue going forward. So pretty straightforward. I just wanted to give you guys an update as to why it was there.

I think when we were looking to make changes, we were going to align them. but since they just did the extension, they stayed in this line, so we'll deal with it whenever.

2029, somebody will deal with it. We good?

Any questions? There's separate leases, so they just wanted them to...

terminate at the same time just from a housekeeping perspective just you know so that one of us didn't lose the other part prematurely you know okay so it was kind of like a swap like if the deal blew up we both got our parks back you know somewhat of a mutual leverage against this okay

In the background, though, you have to keep in mind that there was this discussion about the town acquiring that land from the village. And it had to do, there were a number of moving parts, one of which was a lot line adjustment between THE DURKIN FAMILY WHO OWNS THE MAJORITY OF ONE FIELD AND THE VILLAGE AND ALSO IN THE BACKGROUND WAS THE VILLAGE'S INTENT TO CONVEY A MAJORITY OF WHAT was no once known as uh markel park to the fire district to build the fire the fire station which is now in limbo um but i think ultimately we wanted to get fee title to that area that we currently lease but it would have also had to um take into consideration uh the um the subdivision of that property that is currently owned which includes all of what used to be markel park the playgrounds so it's a little bit more complicated than i'd like to throw out right now but it there there is a lot of background

Is the lot line adjustment with Durkin, is that almost done? Do we know where that is?

I haven't talked to Ray Durkin in a while about it. He was a little bit agitated the last time I talked to him because it seemed the village was just kicking it down the road. And I think that once the bond referendum for the fire department failed, a lot of the interest in getting things wrapped up have sort of waned.

Because it would be nice to, you know, us as the tenant, right, to know that full control of those ball fields

not subject to dirkin right that it simply would just be with the village well i don't think the the dirkens aren't interested in anything other than cleaning up the lines between the two uh right two ball fields and um it impacts other properties that they own they're not interested in conveying it to the town

No, we just don't want that line in the middle of the softball field. Correct. So one day when the girls are playing and they sold or something and they have to play on half a field. I think that's what we're trying to avoid, right? Correct. As unlikely as that would be.

Even though it's been that way for decades, it is something that if you're using a little vision, you could see a problem down the road. Okay.

All right, we'll move on to the next item of the discussion is Argonne Road, 1037 Route 22, tax map 68.5-2-19. I'll turn it over to Councilman Larca.

Yeah, so I think, no. This property, bless you. Thank you. This is the OTB building. It was recently purchased by Wilkins who, they sell ATVs, UTVs, jet skis, stuff like that up on 22. So they're turning this or making application and turn this into their new headquarters, I guess, or showroom. And I had driven by here and I didn't realize this, but this hill is not being maintained in the grass there. And I asked the planning board chairman to reach out to the owner to get it cut. And they said, well, that's your grass to cut. So if you want to cut, cut it. So I hadn't realized that this is Argonne Road or was Argonne Road here, this piece of land, the yellow line. I just got this from the GIS. I'm not sure if this is still an actual boundary between state property and what was Argonne Road. I think Argonne Road's been abandoned, but When I spoke to the gentleman who owns his property, he said, hey, I want to pave this, improve it, and part of my parking lot is on your property. If it's your property, he'd be interested in buying it. And I would be interested. I think we should consider selling it. And I talked to Will about this, and I think there's a lot of concerns. This will be very complicated. I don't know if there's a way that we can do something like what we did by the class building, where their parking lot that they built is on our property, but they built it, maintain it, they use it. Maybe something like that would be easier instead of a land transfer. But just wanted to toss that out there. I know it's complicated. It'll take some time, and I wanted to take the first step and get it going.

Great. What's, and I'm not trying to minimize it, I just truly don't understand, what's complicated about the transfer?

I just was told it was- Well, because it's a map town road, there's certain procedures you have to follow in order to divest yourself of it or divest the town of it. And it has to do with who are the budding land owners. And theoretically, if you read the highway law, if you're going to look to abandon a road, you have to offer it to adjoining landowners as if you know the different landers on either side so I think what Eric is trying to what he's driving at is trying to figure out a way that we can avoid having to go through the formal proceedings to abandon the highway I think that when you said that the property, the highway was abandoned, I think it was just not maintained. Okay.

I don't know any conflicting- In 2012, we formally abandoned it.

Is that right?

There's a resolution.

Was there a proceeding?

There's a resolution. Okay.

It's really unclear to me. What I really want is the grass to get cut. But yeah, we can, whatever the easiest way to- Well, as I said, it's your land. I don't want it. Go mow it. I don't want to cut it. But whatever the easiest way is, this guy's going to invest some money here.

He wants to- The other complication is that I do remember uh when i think it was dunkin donuts owned that property there was they they were uh concerned about the accessibility of that of that lot because of the fact that it's a you know divided highway and and they they went to the planning board and i think got approvals to to build that

that access out so they could access the light so if we were can't we just say to um them that this is our land and you can use it like what like what we did with the glass building can we do the exact same thing here yeah i think we probably could i mean uh you know it would be uh

Essentially a permanent easement, but if we were to convey it It would be a whole different story.

It would be what a whole different story. So So the glass building route, that's what I'm gonna call it is easier It's I have to do some more research, but I think it's probably feasible I Want to get

the outcome you want Eric but I'd rather convey it be done with it and not be confused about this for the next 100 years but I just don't want to wait 100 years for something to happen I know I know the other side of the coin is you have an easement they're going to be using our land and there is some liability that that was going to be my question so my concern would be liability so if there's a way to

Well, we could have provisions in the easement requiring them to insure it and to hold the town harmless. I mean, there are many ways to skin the cat.

Will, you said you had to do some research for Eric's green glass suggestion. Could you maybe put together, do your research and put together side by side, like this is what it would take to convey it, this is what it would take to do the green glass solution. I'll do my best to give you that analysis. Because I have no idea how to do either one.

And this guy's looking, I think he's going in front of the planning board. I think he's going to the- He's going to the staff meeting. Meeting before the meeting. This next week.

Yeah. But that's really got nothing to do with, that's just to, because he needs approvals for the change of use.

My point is, the guy's looking to do business that road's in terrible condition. I want us to move quickly. He's starting his process, so I want to make sure we're starting ours, that's all.

Yeah, I just want to give you the information I got out of this event as well. This gentleman actually called me a couple of months ago and said, I'd like to buy this piece of property. And I tried to do a little investigation, and I was under the belief that the property belonged to the state. And I gave him some information on who to contact with the state. And I told him, once you get that information, you can follow up with me. I didn't hear back from him until Eric brought it to my attention recently. My concern was I spoke with the highway superintendent who told me they never plowed that road in all these years. It was probably plowed by the state when OTB, state agency, or whatever it happened to be, agreement with the state. The state must have came in and plowed it for them because it was always plowed even when OTB was empty. I remember the property being plowed and then last year it didn't get plowed. When we had all that snow that property was filled with snow and then I asked Mike Burdick who plowed it last year and he told me the pizza guy plowed it because of course That's his access. Yes, he makes that for his business. Certainly anybody heading towards Connecticut East on Route 6 would turn in there and then make a right turn and go into the pizza place. My concern is the road is going to get much worse if nobody pays attention to it. It's already getting a little bit beat up. I'd like to see, my personal opinion is if we can transfer it to this new property owner who wants to make improvements to it as he told me. you know i'd really like to go that route this way we'd be out of this business here because we have a piece of property that no one seems to know who owned and it is fascinating to me with 84 and 684 oregon road was a road that traversed that area and when 84 came through or 684 they shut it down right there which is you know i always thought it was odd that it went that far and stopped for no reason to nursery school there yeah that's why it happened so yeah so

We owned the property and it was a road. We've abandoned the road with a resolution. Does that mean it's still our property?

I don't know. I'm going to have to look at the resolution and find out what the, I don't have a specific recollection of that abandonment. But I know it was probably done at the request of the highway superintendent. But I think if we abandon it, theoretically, the the ownership of the road bed is divided between adjoining landowners which would be the state state and also the pizza guy kathy did you circulate what you found yeah um it's in teams in the backup okay there's a folder i think lori sent something too right didn't she i don't know okay any other questions nope

That was all I had on that.

Okay, we'll move on to item number 11 for discussion, public tech. Our ag districts, so turn it over to Councilman Lorca.

Yeah, so this has been on the agenda for the last, I think, four meetings. During the ag, application process. We've gotten some complaints about properties that have gotten to the Agricultural District. It is our understanding, and we've been told that we're wrong about this, that inclusion into the Agricultural District can limit our ability to enforce some of our local laws. And the Ag Board has told us that We are wrong about that. We've invited them to come here and just explain that to us. Everything that we've seen and what we've experienced is to the contrary. And what we've asked is simple. We're not against farming or anything like that, but we do think it can limit our ability to enforce codes. So when there's an application made, all that we're asking is that neighboring properties are notified an application is being made. no different than if you're subdividing property putting in a pool next to your prop within the property buffer line so that's it and we'll continue to invite them they haven't come they said they will so we'll just keep this there until the next meeting until they can come hopefully have some dialogue with us about that that's all okay any other questions comments

make a motion to move into our regular meeting. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Item number one is correspondence. I'd like to make a motion to I'd like to make a motion to waive the readings of the correspondence. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Item number two is approval of a voucher list. I'll make a motion to approve the vouchers in the amount of $1,449,230.72. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Item number three is budget transfers. I'd like to make a motion to waive the readings of the budget transfers and accept that such transfers were submitted. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. I'm a no on that one. Okay. One no. Okay. Moving on to the supervisor's report. Just wanted to update a couple things that happened around town this month. First, I spoke to the accounting department today. I'm pleased to report that the town remains in sound financial condition. Our only significant budget challenge over the year remains overtime, especially with the historical snowfall that we had in January and February. Fortunately, we had sufficient funds and reserves to cover those additional expenditures. wanted to mention lake tanetta remains in excellent condition thanks to the efforts of this town board the recreation department and our facility staff happy to say that the the beach has remained open we had a bit of a hiccup in the first week with an algae bloom but it's been taken care of and so far it's been open and the lick is very very healthy and we hope everybody goes out there and enjoys that great park that we have there um we had a very successful e-waste recycling day on july 11th our next only food everybody keeps asking and calling about it our next e-waste recycling day is scheduled for saturday september 5th it's during labor day weekend uh that weekend we will have our fireworks display to honor america's 250th anniversary we've decided to move the fireworks to sunday september 6th the fireworks should be going off about an hour earlier at about 8 20 p.m it's a great day in putnam in the town of southeast and i hope everybody can get out and enjoy it uh finally i'd like to thank the highway department for their outstanding pavement work. They recently completed Brewster Heights and we appreciate all the hard work and professionalism they provided. That's my supervisor's report. I'll move on to number five on our list here is the setting of meetings and dates for public hearings. All meetings will be held at 1360 Route 22 Brewster, New York at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. For next month, it'll be Thursday, August 6th, and Thursday, August 20th. So I believe we have to make a motion for that. So I'll make a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. So we have a couple of resolutions in front of us this evening. First resolution is adjusting the base proportions for real property tax assessment purposes. I will make that motion resolved that the town board of the town of Southeast accepts the recommendation of the town assessor. And hereby authorizes the town clerk to sign and provide to the office of real property services form RP-6703. for the town outside the village homestead and the town wide, respectively, pursuant to real property tax law and New York State rules and regulations in the form and substance as they may be approved by the town attorney. I'll make that motion. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

I never gave a number, but I'm happy to read one. Would you like the next one? Sure. I'll hand it off to you for number seven. Sure, roll my reading boxes. This is a resolution for Bowles-Cloverleaf, 1051 to 1055, route 22, release of performance bond establishment of maintenance bonds. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the town clerk is hereby directed to cancel and return the original performance security, erosion, and sediment control for the Bowles-Cloverleaf Project, Southeast Tax Map Numbers 68.1-2 and 3, in the remaining secured amount of $262,300 and to return any and all original bonds, deposits, letters of credit, or other indicia of security posted in connection with this project upon the express condition that the applicant owner first file a landscape maintenance bond in the surety amount of $36,400 for a period of two years and a stormwater maintenance bond in the surety amount of $91,980 for a period of four years. and be it further resolved that the town clerk shall forward a certified copy of this resolution to the applicant, building department, and planning board forthwith. So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Great. Thank you. Moving on to item number eight. This is a resolution supporting the Town of Southeast Cultural Arts Coalition.

Yep, so this is a resolution supporting the Town of Southeast Cultural Arts Coalition in its application to the New York State Home and Community Renewal for grant funding under the New York Main Street Downtown Anchor Project for improvement to Old Town Hall. Now therefore be it resolved that the Town of Southeast owner of Old Town Hall building located at 67 Main Street, Brewster, New York, 10509 approves and endorses the 2026 New York Main Street Downtown Anchor Project application for grant assistance in restoring and improving Old Town Hall prepared and to be submitted by the Town of Southeast Cultural Arts Coalition. So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Thank you. Moving on to item number nine. Councilman Mazzotta, would you like that one?

So resolution for inter-municipal agreement Village of Brewster uniformed court officers now therefore be resolved if the Village of Brewster Board of Trustees shall concur the Town of Southeast shall continue the relationship with the Village of Brewster wherein and whereby the Village provides uniformed law enforcement personnel to serve as uniformed court officers serving the town of Southeast Justice Courts, and the town pays the village for such service in accordance with the terms of this IMA, and be it further resolved that the town board of the town of Southeast hereby authorizes the supervisor to execute an IMA for this purpose in a form and substance approved by the town attorney. So moved. Second.

Thank you.

All in favor? Aye.

Item number ten on our list is authorizing the submission of a grant application for the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation in connection with the Spring House Water District Improvement Project. I will read this resolve clause for us. Resolved that the town board of the town of Southeast hereby authorizes the supervisor or his designee to execute and submit all documents necessary to apply for the grant from New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation for the WIIA program grant funded in connection with the Spring House Water District project. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Item number 11 on our list tonight is a motion to set a public hearing for Thursday, August 20th, 2026 for the Verizon franchise agreement. We'll have a public hearing that night to discuss Verizon. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. And on to item number 12, there's new business. I'll make a motion.

I'll waive. You make the other motion? Yeah. OK. I'll make a motion to waive the rules and add an action item to the agenda. Second.

All in favor? Aye. I'll make a motion with the help of Will to authorize the supervisor to sign a special event permit application um with our tenants the cultural arts coalition at 67 main street is that okay that's correct so moved second second thank you all in favor aye aye thank you um at this point we have recognition of the public for public comment if anybody would like to make any comment please come forward state your name

Hi, Peter Bell, zoning enforcement officer for the town of Southeast. Hopefully you all know that when Kathy put out the blast to the town, an email blast about solicitation, the building department and Kathy got dozens of phone calls. And I was driving all over town grabbing solicitors and giving them tickets. The reason why I bring that up is the whole idea with water testing for VRI. Right now, people in the town think there are no people allowed to come and knock on your door. We also have a no knock law. So if they have a little sticker up there that says don't knock, you can't knock. So I think something similar to what we did for the solicitors should be done for the water testing. that there should be information on the town news and emails as we do it saying, listen, in a particular area, in a particular time, the town has authorized these people to come and take the water samples. So if the building department and the town clerk gets phone calls saying, listen, somebody wants to take a water sample, we can let them know that it's okay for them to go in. I don't know if there's any kind of identification that we give them that has something with Southeast on it to let them know they're authorized to do this.

being that they're in and i totally agree and it was the solicitors that were on my lines when i suggested to bruce do we do we let people know so you know they have the vri id they're all in special districts so they all have the alert capability so i think when he's gonna we're gonna look into it this week yeah i have a couple of questions for vri and i think

we can put our heads together and figure out how we target those particular people so they know we're coming. And I think, as I said before, I think this is a problem that's solvable by targeting people.

There's more and more people. understanding how to use the internet and the email blasts and the town news, just the number of phone calls we get for solicitors is astonishing. So if we could just do it the reverse, where somebody that needs to be there, I think we can help them out.

yeah here i just want to acknowledge that i you got i think i got four calls in different areas of town for the solicitors and you nailed three of them that day so i got i got three out of four i saw six so you're batting 750. uh and uh i saw six tickets went out to active um so i appreciate you doing that people do not want to be solicited and they're not going through the permit process so that they're safe from that

we can ensure the residents are safe so thank you it's my pleasure my job was it you're really pleasurable I think it is it's not bad but just so the rest of the board knows this particular company is with a van, drove around the town, dropped people off, and gave each of them a Segway.

I was going to say, did you get the guy in the Segway?

I got that guy. Everybody got that guy.

Yeah, the Segway guy.

So when I went to say, you've got to get out of here, they said, you can't because we have to wait for the van to pick us up. But they stopped soliciting.

That's great. Thanks, Peter.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Drew Peterson. I live in Brewster in the village. I'm here to report that on June 28th, the eight ICE agents were on Marvin Avenue taking a resident. He was deported a few days later. There's ongoing big legislation about it. ISIS tactics and whatever are changing. They said they weren't going to do anything with cars. I don't know if they're going to follow that. This was actually two days after the New York State law said they're not allowed to wear masks, and they were wearing masks. And I have video proof of that. So I'm here to notify you of this issue that you're facing. The residents in the town and in the village who are facing this are afraid to leave their homes. They're afraid to go to the doctor. They're afraid to go to the grocery stores. They're afraid to work as much, so they need food. And when we're able to have food drives and we deliver food to them, they do not answer the door for us. And we don't look like ICE. But they don't open the door for anyone that they don't know. And I'm here to report that situation and ask what you guys can do. If anything, we could set up a legal defense fund. We could set up food banks. We can use the news broadcast to educate our residents about knowing your rights. And we are, a lot of people know this in the back of their minds, but I feel like it's an invisible flood, that it's around my feet and some people don't see it and some people don't know what to do about it. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I just wanted to follow up what Peter was talking about. And I think his work and yours on solicitations is great. But there's been a lot of political canvassing lately. And so it would be good to let people are very welcome to slam the door in your face, and they do. But I just want them to understand that that is permitted. I don't know if something could be sent out to that. as well to let them know.

I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, it's fine. I think you included that in your thing.

I think I did include that in the newsflash that we sent out. Great.

And we put that when I'm pesky on Facebook, I usually put that in there too. Religious, political, and utilities.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Anyone else? A recognition of the town board for any comments?

No.

Are we good with executive session?

Oh, yeah. I'll make a motion to go back into executive session. No action will be taken.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Thank you.