Town Board - workshop

The rain should be done. Also, it's like Jim.

It's just a new phone and it's really the buttons are in places where other things used to be. So I turn it down. Yeah, I've had it a month or so, but this used to, it's just, they change it just enough to make it difficult.

I understand.

That's some big font you got going there, Jose.

Are you going to pick on me?

No, I want it. I would like to have it too.

Yeah. And I still need the glasses. My mom says one word per screen.

I'm going to have to work on that.

Also, you're not yelling at me when you text.

No, I'm not yelling. So you can see it. All right.

We do, but it's like every five, six years.

I bet you run it for you. I really want to fix something about that.

I think we're good. Good.

Sounds familiar. Good? Yep.

Okay. Call town board workshop number whatever it is to order. Have the clerk note all the council members are present. We have an array of topics we'd like to just catch up on today and discuss. The first one was, I believe, parks. Is that right?

Yep, that's what was on the thing. Hear this.

Yeah, parks. Parks, engineering, legal representation, uh, private windmill towers, splash pad, Nike based septic system. All right. Sorry. Parks. What's going on?

Parks on there.

Oh, I think I think we decided to put that on her to keep the where we are with the building. Because the parks building has kind of fallen into the abyss.

The storage building?

Yeah. I mean, with the financial situation, we kind of find ourselves in a, I don't know what we want to do.

I thought, didn't we approve to go out to be designed or something? Yeah. I'm sure we haven't heard if it's coming.

Wasn't an RFP put out?

I'm trying to keep, I'm just trying to keep things fresh because things finally fall into the abyss. I think we, what else was there about parks? I don't know.

So I kind of understood that maybe you were concerned about the – holiday pay for part-timers.

Oh, that's the one. Thanks. Exactly what it was. I put it on there because a resolution for parks for holiday pay.

I don't know how you guys came up with that. I know you were doing some investigations on what's packed like this and what's acceptable and what's not. I thought Kellyanne made it pretty clear that it's not bad.

It wasn't. It's a slippery slope to get involved in. It is a slippery slope.

Whatever the majority wants to do, but I think we should just be careful there.

I think we should follow New York State labor law, leaving it at that.

So no resolution. That's what that was for. Appreciate it. Great things were flying out last week. I mean, it's a tough situation, but it's a part-timer job for kids.

Yeah, but you're going to, I mean, 4th of July, they rely heavily on those people for traffic control and everything else.

And if they decide they're not going to work, it's going to be a problem.

So it wasn't the discussion that on that particular week, they always end up working 40 hours anyhow. So that was back when I used to work there, we all worked 40 hours a week. I don't think kids nowadays are quite as motivated to work. 40 hours a week i can't speak for them i don't know i don't know where they actually that's so that's but i mean we wouldn't have worked 40 hours those weeks unless the fourth was on a weekend so i don't think that's true and i can tell you right now myself i would never have worked on a fourth of july if i wasn't getting paid more than the 515 an hour i was getting paid at the time but so you remember minimum wages a million dollars these days you remember because i've been over 40 hours No, because if, I mean, how often this year is one of the rare years where the fourth falls on a weekend. If the fourth didn't fall on a weekend, I would not have worked 40 hours in a week.

So we got an email from, well, I got a phone call. I got an email from Kellyanne, a phone call from Corinne. And she pulled all of the past all the way back to when you worked. And there was never overtime paid unless you did because you had to get 40 hours. That's the information I got.

I got the same information.

Some of those kids are working overtime. By overtime, I mean one, two, maybe three hours a week because they see the overtime sheets, but nobody's running away with it.

No, because they would get the same thing. If we worked on a Saturday to prep the ball fields in the morning, we would get paid overtime because we would have worked 40 hours a week. That had to get offered to the full-time Teamsters employees first. If they didn't take it, we would work it. We'd get overtime for that. And frankly, I don't know what they're doing now, but we were always treated the same way as the union employees. If we went in for an hour and a half to do those ball diamonds, we got paid for four hours.

So just a broader discussion, how do the recreation... Helpers get paid because they work at 2. Yeah, so, I mean, whatever we do with 1, we got to do it all. Absolutely. And we're setting a precedent. So I honestly can't tell you that.

I don't know what they do. I don't really answer it. I'm meeting with parks after this, so I can get more detail and reply.

yeah exactly where they are this week how it would be how it would work out just understand it's not four kids it's 20. right well probably not for parks wreck would have way more yeah right i don't know what joe does i don't either that's but they were out working the parade and i think when joe interviews those guys he tells them that they have to work the fourth of july the parks guys they're not like i said i used to block traffic at tops and they help with all that stuff but

But this isn't just the 4th of July. In that thread, there's an email that says, yeah, they plan to pay the holiday. So that's fine. It's just Juneteenth. That's fine.

We're still having growing pains at Juneteenth. But Juneteenth was a one-off because the only reason anything really needed to be done that day is because Kid Biz was the next day. So they had to set up for Kid Biz, which was why the lawnmower races couldn't get... You guys couldn't have the bleachers and stuff that you wanted because... Not you guys. Whoever. I know you go to them, but that event then lost access to that stuff when they moved the date because they were already overcapacity to try to get ready for that. So... um yeah i guess that's my that's my point is okay it's it's easy to look at it in a vacuum and say you don't want to pay those guys but when those guys say we're not going to work and something like kids biz doesn't get what they need then we look like idiots because oh you didn't want to pay a few bucks so now all these young entrepreneurs they're not getting set up because we weren't going to pay them overtime because it happened to be juneteenth before the parade right she's suggesting what holiday incentive um

that it'd be a holiday incentive, which would separate from overtime.

So that would make it a one-off. And that way it wouldn't be a thing where if we had a snowstorm and they came in and worked a different way, or perhaps if we had a snow day and they came in and worked, it wouldn't change. So like a bonus or something.

Yeah, which I don't care what we call it. And I think that might be a good, because then we have... The 4th of July, I think is a given, but like Juneteenth, some of these other ones, I think that would give us a little more control over. Yeah.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I'm putting on speaker phone, so I got to repeat it. This is Corinne, folks, telling us what's going on. Go ahead. Tell the board.

So, past practice started in 2014. So they did sneak it in when Mariah was there and Karen was there because I don't see timesheets.

Okay. So we were saying it was a one-off kind of a mistake because we had a turmoil in the office.

He got overtime because he had over 80 hours in that paid period. Well, over 40 hours a week.

I've never seen time work 80 hours in my life. It only builds 80 hours.

So it happened in 24, but not 25? It happened in 25. Okay.

Okay, so we have two years.

And that was, so just for clarity, that was Parks and Rec, that was everybody?

Yeah.

Okay. And it was just that holiday?

okay thank you to see clarity thank you thanks corinne yeah yeah i thought i don't want it so we call it a holiday incentive which has to be improved by the board we don't want them coming in on juneteenth just for the sake of i can come in and cut grass and get paid oh they were here on juneteenth the park was loaded on juneteenth

I want to be Friday again and kids business next year. You'll run into the same thing because kids business on a day after in Juneteenth is on Saturday, isn't it?

Juneteenth is always June 19th.

I know it's on Saturday, so it'll be a holiday the day before next year. It'll be Friday. We'll observe whenever we feel like observing it.

We can observe it Monday. So I think there's two resolutions. One, I think you put one together that says the board must authorize any Holiday overtime pay for part-timers. And then you authorize it for this 4th of July if you want to do that.

I would like to see it called holiday incentive and not overtime, just so that we have clarity.

Well, I guess let's do a little math. What are they? Do we know what they make currently? Because I'm what year they're in. 16, 16, 16, 16, starting when I look at those sheets. We're talking that would if they work four hours, that would be $40. So we could say anyone that works on a holiday for setup in an event will get a $40 stipend.

Just say it's a holiday incentive that they'll be paid an overtime rate for the hours worked.

With board approval, because otherwise every holiday we're going to have full staff of people doing something.

Instead of just approving a dollar amount as a holiday.

It's a holiday incentive, but the incentive is you get paid at the order. You're not being paid overtime. Yeah.

The incentive will use holiday incentive at the equivalent of time and a half, right?

Exactly. I hate to say this on why we're being, but what really frustrates me is this comes down to another department had issue where 2 years ago. They let the sink because someone signs those timesheets. And instead of the department had working with the town board. They kind of wanted to get their people more cash. When I had a summer job, it sounds like Tom, too, your employer told you, yeah, you'll be working fourth of July if you want to work here this summer. That was the incentive. You had a job. But it seems like they slid one past the goalie two years ago. Even our police, we tell them that Fourth of July is going to be a mandatory thing. I'm sure you've got mandatory days when you work for someone. You're going to work this day if you want a job. I'm watching. I just know that I don't work there. It's a slippery slope if we go down it.

I think that protects it if you classify it as holiday incentive that's equivalent to time and a half pay. But that has to be pre-approved by the town board. Otherwise, we have seven or nine holidays here. Every single one is going to be.

Right. I don't want to make a motion.

I make a motion. Why don't we do it just for the 4th of July for now and we can, yeah.

Okay. And then we can wear it harder. Because for the 4th of July is the only thing that we set up. Bans shut down. It's not a blanket thing. I make a motion that.

That for the 4th of July, 2026. Employees that work, do we need to specify the parade for the parks and rec department?

You should part-time employees. Part-time employees. All non-union employees. Even better, all non-union employees.

Non-union will receive incentive. What do we call that?

Holiday incentive.

Holiday incentive.

One and a half times.

Equivalent to one and a half times their rate. Is that how you say that? The pay rate? Anything else?

This is exclusively for the fourth of July.

Do you still want town board approval?

Well, this will be for that.

Annual town board approval.

Well, no, this is just for this year, 2026. And then we have in that closes the door. So there's the motion. Second.

Okay, motion second. Any more discussions? All in favor. All right. Give me a memory. So back back to the building before we walk away from it back to the building. I think that is to some degree a need in the future. Okay. So I still think that you should go ahead and get your design, get it figured out, understand what it is and let's know a number. Right and then let's put that in our in our upcoming, but, you know, well, not even our upcoming budget, but let's put on our capital plans, you know, what's going forward and let's see when we can make it make sense.

Because I think it's important because we got to get there actually ends up being cheaper than buying a building from some of the. Things I've been seeing on the market out there are pretty expensive. Well, those kids have built property costs money, right?

So we own this property, so that makes it a lot. And plus we're going to take the taxable property off the rolls.

Correct.

So we haven't heard that.

You make the building smaller because of fire code.

Yes. I think we need to understand what the number is. That was it. put it on our capital planning list and know that we can do it. I don't think you completely hit the brakes. You know what I'm saying? I want it too because it helps divide parking.

I think 4,500 or something.

Well, we've been looking for years for the right solution. I still think you have the number. I think it's in your back pocket. I think then when the time strikes or something gets paid off or it makes sense to plug it in, we do it.

You should check on the status because we did a resolution for design.

Yeah, I remember that. But, no, it actually was that was excuse my excuse my thought, but. That was me trying to think why I put parks on there. Reminded me why it was, it was a holiday. I know that was going back and forth, but the, um. For the, uh, the building purpose, if in fact. Mystery donor comes up that money that we were donating from parks. We might want to consider for some of the building too. I mean, it is always that's supposed to be for play.

So that's correct for these. That's us paid in lieu of.

Yeah, that's correct. He's is kind of to improve parks, not improve our, our, you know, three responses.

He's going through them and he's going to get them to us. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I think we need to know the number. Yeah, I think the number needs to be said. He's going through the responses as we speak. That's fine. That makes sense.

Huh? I don't know.

I saw that email. He sent out some responses on the blue from us.

Should we flip that to Spitzer while Peter's gone? There were more questions for legal in that email. Peter's going to be gone for another week.

Oh, he's in somewhere. Limited access.

Who did the RFP?

Lynn. She sent it to us. No, I know, but... I heard a comment, but it wasn't a very good RFP.

It was kind of everywhere. Yeah. Because we don't know what we want. We did ask for a lot of weird caveat. We asked for very strange stuff, so it's pretty hard to put that all together. Um, we're going to engineering. Why don't we, why don't we talk about the legal representation thing? I sent you guys all an email. Um, we are spending a fair amount of money in that category. I said, I met with every department head. We talked about their budget, where they are currently, you know, um, I call it like a midterm checkup. Just about every line is in sync with where they should be. Some of the ones that were overspent, we felt, for midterm were predominantly subscriptions or one-time year purchases where they were buying supplies. So that all added up. Nobody seems to be really... It'll catch up in the... Yeah. Nobody's really coloring outside the lines. We did say that we don't... We... Don't be out in November saying I got money left in my budget. Let's spend it. That's not what we want to do. And I also requested two things from all. Number one, they sit with all their liaisons before they submit a budget to Corinne and I to do a supervisor's budget. Because I want you guys to look at and understand your departments before they come in so that when there are questions, you can answer them.

Because it's your, it's your under your last year. We had those 2. we didn't know a lot of those. I think that's important.

The 2nd thing I told them is there's some lines that always seem to go over and other lines that are on touch. And I don't care for that. I would rather just. Fortify the lines that we always go around and be more. uh make it easier to forecast and let's minimize these lines that you don't use that are there for a rainy day that's it's not a good way to do things i don't like this whole do we have a historical list of we do like well over the last five years these lines are not touched we kind of know yeah yeah so we went through a bunch of that with them we're like look you got this money in this line you'd never use it and corinne goes i use this money to balance your budget at the end of the year minimize this, and put the money where it belongs. Let's really be transparent, show where you're spending it. So everybody understood that conversation and got it. I said, I really want to see less. Personally, I'm a less of a fall through budget. I want to see everything more allocated and something we can predict and forecast for. And they said, okay.

I had a question. Do we, I'm sorry. Do we keep a list of, so, you know, in the audit, we approve the legal bills, but they say, you know, litigation. They don't say case number six, two, five, one. Do we have a list of everything that's being litigated? It's a Da Vinci code.

It's in a binder. So every one of those has an itemized list of the date, what it was for, and what attorney did it, and who asked for it.

And that binder alone is worth $100,000.

But we don't attach them, because especially in the case of litigation, unions... No, I get that.

I'm just... Based on Pete's email, it's one of those things where I just... was thinking about it and i'm thinking okay what is going on and what do we and it's hard to keep track because then all of a sudden he'll bring up an update an exact section about something that happened five years ago right right and they've been working on it and well you know not that to say i'm going to stop it or control it but i had no idea

So they used to be separated. Here's general, which includes labor, everything. There's a section on litigation. So you could go to and find it quickly. There's also a section on solar and long road.

But you're not going to find.

You can give us a list saying, hey, guys, the town of Grand Island has 12 cases pending.

You could give us that list, but you're not. You would have to go through and do the legwork. The way it works, like every time I get a new file in my office, I open it. a new file number it's not like they have a general litigation file number for the town of ground so whether it's something with the indians or the pass around take your pick right all those litigation matters all get billed to that six so they're all gonna be you would have to go through the invoices and all the numbers it's like coded but each one is separated tom more case more for my my mental

Well, for my mental edification, it's more like how much of it is course of business? Like, you know, towns get sued regardless of a lot of things and how much of it is because of decisions that were made that we're defending or taking a beating on because we made bad decisions. That's more what, you know, what course of business is we're going to get sued.

Right now, it's way more... It's way more, I think, some of the decision-making right now than it is course of business. I think most of the stuff, like the personal injury type stuff, where we're just going to get sued, just being sued, I don't think that there's much that's actively being litigated right now, because I'm not pretty in on most of that stuff.

The line's higher for this year because of the reassessment, because all of those articles fell in. All that fell in. That added to it.

But it added. All the SCAR hearings...

That doesn't happen every year to that level.

So that added to it. We have a couple pretty substantial litigation things out there. Some labor. We have some labor stuff that's costing us a little bit more. You know, every time we do enter into, you know, writing new laws and all that stuff, that's illegal a little bit. So I'm not... Trying to say that they're overcharging. That's not what I mean, but that wasn't what I'm getting at.

I'm just trying to mentally. Yeah. You know, figure out like the assessment thing. It completely escaped me. I didn't realize that was going to be a big, it's not a huge number.

It's a number.

I guess if I had to ask anything on the board, I would just say, let's dab the rabbit holes. You know, let's not pay for going down rabbit holes. I have a question. Resolved in 20.

Still a couple. There's still a couple. Especially the commercial stuff. Those were always because of reassessment.

But a question for you. In this email, you said the line was budgeted at $250,000. Are you separating the general line from the litigation line?

The general line was $250,000.

General, not litigation. Because it's like $350,000 we usually spend.

Right, right.

So another thing that's concerning to me, and I put a note here, I pulled all the invoices when I did the last audit to see where they were paid because it lags. It typically lags by a month. And I should look back at my notes, but I think that that is not a six-month number. It's a four-month number that we're at. So we might be paying that.

We would have been paying...

January was for December and that's always goes back and it plugs into the 25 budget.

So I took everything out of the last audit to pull that in and added into that. There's also some stuff in there for battery and solar. That's a different attorney. So I added all that stuff together with our current spend on our five months back. And that's, that's where I came up with that number.

I had a higher, I couldn't make that number come up. So I must, you put something in. I didn't.

Yeah. so anyways um there was some stuff that was separate and it was in the last audit so um all i'm saying is let's just try to stay outside rabbit holes for the rest of the year i don't have to go down a rabbit hole actually i i'd like to for this board to start considering a town attorney i've brought it in but before um and i and i peter goffrey is a great guy very knowledgeable

But the response time, every department had everyone in this room. And that's had a problem with response time. Never saw these kind of response time problems when you have a town attorney. Sitting here every day they can. And I'm, I'm positive we can get someone in here with a benefit package for under 200 grand. And that's 24-7. You bring something down. It's written probably within the day or two or three days after research. Tom knows. I mean, you're an attorney. You get a problem today. If it's your priority, you get it done within a couple hours. You do your research. Peter is overwhelmed with what he has to do to put bread on the table for his company. I think it's time we get someone to focus on Grant. I really do. I don't know who it's going to be. I've talked to a few people because I'm out there. My next thing is to actually bring this to the board since we're talking about it. I'd like to for this time board to consider having an in house attorney. It's. We have too many too many things hanging Chad's. Takes forever to get a tree law. An ag law back and forth. We have no. Tracking of of what, you know, which version of the law are we looking at today? It is absolutely absurd how much time we waste. I'm legal things waiting for the left hand to know what the right hand is doing.

That was done long before my time. There used to be a town attorney and they, at that time switched to. A firm. I don't know the history. I don't know why. I don't know the pluses and minuses of disgust to make that happen back then. I'd like to do some more research. I know what they are.

I told you, you know my position on it. I'm willing to explore the possibility, but as a practicing attorney and understanding that it's easy to say, oh, I'll have an answer in a day, but not... Yeah, if it's an answer that falls within my area of expertise, I certainly will. But the stuff, the advantage of using a firm is we don't have to, we're not just relying on Peter. I just sent that email to Dan Spitzer about the garbage contract and said, Dan, I don't think this is you.

And Peter is gone, but send this to- I'm not saying the Hodgman isn't a litigating firm and they still handle some potatoes on the side from us. But the day-to-day stuff that we wait entirely too long for- is the stuff I think we could get picked up. I think, again, you know Broderick, call Broderick and see how nice it is.

But the day-to-day stuff, like, I mean, drafting some of these laws or somebody is an example of something where I would want some, but I can go look, sure. We've all done it where we went and pulled some other municipalities on you as a guide, but these guys know the pitfalls with respect to what's worked, where those things have been challenged.

Any in-house attorney has the Association of Towns as a bench. How many lawyers do we pay as members of the Association of Towns that any lawyer can pick up And call them and help them draft. Because if they have every other town in New York State that already has drafted a law, they can pool together our resources.

And it doesn't cost X amount per hour.

I don't know how cost effective it is. For me personally, especially being a new council person, if you've got questions, things, Peter's great. When I call him, he gets back to me within a day or whatever. A lot of times it's... you know, I want to just drive down to town hall and walk into someone's office and listen, man, I have this idea. Is this legal? Can I do this? Can this part, can we do this? And sit down with somebody and hedge it back for, you know, like I said, Peter's awesome. He's like, I'm boarding a plane now. I don't think it's legal. I'll send you an email tomorrow. And then, you know, You know, if it's cost effective, I think there's value there for getting, you know, Bob Westfall could just walk across the hall and say, I got three questions on this RFP. Can you give them to me? I'll call waste management right back. Instead of, oh, he's out of town. We've got to send it, you know.

I'm not completely sure that we get somebody who can answer 80% of our questions.

Then that's the other thing. The historical knowledge of the town gives me pause, too. How are we turning over that information?

Do we own that information? Despite that, I am willing. Let's explore it.

And maybe a part-timer is the one that can handle our thing, and we still have... I don't know.

I'm not saying don't let him be our litigating attorney. Don't utilize him when we need him. But I implore both of you guys to call Broderick. I mean, and the guy who is their town attorney was a councilman before. So he wasn't born and raised in town law. He was a councilman for eight years and then flipped to their town attorney. Alphonse Becks, I think is his name. I think I was going to have you go to lunch with him once just to see if he could tell you. I'll tell you, I'll buy you guys lunch. Talk to him. See what the pitfalls are. I don't mind putting it all on the table. What is the pros and cons? And then have the five of us decide.

I would like to explore that and see what it looks like. I mean, the labor issues alone, you know, to be handled in a timely manner and not... You know, I do think it delayed and then we end up in a bigger situation with it than we did.

I do think that stuff's going to start to, that ship's going to start to right with Kellyanne because she takes a more active role.

Some of the stuff, like even with the arbitration, like we know we have one example of this is going to arbitration. It has to be a lawyer. It's going to cost. Like there is something they said, even for that stuff, like there isn't a reason that I don't have the time to do it as a town board member and a practicing attorney, but if I did, there's no reason I couldn't draft, as an attorney, draft our position statement and send it to Peter to say, hey, look, give this, and now we're paying for an hour and a half of time for somebody to review it and comment on it rather than 30 hours to prepare it. That's the kicker, though. That's the type of stuff where I think there are some opportunities to have a hybrid model that could be effective.

exactly because to your point last board meeting the eli the the lot splitting thing you said hey make sure peter's okay with this that's it and i sent it to him 10 days beforehand and his comment was here at the board meeting because that's when he had time because he has other things going on and it's a minor thing to him i don't think anyone but we didn't know for sure if it was legally sufficient until he sat down and said yeah it is legally sufficient just add this line at that moment

The benefit would be better service for our department heads and for our residents. It would move things along from a labor standpoint. There's quicker action, so it makes corrections immediate instead of the behavior being seen as acceptable. I mean, there's just a lot of areas where it would be an advantage. So that's why I would like to see what it looks like.

I'd like Peter to retire and then we could hire him. I'm not even joking. If you ask Peter, I said, how much longer do you have? Because that would be key, right? He slides right in. It's not Peter's competence or his abilities that's ever in question. It's his amount of time he can spend.

Because he is so good at what he does.

Yeah. But every department that I talk to is frustrated. Because it's in the deep, dark legal hole. It's time to kick it out. But I don't think any of us are assaulting Aj and Russ. We do good work for us, but I think we need more audience. So I don't know where we go from here, but if you want, I'll start. Um, if you want, I'll get if you want, I'll ask Alphonse Becks to come up here and tell you what it's like to be a town attorney. He'll come up here. I'm sure he will. Well, so immediately, though, I think I just. Would like to see us all use our heads and that. Do more than we have to. And for you, budgeting-wise, as a budget officer, chief financial officer, knowing that number would be good, too. Because here's $100,000 for litigation. Here's X for our attorney. That's it. You don't pay more for him.

You guys can always answer whatever questions I can if anybody wants to.

that before we call peter but some stuff i can answer some stuff i can't i to be honest with you tom i don't you're you're a lawyer with little kids but a part-time job believe me yeah but i don't want but it's not fair we're looking for we're looking to set something in place that's got longevity i was just talking to my pie in the sky is what i said before my former career we had questions problems whatever we had a staff

And the lawyers, staff attorneys, they were there, man. And they had opinions. And ultimately, they have to defend whatever we do, right? So there's nothing better than being able. And a lot of times we make decisions because we're like, if we wait for legal, it's going to be a month. Let's just make the decision now. We'll fix it if it's wrong. And then it turns out to be a disaster.

So I'll do whatever I can to execute on that path. Okay.

Meantime, just be nice. Well, I will. Well, I mean, I meant for all of us. Let's not. I think it's very pointed. No, it's not. I'll be honest with you. One of the big legal things, too, that we're not even we didn't talk about all this environmental stuff we got going. Oh, yeah, that's coming up because Taylor sent us another. So that was a massive, that's a massive part of our legal. Oh, that's a. Yeah. So that's a pretty big.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because it was such a secluded area, no one could see what was going on. So.

Yeah. Yeah.

Did we all get this email?

Yeah, I don't think we all got this email. And the environmental issue that happened across the street. Oh, yeah. I mean, nobody saw that going. I got to listen to that at 7 o'clock tonight, please. Don't relive it now. I'm just saying. We should have been on that thing like private windmill towers. Okay, what I want to do is. Does what's the flavor of the board? I'm trying to do things a little bit different when it's stuff I'm bringing is. I don't want to spend a lot of wheels if 3 of you guys say don't my own meals at all. Why would I spend 1 minute writing a windmill? I'll just what we do is just, we would write them out of and so on and saying that not allow private one was not allowed. But if you think there is a way forward with private windmills, and you think that we could come to some agreement on a legislation, then I will write, I'll find someone who has a windmill law that allows private windmills. Uh, but I think I want to get at least 3 or 4 you to say, go in this direction or this direction, but not the height.

I would say if they're the height of a flagpole. You know, if they're personal to run a pump or things like, I, I don't see any issues with it. I think it's great.

My biggest problem is probably noise. How much is my concern? How much noise do they generate? If it's going something relatively small like that, it's not, I would.

Would be like an air conditioning unit. I don't think it would even be that.

I don't even think of that. I mean, I've been. I would not be interested in anything bigger than that. People run them for their ponds, right? To run the fountains and stuff like that. And I've been right under. Pumped is going to be louder than. Yeah.

So what I'll do is I'll get four samples.

Perfect.

Two that say no, can't have them, and two that say limited use, and I'll bring those for review.

And there might be some sort of decibel law, you know, we say not to exceed somebody. Yeah, at a consistent rate. Right. Not a startup or whatever, you know, so not to exceed somebody.

Well, that's some small things that are pretty loud, so make sure they're not very special. You have a flavor for moving while we're talking about that.

What about. I know it's not on our agenda, but data centers. We brought this up at the last, um, workshop and we also have had a couple of set at a couple of meetings where it's been questioning what we're doing.

We do a full on moratorium on it or. Ask zoning to write it out of our code.

Acceptable, I don't know. So, I, so I would be honest with you, because it's really close to hatching. I would probably take that to the donor reform group. And say, this is something that seems to be declared to the board. We're very concerned about data centers in the future as we adopt these new criteria overarching our commercial properties. Can we add in a component to. Basically, to tour or eliminate.

Data centers from our, or we make a motion asking the zoning board to do that. No, it's actually that reform committee. That's only reform for zoning.

Yeah. Should we make a motion asking them to do so?

I'm actually sit on it. Yeah.

So her, her writing it down is her taking it there. So we can, you can make a formal one if you want, but I really think.

Cause we have a state moratorium. So I think we have some time.

It's not signed yet. It is not in place.

I thought it was signed. I don't think it was.

Which we need a motion for that.

Signed.

What's that? The motion moratorium. But I, I have no, here's the question though. Again, I'm not, I'm thinking that was that side. I always do. What do we know about data centers that they're so evil? I mean, again, I don't think there's a place on the island where we put it. And the only place I could think of, Steve's mentioned it, we would have no control over if we lose the land dispute anyway. Where else would they be, a data center? I don't know. I mean, are we chicken? I don't think we have a big piece of property. Besides what you mentioned and what you mentioned, we'd have no control over anyway. A lot of reasons.

It would not make sense for anybody. If it were in our zone to be an unallowable use, though, it shuts the door and you don't have to deal with it.

Okay. I don't know. I just don't know the negatives of them. I would have to talk to our consultants there. But to say no is a lot harder than to decide. We allow adult bookstore entertainment. Yeah. Few properties, you know what I mean? So it's just 1 of those things.

Yeah. So once the 1 Senator, I think from New Jersey or something, they were talking about data centers. He goes, yeah, you can bring a data center. You can't increase our electric race. You can't change the environment. And he gave all the stipulations that can't be changed. If you can put a data center in my area. I know it's down in Florida and you can and you can adhere to the laws, not changing 1 law for your data center and you can not environmentally come in and mess up my, my area. So that's something that can happen. Why would be they use a lot of power?

They use a lot of water and they make a big constantly home. Because they're always running cooling towers area.

Also, that's like, they, they, they put off a sound that we don't necessarily hear, but we feel ultrasound. Yeah. And we just kind of like, drives people crazy that live near.

It was also filled with the water that heats our water. So it would process the water. Yeah.

I just want to know all that so we have intelligence.

I think it's so new, Dan.

People say it.

DEC is angry if we pick up a rock. How have they not lost their entire mind that they want to dump thousands of gallons of hot water into our river?

If you look at the data. Most of these data centers work closely famously to the law and got them approved and built before most people knew they were what was going on so i'll tell you when you read it because i read about it after the one in town one i started kind of and it's funny that most people didn't know they were coming when they came to their communities no well niagara falls looks like they want to put one downtown look i'd much rather do that just have them work on it than enact a moratorium and spend up we just talked about

We're over budget on attorney fees. Why spend another 10 grand drafting a law that we're probably not ever going to use?

So I have to reach out anyway because it's getting close to presentation and see when our next meeting is. I'll talk to Justin about it. And just an FYI, Ron milks and his team put together a nice list and send it off as we're getting into our, you know, wrapping some things up. And while they were doing it also added, even though we're not doing residential, just put, put some things on the board so it wouldn't get overlooked when we get to that section.

I got something from historical. They want that team to look at also.

Okay.

I'll, I'll give you a copy of it, but they wanted me to put it on the board agenda. So it'll be on the next agenda, but I want to get it to you sooner than later.

Yeah.

There's basically, they, they want some language, you know, not prevented just that they get an, an opportunity to say something before a demolition permits issued or just when I came in that day.

Yeah.

Yeah. So they got a formal resolution and I have it and they want it.

Okay, perfect.

That's primarily going to engage more when you get to the residential aspect of it. Right now, it's more of the commercial. But yeah, they also talked about potentially creating a little bit of a unique zoning down in Ferry Village because it's just different down there.

It's the same in our open space plan. For two years, they've talked about doing a study, but it just because they need to define it.

Yeah, they had a nice meeting with most of the residents there. There was some pushback. But for the most part, it seems like people are interested in preserving to them.

They just don't understand the benefit side of it yet. It's more of that. I'm going to tell you what you can and can't do.

Right. That's what they get worried about. Yes. Yeah. I understand. There's two levels that they kind of can't do. I mean, there's total control. Remember that old guy that came in and gave us that little clasp? I like to call him Bowtie. Yeah, you can't do anything unless the historic people approve it. But then there's also the part where it's more, I think, that we would be appreciative of the historic value and we don't have to follow every rule in the book.

It'll give them some funding and grants.

It'd be kind of cool to put a sign, so welcome to historic fairy village or, you know, gives it a little more cash.

It'll help the businesses there. I don't think anyone in the area is going to want them to tell them you have to paint your porch white, though. They're not going to want that kind of oversight.

Well, so the problem is everything there is not informing every single thing. Right. It needs its own world, because it is its own world. You know, that's where the zoning... It was built quite haphazardly. Well, it was built before zoning, probably before property lines, you know, but all that other stuff. Anyways, yeah, I think that's a that's a big discussion, you know, going forward when you get in the resident and residential and just to finish up with this whole data center thing. No, I think that's the appropriate way to do it. It's just wired into our commercial allowable uses or when it's not. And said, I don't really see us being overly vulnerable because we don't have enough big commercial mobs except one. um which you can see the river from and the power lines so uh that's probably what i'm concerned but let's just let them wire it in okay that's it done four okay uh splash pad i think we should probably maybe do that on an executive session we don't have an executive session we have an attorney

You don't have to. You have eight reasons why you can't.

Okay, all right.

Depending on what it is, you may or may not be able to.

That's something with personnel, so.

That doesn't cover.

Personnel? Well. This would.

Oh.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this would.

Well, it's a specific.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and Kellyanne said it's executive session. Okay. That's what I think it is. It is most certainly.

Okay.

All right, let's go to Nike, the septic system. Did you meet with engineering?

So, yes. So where we are with that is. Bob has worked with Sam long. We have had everything pumped out 1st time in. Well, she hears, yeah, whatever. So they put together a proposal. You guys, I think all saw it. I emailed it out. I just want to bring it up for a couple of reasons. I talked in depth with Bob. I would like to lay out a complete plan of how this is going to take place because there's a lot of confusion over who was responsible for what. And even if I present a thread of emails back four to six years, there's still interpretation of what that means. So Bob has agreed to oversee This piece, this asset longs will come in quarterly and do the jetting, do what, check the filters. If it needs to be pumped, he's already stated what that would cost us. Just the quarterly is already saving us money over what Jen is presently doing with another vendor. And that's the jetting. Not including every time something happens, $2,000. And on top of that, it's destruction of our asset. The building, the floor.

It's horrible working conditions. Nobody signs up for this. They could have poop overflowing into their workspace. That's just not.

So in order to make this nice and pretty and to live longer than we will here, I don't know if I need to do a resolution for it or just a memo that states how it's going to work for everyone. But I would like to sign this agreement. have authorized Pete to sign this agreement with Sam Longs and note somewhere in the minutes resolution or a memo that goes along with this, that Bob will oversee these quarterly inspections and that quarterly report will go to Bob as town engineer, but it will also copy town board so that we know going forward every quarter what's happening with this asset, and we can keep our eyes on it too. This has touched way too many people in the town with no resolution, so I want to keep it nice and tidy. On top of that, Jen, I talked to Jen's mentor, and she asked if I have a problem, Rhonda, who do I call? I think if she has an issue, it needs immediate attention, so she will have a phone number and a contact at Sam's Long to call And after she makes the phone call, she can send an email to town board and Bob or engineering department to say, hey, we have an issue. But at least she can act immediately with the person that's overseeing this. And we don't have another vendor providing a service on top of.

Yes, duplication of effort.

Anything needs to be added.

Have they talked about how that's going to get paid? They have not talked about this. Yes. Between Jen and Joe, I would think that they can figure out how to split it up.

Well, currently she has $1,200 every time she has it jetted in her budget. I don't know that that is quarterly. I've been keeping track of it when I do the audit to try to see what it actually is costing us versus what a budget line shows. So...

If the answer is, Jen's willing to just put it on her budget, that's fine. But the 2 of them need to coordinate theoretically, this is going to replace that. The point is, although Bob may be overseeing it, it's not going to be a line item on Bob's engineering.

No, it shouldn't be. No, it should not be.

So, would this need to be split?

I think it would be a shared thing. I mean, we don't need to worry about it now, but by the time that first invoice comes, when they put the voucher in, those two are going to have to figure out.

I'm going to put it all. I want everything in one spot. I'm tired of dealing with this.

I mean, they're both out of recreation and they both use the same, the same, basically the same money. So to split it is to make them more of an accounting issue. Just make it under Jen's budget. Nike, Nike bait. I mean, I think it would be smarter to have one person in their budget instead of him saying, I'm paying 30. We don't have a separate facilities budget.

They have line.

It's where those spaces are. If the expense was $100 a year, what they're saying is $0.50 from rec and $0.50 from senior. It's all coming out of the same pot of money, though. It's not like it's highway or waste or water.

Just for this year, so that they don't go over their budget, they would need to make sure that they have. I talked with both of them, I think, when we started that discussion about having this be a proactive plan instead of rehab. So they know what's coming. And like I said, maybe the answer is, now that we have the number and it's only $800, maybe it is Jen already has more than that in her budget, so it's fine just to think, great.

Well, from the time when this was all supposed to happen, we've had another situation there. So that's why I want to push to get this taken care of.

So I make a motion.

For the supervisor to. Authorize the contract for Sam's long landscaping.

So, for it, is there a, for the, it's a quarterly inspection.

I can give you a copy of this to.

So the court inspection fee and then a $1,000 fee for if they need to empty the tank. So it can grow, it can be less or it can be more. It's not a hard number.

But it's for the purpose of maintenance of the Nike-based septic system?

Maintenance of the septic system.

And I'll take a copy of that too.

Do you need the motion? Yes.

Do I need to add in that, that this will be overseen by a town engineer? Yes. I would like it to, this program will be overseen by our town engineer and quarterly reports will be copied to town board.

Second.

Okay. I'm not saying they're not qualified, because they absolutely are, and I appreciate their proactive . To cover everything, do we need to bid it?

Well, Bob had told me this is professional services. I asked him why he was looking at this and not another vendor who's been servicing that area, and he felt qualifications on this particular asset. We're more fitting, whereas the other vendor is more fitting for, let's say, our wastewater issue.

We just have the right guys. I know that's not what I'm saying.

I understand what you're saying, but when I asked that question, it was professional services and that that kind of.

And what's the dollar threshold? It's not that much if it's unless we have a. Professional services omits a couple of criteria there.

So. Just as a comment, I don't particularly, if we're assigning it to engineering, and engineering is picking up the ball that was dropped, I'm going to tell you, so you go back a little bit farther, you'll probably find out where the ball, where the train came off the track. Somebody retired who used to handle it, and nobody picked it up. His replacement didn't pick it up, and everybody's been going like this ever since. And the fact that it's been pumped up 20 years, it's kind of, crazy because everybody who pretty much owns a septic knows it's 15 years in a residential is a lot. If you can get 15 years in a residential, you're doing well. But nonetheless, it's been kind of floating around in no man's land. So I am happy that it's going forward. And I am happy that engineering is picking it up. I don't particularly think that once we hand it out, we need to micromanage it as a board. But if it makes you guys sleep at night, leave that in.

This has been an issue more years than any of us have been here.

I was going to say, this wasn't really dropped because there's emails from back... ways back where there was laid claim that they were going to manage this problem and it has not been managed. It's not been kept up. And we have paid way too many CERCO visits because of the not paying attention to us. I don't disagree that they need to be a little bit micromanaged. Things are dropping entirely too much. So Mike Brown used to make sure it all works?

make sure it works.

So we really at this point don't even have a clear picture of how it's working because it's built for a capacity that we are not using right now. So this is my understanding of it. So since we're only producing like 500 gallons flow through, it's not reached a level of service yet to really do an accurate assessment. But at least we have a start and I can't believe how long it took to get to this point from February and that's why I want it so detailed so that when we're not here, Because we retire, we move on it's it's in place.

I'd like to make 1 more there are sometimes I wonder what a console person is doing. And when you started picking this up, I'm like, what is she doing? Yeah. And then I realized. The depth of the problem, I just thought it was a problem with the system that was always going to be a problem because it was you'd hear the rumor. That's an antiquated system, but. And in actuality, we're under using just an under managed. I appreciate you not staying on the tracks on this. It ends up being very clear after you're done.

We're trying to make this a nice facility, as nice as we can make it, but I didn't want to put another dollar in there until we can protect it.

I guess the other vendor isn't. It was the other potential vendor that recommended that they keep both sides of it open, which is

It wasn't built.

That sounds like that's precisely part of the problem that God has.

So I can take that and get it going.

Just from a procurement standpoint.

I got one for you.

I'll take the sign. So just any more discussion? I think we beat them. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay. No. Do you want to do the original? No, we have a signed copy.

Oh, this is original.

Sorry, that was my copy.

We're out of ink.

I think we got a blue pen. Thank you. While he's signing that, just an FYI to you guys, we had another meeting with working crew chiefs and we're making progress with the training program. Very excited about it. You'll hear more coming up.

Something about it.

So anything else in open session?

Was there engineering?

Yeah, engineering. I think was one of them. I'm looking at my... We need we needed to probably since this is grown a little bit. We got some emails since this agenda came out. About the garbage collection thing we. And he wants answers by Monday. I mean, I don't know if we want to collectively come up and go through these, or do you want to just individually go through them and send your responses to Bob?

Dan just sent something.

I had a hard time following the coloring. Yellow was legal, blue was us. And then some of the blue that was us, I didn't understand how it was us, because I don't have any knowledge in that stuff.

Spitzer just responded to it.

Okay. Well, but that was...

No, but Bob already made some modifications based on some of his stuff. I was actually just trying to look over what he made, but there are some questions that...

Do you mind reading this?

RFP states escalation capped at 4%. Industry has experienced cost increases in line with the CPI WST index, which has recently run above the town's proposed cap. For example, cost of living wage increases alone are not covered by a 4% cap. Would the town be willing to accept an annual CPI WST cap escalator with 5% if it would result in a lower base price?

So it's raising the escalation cap to 5%. Up to 5%.

Basically, it sounds like what they're suggesting is that if we're willing to increase that to 5%, the price we get this year might be lower, but then you're going to get a 5% raise every year instead of having to bid it higher to accommodate the restriction of the 4% cap. Right.

So they're trying to come in hot. So they either build it into their price or we roll the dice.

Do we know? It'd be nice if we would historically, like I don't have in front of me what historically CPI index has been because we could also say it's capped at the loss of. What do we want to last five years?

Yeah, I can. Which data center are you using? I think that there's only one for that at all. You're a smart ass.

Let's see, 2021, 4.7, 2022, 8, 2023, 4.1, 2024, 2.9, 2025, 2.6.

Well, that has nothing to do with tax cap or anything like that or cost of living. That's just the CPI for inflation.

Well, but wait, that's... But there's... What they're talking about is there's a specific... There's a different type of CPI? There is a specific...

Dash WST CPI dash. Is that what you're talking about?

WST you said?

It's written in there.

Yeah, it's there's so there's a particular inflation index that covers the costs associated with waste industry. And that is what is our contract.

Yeah, there is. It's called Water, Sewer, and Trash Collection, CPI. So we got 2021 is 3.6, 2022 is 5.8, 2023 is 5.1, 2024, 4.8, 2025 was 4.7. So all of them are sub-five, but all above, except 2021, are above four. So in between four and five for the last four years.

I'm sorry, what? Under what?

Under five, above four.

Yeah, just barely below five. Yeah. Guaranteed, that's the water and sewer, and we got to do it under a tax cap. And we wonder why we're struggling.

That's an average 4.18.

Yeah, where everybody else is going up double.

That seems. So the cumulative effect is 22% over five years. It's gone up. Yeah.

Which is why we're about to get kicked in the tape.

Yeah. Because of the. So is it appropriate to raise that cap to 5% based on the data we're seeing?

Thank you.

It's an unreasonable ask to. I make a motion that we agree to raise the cap to 5%.

He also escalation cap at 4%. He took an idea of a fixed cap from other regional contracts. Maybe not a great idea. Does the town want to consider a different method? We may not have the fixed maximum increase, perhaps a 1% or 2%, whatever.

So he's asking if we can actually set the rate ourselves and not follow the CPI.

If you do that, if we say it's going to be a fixed 2%, then we're going to have a gigantic increase this year so that they can accommodate. We're complaining about us getting skewed. When they put these bids in, they're going to make sure they're not getting skewed too. So if we lock them into 1% or 2% a year, the cost of this year's is just going to go up higher so that they can do that.

Theoretically, I mean, it's not exact. The relationship to the CPI, the regular CPI, it's not incredibly off. It's 1% or 2% max. So I think it makes sense to... stick with whatever the industry is saying.

I mean, it's still the lesser of the way this feeds. The cap is 5%, so if it is 8%, they still get 5%, but if it's only 3%, they only get 3%. We're telling them they get 5% every year, and that seems like a reasonable ask, especially if it does result in us getting A better rate this year. I think I think that's fair.

And it'll when the contract's over, it'll keep us in line with where we're going to be within 5% versus 20%.

Well, that's that's where we're at now. So it's so really so far away from what we're paying. Yeah. But now there's this big delta and we now we have to catch that.

We're setting us up for just the times.

Well, we kept it. So we kept allowing it with the contract for so many years that it just got farther away from reality.

So, there's 2 negatives, there's the increase in costs and the decrease in service that we're going to be dealing with as a town board.

Yeah.

Right. Residents are going. Not be happy. No, I'm just saying we got it. Yeah.

We're going to be those phone calls. I'm a resident too.

I don't like it.

And we got it. It's in the. The executive, I wanted to say 275. I think it's in that it's in that neighborhood. I don't quote me on the number, but it's, it's around there. more than two of us than three. So, yeah. No, when I initially met with all those, I was like, oh boy, we're in trouble.

I was going to comment to it.

That's probably bad.

Trying to send them an email telling them what we're deciding right now, because I think time is, we need to get these back so these people can get the benefits. I'm going to run with this.

Spitzer just asked in lieu of this, if we wanted to extend a deadline. given the changes, are you considering an extension on the bid response time?

I'd rather extend it.

I'd rather give another week.

What we don't want to do is have to start from scratch again.

We just got that email.

When is it due? Like the 8th of July or something like that? The responses? Yes.

Yeah, he just sent that up. He just sent this to us Tuesday. So it's not like we're.

For some reason.

Did you see. Did you see Spitzer's response question about whether we're considering extending the. On your bins.

At this stage, we weren't, we're waiting, you know, we're under a tight schedule if it's... Well, like a week, not. But if we look at something that says, oh my God, you know, could we...

I don't know how quickly you're going to get an answer on the legal issues. That's the bigger concern. So I think it might be easier to tell them, look, we'll extend the deadline by a week.

Yeah, because everything is... I would have to go back and look at the calendar, what that means, because we were literally lining up for... receiving to be able to do to be able to get on a town board for the budget.

If we have to schedule a special meeting to approve it, then we do that.

Yeah. I mean, if we can't resolve then by all means, yeah, sure. We can extend it as consequences. Pushing it out further shortens the window for award for them to get assets on the ground so that they are ready January 1 to have to really- We're talking two weeks. Yeah, but ironically- What is the deadline today?

Okay, and on the other hand, Bob, while we may be talking about two weeks, we're talking about two weeks because we're asking questions.

Answering questions that they asked us to answer. I get it. Exactly. I get it. There was a revised just. We had to correct that in it. Do I have the exact date sitting here? Just reading them about a minute and a half ago. Just seemed.

What are you sending?

What is this that you sent us that has... All right, so in your guys' mailboxes, I had given you copies. In your guys' mailbox, I gave you copies. There's three different guys. One from Modern, one from Casella, one from... Each of you guys got those. Right, but what I'm looking at right now is the first email, the one that I sent to Peter Godfrey, copied you guys, was the ones that, of those, there were tons of questions that I'll say.

Those are the only ones I care about answering.

Because the ones you sent in your email, that's what we were about to go through. There's only one or two, maybe one. Yes, correct. Okay, that's fine. So let's limit to... No, no, no, and that's fine.

And how does what you just sent via email moments ago compare to...

These are what I just sent moments ago. are from the large packets that you got, you know, each of their comments, the ones that we answered that did not pertain to, let me say, needing input from the board to properly answer. This is missing, we fixed that.

We don't care about that.

I'm just giving you the whole copy of how we answered. And if you don't like what we said, you're allowed to please come to us.

All right. Well, let's focus on what they do. So we just talked about the 3% or the 4%.

All right, so you're skipping insurance. No, that's Peter.

Yeah, that's Peter, not us.

So four, right? Part B, no. I think it was only the first one was three, attorney and town board. Item three. All right. In my email.

I'm looking at the wrong document.

The thing you just sent is different than what we're talking about. Just the yellow highlights. So I'm down to where it says attorney, Tom Borden, Teal.

Oh, I'm looking at what you just sent.

Okay. My first one that has a highlight is part B, number five. That's right.

You're looking at Tuesdays or today.

Which one should we look at? I'm looking at the one that went to the attorney and you guys Tuesday. Okay, not the one you just said. You just said. That's all you care about. No, that's right.

We opened up the document.

All that is is our current replies to the ones that we don't really think we need.

These are the ones we need to solve. Okay, so this one, it's in the body. It's not a document. It's in the body of the email you sent.

Correct. If you look at the details that I copied you guys on to...

So this is escalation. Okay.

First question. So yeah. So correct me if I'm wrong. We just talked about this. It is the lesser of the CPI. It would be the lesser of the CPI or 5%.

You want to cap it at five is what you're talking about.

It sounds like a reasonable ask to cap it at five. It would be equivalent. If the CPI is only two, that's what the raise is.

It's equivalent to the CPI capped at 5%. I think that's the way it makes sense in the wording. Equivalent to the CPI WST capped at 5%. Does that make sense, Bob? I think that's how you would translate it, right?

Then it was the same thing, just capped at four. And their response is saying, if we have to cap it at four, this year's bid is going to be higher. So would you be willing to consider capping it at five, knowing that this year's bid might be lower, which seems CPI waste, not the regular CPI.

Okay, so bottom line, the CPI number is what you're looking at, but capped at 5%. Correct. I'm sorry if I'm repeating what you said, but I'm just trying to get it. Well, that's their ask. The bid has it capped.

The escalation cap is 4%. However, the industry says it's in line with CPI-W. Would you consider...

Putting the cap to five. Tom Board agrees with that. We can absolutely consider that was the way they threw it.

I think what they're saying is what you say, because perhaps we do a fixed one or two.

Guaranteed one or two and you get the CPI on top of it. Those are the kind of things I was throwing around.

We get a much lower price this year, but then every year we get kicked in the teeth even harder, I think.

So it'd be CPI plus one or two capped at four. So worst case scenario, 6%. But it's been more than six every year for the past few years. So we'd be talking... Well, no, you'd be, once again, six. It'd almost be like saying it's six, but you're saying capped at five. Okay, that's a 1% stay. Perfect. Makes sense from the board. I was just throwing spitball ideas that we were kicking around.

The next one is a similar question, but you're wondering if there's an automatic increase for just... Anything else? Next one. Other than that. Number seven. No. Eight. Contract provides for an annual CPI adjustment capped at 4% and a floor of zero. Confirm whether the adjustment is intended to be sole mechanism for addressing increases. Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, that's. Feed three of them.

I mean, it's what we've been. There's never been any operational costs.

They're trying to say if there's a little bit more. That is exactly the statement of things that were completely outside of anybody's control are, you know, nobody expected, what, a dollar a gallon diesel. You know, you've Yeah, I don't know. I'm just asking if the town's position is go pound salt, that's the way it is. That's part of business. I would say that's part of consideration. Well, you know, ironically, so like DOT lets contracts, they have an asphalt adjustment, you know, petroleum multiplier. that is just whatever the hell is going on it's cooked into their contract that says you know because everything's driven on the left and right uh you know i ran out hands and we got two dollar gas then they're making money yeah so that's i mean that's running your business yeah okay and then i'm not taking this one way or another just presenting for dialogue and where do you guys so when i had trucks on the road gas was a kicking tea right yeah

I think that's the cost of business. I mean, do you raise your delivery rates for factories or whatever? But we're seeing that happen.

His delivery rates are day off. It's not...

Right, but he's still paying $5.15 a gallon to drop your water.

When it goes down and when you deliver something, it's... I buy a lot of... You do better. Yeah, it's just the way it is.

I'm seeing UPS hit you with fuel surcharges. I'm seeing FedEx hitting people with fuel surcharges. I'm

I mean, even if we wanted to do it, it would make it exceptionally problematic to budget accordingly for that. So I...

It's a difference between a long-term contract to me and doing business as you go. You could just, if you're providing...

I think most form contracts have provisions for force majeure and all sorts of other things that would give them abilities to come to the table and try to negotiate should a truly exceptional circumstance arise. Uh, last was specification. All right.

So that was seven. We just answered also because it was C3 above eight. No, eight is contractor includes board and contract includes broad indemnification obligations. That was thrown to Peter.

That's nine.

Eight says attorney and Tom. I'm sorry. What are you looking at? I just moved to the same time. I pulled it up and printed it. Eight is highlighted yellow.

Okay. And then 10 is the next one. It's highlighted attorney and blue, which is the specific requirements of the contract to dispose of all.

Okay. Yep. Okay. No problem. Let's I mean, if we start the dialogue with this is the first sentence. So I know which. Okay. So, okay. So we did answer, I mean, the contract provides the annual CWs. That's the same as above that we just said, 5% is where we're going, Vic, 5% number. Or CPI or 5%, the capped. It's the CPI, but capped at 5%. Yes, gotcha.

Yep, that's what I wrote in my column here. So 10 is basically the same question. They can do an escalator if they... No, that's part of the CPI.

That is about disposal.

Yeah, but it's the same question. Can they come back to the board and say, disposal got more expensive. We're going to charge them more. I say, no. They got to figure that out. That's the... It's part of it. That's why you bid it. Those are things. If not, we should just contract on a monthly basis.

That's what I'm trying to say. Let me put it this way.

I had no sympathy and mine was no. One of these people own landfills. How does it become more expensive for them to dump in their own landfill? Some don't. I mean, modern and place management all do. Some burn it right across the river. Don't forget Modern was in our backyard in Lewiston. I have a little garbage experience.

I mean, look, and this is Peter can... The answer to five is that it's permissible.

And you're saying five, so discussing what?

It starts with, will the town board be willing? It's in yellow.

Mutually agreed upon contract. Well, bottom line, this is a bid. This is not an RFP where we go, okay, we're hiring a contractor based on his garbage disposal skills. We pick you, now let's sit down and negotiate a contract. That's not what this is. This is a bid.

But they're not talking about... they're talking about negotiating the terms of the contract as in the stuff that we just talked about. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, yeah, I think that stuff is subject to, that's always going to be subject to attorney to the extent it's not covered in the RFP. Yeah. It would be subject to a mutually agreeable contract. Some of those terms are going to be negotiated. How much, I mean, that stuff is, Yeah, I can tell you I'm not going to be inclined to soften.

The answer to that one is TBD. During the bidding process, there is no consideration. But if under contract and situations occur, could be discussed with the board.

Well, once they occur or as we negotiate the contract.

No, just when the contract. Well, if they're coming back, they're coming back at year two for the term two for renewal. That might be a legal question because we are giving them in the app.

That's why this one's in the middle of a contract.

No, that's my point is we we do this RFP. We get the bid when we elect to. They're going to propose a contract. This is all just subject. This is all the stuff we, what they're talking about is when we say subject to attorney approval, what they're talking about is all the crap that goes on in the background between Peter and those guys about the indemnification prisoners, insurance requirements, that stuff. Yeah, sure. That all gets negotiated, but I don't want to say negotiate because the subsidy finalized the contract. Yeah. That's probably a better way to do it. So yes, I think they can raise those reasons. But it's all outlined in the RFP, too, so we're not going to. But a lot of that stuff is covered in the RFP. That's why they're asking questions about the indemnification provisions and stuff like that here.

But yours says the RFP states.

But the point is a lot of that stuff is already covered there, and I'm not going to deep, and Peter put that stuff in there intentionally because he's making sure that we're protected. Yeah, his job is still correct.

Right. So that's, I guess, then to be determined after org. That's the response. Yes. You agree with that statement, then? Because it isn't a yes, it isn't a no.

I, my issue would be any we

I left that in Peter's hands.

It should probably be far closer to a no.

It was solid and yellow for Peter to answer or legal.

It should probably be far closer to a no because what you wouldn't want to do is accept the terms and then not be able to agree on that stuff to the extent that they have to be prepared to comply with the terms of all of the material terms in the bid.

You're agreeing with my statement. I'm thinking a no. You're going to agree and water my contract, but then you can't come to an agreement. Right. Right, so now you're really in trouble.

The next one, we're taking care of the performance bond. I'm making sure with Peter, but my reading is that it's 100% of the first value, first year's contract. First year, first term. Will the town clarify the performance bond is 100%? That's the one I'm talking. We just did the one above it. This one is 100% of the first value of the first contract. Here is what I believe it is from reading the contract. But Peter will try. That's the reason it's purely in yellow. That went, Peter, please answer. Yeah, again, that could be.

And how do we address the following years? What year? What is. What does that mean?

So we're you understand what a performance bond is. It's a guaranteed at the term of. So we have the bid is the bid isn't. five years, the bid is a yearly cost. The first contract is five years long, but the bid itself is a yearly cost. The performance bond they put up to do the work is the guarantee of the first year. So what happens at year two? The performance bond, because it has a new value, The one year less. And that's why I'm asking Peter, do you issue a new performance bond that covers the cost of year two? Do you issue one? It's a five-year contract to start. Should the performance bond escalate the same as the contract?

Right.

So do you issue a new performance bond each year for the value of that year is what I'm asking Peter. I don't know the answer. That's why that one was just yellow. Didn't even go to you guys. Yep. The next one obviously went to Peter too. And it's, you know, we hire them. And then for reasons we terminate the contract, you know, let's say we're two months into it and we go, this didn't work and goodbye. You know, they have made an effort. They have put assets in place, whatever. Do they, is there a mechanism for them to, be compensated to recover their assets. That's a cancellation fee. Well, they got to go pick up 7,000 totes and coordinate and do and whatever. So, you know, that's a bigger question.

No, tell them to do a good job so we don't fire them. Right.

Tom and Jake, that's absolutely the perfect, you know, we don't anticipate, but that means that you perform, we won't fire.

All right.

The next one is, was to both, but we answered it previously. Now the contract concludes for broad indemnification. Once again, indemnification stuff, Tom might want to answer, but I'm leaving it to Peter. I'm telling you guys, um, Once again, this was really about, hey, it's costing us more to dump now. Can we get an offset for that? You kind of went down that path and went, that's your risk reward of entering a contract with us for.

So I- Yeah, bid accordingly so you don't lose. I think they want any risk at all in this contract. Right. Yeah, we'll take all the rest.

I know they won't put a time time and said, they just want the, you know, the best contract for them with no risk and whatever, you know.

And it's daily cost partnership. Daily cost plus 100%.

That's, that was the questions from the board. Let me just look at the stuff I just sent out and make sure Lynn doesn't have another one where he would, the insurance was Peter. There was a word I had kicked over to Peter. That's a Peter item. I had kicked that over to him. We are still struggling around this, how we're doing this bulk thing. We set up a seasonal, the spring and the fall, a number of weeks where material you can put out, you know, your leaves in bags. kind of thing. Well, so one of the questions that came back on the sticker program was Would, you know, can that be done through the town? You know, people, residents come in and buy the 10 stickers and then use them when they want or something like that versus modern trying to, or whoever, selected contractor trying to.

Yeah, I looked into this. Usually the town pre-buys. Say each bag costs 20 bucks. We pre-buy a hundred bags. They sit in the office. So we paid them already. They come in refuge. And then we, we sell them to our rest.

I was trying to keep, you know, we were, we were trying to keep the money, whatever. Keeping staying out of the garbage business.

Yeah, but they're, but they're not going to be selling bags there either. They don't want to get into the individual resident.

Maybe that's something the clerk's office can collect fees for. Carbon bags would be selling stickers.

I haven't discussed it with other towns, but some towns do.

So, wouldn't would it be an unreasonable you were trying to push it off a separate line item to say, we're trying to stop at the clerk.

I'm sure they're saying the opposite.

They don't want to get the business of your residence, Congress stickers either. Right. And coming to their place and managing 20 dollars to mail them for 1 bag. No, they're not going to do that. Not at their level. I get it, and that's why I was like, and I couldn't, without talking with the board and without her in the room, I couldn't say, you know something, yeah, we'll sell stuff.

You said she'll research what other towns are doing or how they're handling it.

I thought we discussed Balk as either... It's two different kinds. You're talking rubbish, and I'm talking big items.

Interesting look, it turns into gray areas. We have bulk pickup once a month in the contract, and that was up to five items to be put out, washers, dryers, bulk items, name it. is so then we also have a heavy time for yard stuff. So does the person putting a large bag of clothing out expected to be pick up during heavy leaf and lawn clippings because it didn't fit. By creating this matrix, we've made this really sloppy mess of what the hell we're doing with exceeding the eye. As soon as you get outside of the cart, it's getting messy. When we talked about it, I was holding a harder line going, we're not doing leaves and grass clippings, I'm sorry. Dialogues led to let's put in a heavy spring and heavy fall. There's just no way. Because the town doesn't do leaves. The town doesn't do grass. We do branches. That's it.

If you don't do bulk pickup and you don't do yard waste to some degree, it ends up everywhere you don't want it. Right.

You don't pick it up. It's got to be reasonable. It's got to be something.

Yeah, it's got to be reasonable. A lot of towns actually do a, so they have a container and you can bring up your own bulk and put it in there, but it's usually a facility that's managed. Right. Because if it wasn't managed, it would be a free-for-all. Again, we're trying, yeah. So it would have to be like behind the gate where a facility is open a couple hours a day. Right. That's the way a lot of towns do it. We aren't really set up to do that anywhere in our facilities.

Can we do something again? When you are a Lewiston resident, you can get a permit. And you can dump once a month. You go through the show and dump whatever you want. I was going to say that. I'm saying that. Well, if they have to offer once a month, you can take it to the dump yourself. I mean, I don't think about it. I don't think, let me just speak. I don't think the waste haulers want

General public coming. I mean, between the tire claims and in the way of their operations. You've seen those places run, man. It's a line of freaking garbage.

Will you dump your rubbish? I took a roof off my shed. You don't drive from here to across the street as far as they let you in the area and they have a place they dump it and their big trucks come and take it up to the dump. You don't go up the dump. You're a dump spot. I'm just saying they do that. You know, of Lewis and have that dumping my, my kid just dumped some stuff. It's a sticker goes down there. It gets a sticker. I'm saying that might alleviate some of our roadside pickup. If we could get. A system where you could take it to the modern disposal yourself.

We've created a situation. Yeah. I mean, is that a fix? I mean, I don't. So as you said, you pull the roof off. I did something similar. I went up to Home Depot and bought one of the bagsters.

Yeah.

And signed up and had that out at the street and put all the cabinets and crap that we knocked out and did in that thing and then called them and said, come get it. You know? Yeah. You know what I mean? So, you know.

Yeah.

No, I get it. I'm just saying that's another option.

The board directed us that we had to provide a service. So we're stuck with heavy during long, you know, twice a year, instead of going all, you know, 365 days a year. We went to a period in the spring and a period in the fall.

I'm just saying, is there a way in the contract to give residents an option to get a permit, a dump permit? Once a month. Does that tell you the truth? Again, my wife lived on Spicer Creek and she had 29 bags of leaves. Literally what she would make me do, she'd make me get that permit, throw them in the back of my truck and run off to Modern and dump them up because we'd have no way to pick them up. There's no mechanism under the zoo contract to pick up 29 bags of leaves. Compost. Yeah, but you're talking... We are discussing having a compost.

Well, you know, the 29... Let me say, you know, Lynn, in my discussions, sure there is. Because except for, oh my God, the tree held them until the... We have a period that we're saying for, and it's like a four or six week long period. For the spring cleanup, and then of course, I think it's longer than four to six weeks in the fall. And what's the limit for bags? It was... That was right now up in the air. That's right. Or at 29, even if we said, okay, I mean, I hate to say it this way. If we, let's say we put it at eight bags. Okay. Okay. 29 divided by eight is... So for a three-week period, you're putting so many out and you're holding the others till you can put them out. Right. My point is...

It's because they do fall one time sometimes. I know. My wife would say, go get that permit and take the 29 bags and then no one has to pick them up. It saves a ton, all kinds of tonnage too.

I was the guy that didn't want that in it at all because number one, it's the tonnage and number two, that's taking up valuable landfill space where that stuff should be composted. We don't have a compost facility and we're not requiring the contractor to use a compost facility because the escalating costs get silly on that. So yeah, I mean, there's... I don't know how, like I said, I was being the hard ass and going, no, we're not doing it at all, and got pushed back down to we need to still do this.

Well, from their perspective, so anything that's not in a tote is labor intense, massively. If you told them we're going to make sure every single possible thing is in a tote and you come do a bulk pickup once a month, we would get a different number than doing what we're doing. We absolutely will. Slinging bags adds cost. It adds labor. It adds labor and it adds all that.

It's injury insurance. As soon as you add the second guy, it's a cost in the truck. As soon as you add the second guy getting in and out of the truck, it's a cost. As soon as he's lifting, moving something, it's a cost.

Their perfect world is everything is in a tote. They do this, they do this, and they drive on. That is their perfect world. I'm saying that this actually would aid to their perfect world to read.

Make people rethink. Like, if I have an old shitty dresser, and instead of putting it to the curb, I want to get rid of it, I just come down and get a permit and go to the dump on Saturday and throw it out. I'm just saying that I would do that. I don't know if other residents would.

I mean, that's a while. Okay, so when you get your... I mean, the only place I've ever gone is to the metal scrappers to dump stuff off that way. And, you know, that's a, okay, wait. Way in, way out. Get something. Are you paying a fee based on what you're dumping? I don't know because of the whole community agreement. Bob wanting to get rid of a dresser is way different than Dan getting to get rid of 29 bags and other things you may do versus a one-time person and you're saying get a permit. I have a truck.

I have a trailer. I have help to do it. A lot of residents may not have that.

We still have to have the once a month for everyone else, but I'm just saying it would reduce. I'm just saying for me, because now it goes to once a month. I'm just saying, can it be an option that we can bring our own shit to the dump? I mean, because they're going to pick it up.

Outside of this.

If they're going to pick it up anyway, why not just let us bring it there?

I mean, we can find out, can residents get a permit to dump there?

Right. That's what I'm saying. That's part of this contract.

So I think all you say, Bob, is you say, what's your offering for one of our residents to buy a dumping permit at your facility? If somebody wants to go down that road, they've got to go.

Now, I'm constructing companies. But through them or through I think it's through that.

That's why I'm trying to minimize.

Now you get it. You want to buy extended service. Here's your rate. Still buy it.

It can't be a crazy question to a Disposal company, I mean, but you just literally said it 2 different ways. Yeah. Yeah. Once we get to find out through modern or they come in here and get all the information.

They weren't purchased again. This is what we just go there and you could get. As a homeowner, you can get 1 dump. Permit a month. That's what it was when I lived there. And I don't know what it is now. My son just got one because he went and dumped some stuff. It's a point of controlling how much volume the residents bring. Right. You want to make sure that some roofing company on Grand Island doesn't decide to get a permit every month and dump all their roofing stuff. It has to be for the resident, for residential disposal. It's just another way to help a leave. We're trying to come up with ways. And give us options to take it ourselves.

Well, so that... that minimizes the cost to all just because of a few. And that was the other part of that. You can't wire this into 55%. You've got to wire it into 85% and give the other 15% an opportunity to sort out what they have. Yeah, we can't leave them alone. We don't want to dump it at the end of our dead ends. Exactly.

That was funny.

I have a question just to ask whoever. To say, hey, by the way, it doesn't seem like And why would they doesn't add costs for them no that's also going to them, no matter what I say sometime and then yeah they get a little like so to me I i'm a little less concerned about price a little bit.

More concerned that it that service is available, so if it's available it's available and then we can is available to loosen residents, so I wouldn't if modern already get it if it is available, what is your number yeah. I don't know if the other company, it's pretty far away, the Hall.

I was going to say, Casala's in Rochester. That's right. Waste Management has one maybe in Chaffey. So we'll put it as feasible. That's what I'm saying. I think that's almost an after. We don't even ponder it at this stage and go, hey, so the thing is we're still doing five out. It gets flurry, though, with I mean, any garbage refuse and waste materially intended for disposal can be placed outside of a cart for collection, must be in watertight plastic bag or watertight containers. This language is not applicable to a cart-based program, correct, because we're trying to go to carts for dumping. We do have bulk, which is the once a month, five items. That's going to cost... No, actually, they said that would be... Right now, we include it in the waste stream, and they said if you went to every single week, and if you went to once a month, it's going to be a cost savings. Because they said, to be quite honest, statistically, people put out at best each household once a year.

We need to determine, based on things that can happen logistically, what would be the best... day of the month.

We'll work through that. It's going to always be a state. Number one, it may be the third week of the month. Because keep in mind, everybody gets picked up weekly. One of those weeks is going to be the heavy.

Are they going to pick different weeks for each area? Yeah. Or is it all in one?

So they would bring their assets to Grand Island and go Monday to Friday and pick up everybody's bulk.