(1) Town Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, folks. I'd like to welcome you to the Red Hook Town Board meeting of Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026. Would you be kind enough to join me in the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. And Suzanne, if you'd be kind enough to

pan to the screen so the folks at home can see what we'll be discussing tonight. We are going to continue our discussion on uh request for a couple of highway trucks as the first item. Uh we've got a rather lengthy first cut at some of the grant opportunities that may uh present us as part of the CFA application process. typically takes place in July. We're trying to get an early jump on it so we have enough time to contemplate what uh may be available for us, what we might be competitive for. Uh takes a fair amount of work to put together a successful grant application. As you know, um the town of Red Hook has a strong history of grant applications. Um, success breeds uh more grant awards. I think uh New York State knows that when we apply for stuff, we complete the projects and you'll hear from our engineer Brandy Nelson who is here with us tonight. Um some of the subject matters um that uh we can explore for this year's or really this season's um grant application. we are going to hopefully uh consider and let the bid for the water storage tank rehab project. If you've been following along for the last few years, but certainly for uh the last several meetings, um we've been discussing the

uh water board uh would like to go out to bid to do a restoration of the tank. they've chosen that option and so we'd like to let bids uh for that so that we can get um those amounts back from interested vendors um we have a uh correspondence a brief discussion um a letter from the record of fire company and um it relates to volunteer levels and So, um, anyone who's interested in volunteering for either the Red Hook Fire Company, one of our committees, one of our boards, please, um, you know, think about it. Okay. Uh, and then we have a ministerial thing, a resolution to approve standard workday, something we submit every few years to the comprollers's office. We've got one item for reorg that I know about. Perhaps there are more, but certainly the ZBA chair Um, and then other business. Um,

I think that's it. So, let's uh jump into just go over a couple of announcements this weekend. It's it's Earth Day uh today this week. Um, we have a lot of uh events surrounding that. Harbor Day, we have a wonderful treat committee here in the town. Arbor Day once again falls on this weekend. It's rain or shine and apparently it's going to be some rain perhaps. The forecast Saturday, April 25th, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. That'll be right here at Red Town Hall. If you don't see the tents out front, uh come right on in to uh town hall. This main we give away free seedlings, saplings I should say, for uh trees. Uh Duchess County Office of Veterans Affairs would like to let you know that their operation mobile outreach, which is um a mobile uh trailer they bring around visiting local communities to help veterans, especially those recently discharged their families and members. and they are coming through Village Hall on Monday, May 11th from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Cleanup day. So, uh, we started cleanup day about tissues tissues. Uh, cleanup day is May 2nd, 1 to 4 pm. We provide you with bags, gloves, pickers. You can choose a road in your

neighborhood if you like. It's 1 to 4:00 p.m. We have been doing this for this 17th year in a row that we've been doing this meet here at Red Hook Town Hall. So on Apple Blossom Day, which is May 9th, 2026, we have several things going on in the township as well. We have Shred Day, a very popular event. Um it says town hall parking lot, but you'll be entering this year uh through the highway uh sorry recycling and then one of the lanes through the highway grounds and coming out towards the town hall parking lot and that is from 10:00 a.m. to 100 p.m. We also have e-waste. All of these events are free by the way. We have e-waste event. Um, Saturday, May 9th, 7:30 to 1:00 p.m. Again, you enter in uh Red Hook Recycling Center, 21 Glen Pond. Here are some of the items that you can bring. I don't know if it's possible to read all of that. Okay. Okay. And then the last announcement uh is just related to something that we pioneered here in Red Hook because we'll be talking a lot about electric tonight. Um we received grant monies for being one of the first four clean energy communities um in New York State and we launched a a program with an additional grant um to demonstrate electric landscaping equipment. So, we had volunteers from our energy committee went around to the residential neighborhoods here, Red Estates, the village, uh, Forest Park.

Um, we mailed down ahead of time and, um, mow people's lawn and they had the opportunity to come out and try the electric, um, equipment and, uh, it was very successful. um the local um stores reported that sales were quite brisk after we um did that demonstration project. Um Senator Krueger from Albany has a bill that she sponsored that has now been passed which would offer some uh rebates for those who convert over on her um messaging out there. Um it talks about how one hour of an uh sorry a gas leaf blower um emits the same air pollution as a car going 1100 miles. So 1 hour 1100 miles that's out from her office. So I thought that was interesting that this is something that may be available um to our community and to residents of our community. Okay,

let's take some public comment before we go ahead and get started on our agenda. Who would like to make some public comments? Again, we would ask you to We're going to do 15 minutes, three minutes each, Albert.

Yes, our trust. Um, Robert, in November of 25, Judge Rosa struck down the town law due to our the article 78 filed by V Club. At that time, our attorneys rightfully keen and me filed a notice of appeal. The purpose of a notice of appeal is to protect the client's interest as to whether or not it wishes to go forward with that appeal. I've been advised by Bill Hurst, the attorney for the uh Bo Club, that recently within the last 10 days or so, Keen and Bean have filed a letter with the a request with the appellet division to extend the time to perfect the appeal by 60 days. Now, it they had 6 months in which to go forward and the day the time to perfect the appeal is 2 days from now, the 24th of April, as I understand. I don't know if they've been granted that 60 days, but what I'd like to point out to the board, and I this is the question I have. It is the board's decision. It's the client's decision as to whether or not to go forward with the appeal, not the attorneys. I would like to know when the board approved Keenan Bean to go forward with this appeal. I'd like to see those minutes. And the other thing is Keenan Bean recused themselves from the current article 78 which is pending before judge Rosa because they had a conflict of interest. Now I want to know how they can possibly represent the town if they've already recused themselves with a conflict of interest. I don't understand it. Okay. And the second thing is uh you have not yet voted as a board to allow Hodgekin and Russ to go forward with representing you at the article 78 proceeding right now which they filed papers on. Second of all, Hodskin and

Russ now a week to 10 days after the papers were due have tried to file more papers which our attorney has made a motion to strike. Okay. because they're filed. They're not filed in time. Now, then they write a letter now, as I understand it, seeking to have a conference with the court. Are they going to travel from Buffalo to Pipsy for 20-minute conference and then back to Buffalo and charge a town for this? You've already spent, as I understand, $293,000 on this case. 293,000 and that's only through the end of November this December, January, February, March, which we don't know about. Now, uh I I'm asking when are you going to authorize it? Because if you don't authorize this, I'm going to ask Bill Hurst to make a motion to strike all of these documents on the grounds that the board hasn't authorized these people to go forward. They're not town attorneys. They are hired counsel.

And nobody has hired them or authorized the payment. And I don't care. I looked at the original uh agreement with Hodkin and Russ. They were not hired to handle an article 78. They were hired to handle the eminent domain. And furthermore, Robert has repeatedly said the article 78s are not associated with eminent domain. Now, if that's his position, then obviously Hotskin and Russ has no business being here representing the town further increasing. I'm sorry. Stop. Robert, I'm going to finish. I mean, you can say whatever you'd like.

Okay. So I'm asking the board right now who on this board voted to one ask an attorney's affirm which recused themselves to now go forward with the appeal a week before the time expires. Do do any of the four of you have an answer for that? Albert, how about rust? When are you going to prove HUSTLE PLEASE? I'm done Robert. I'm done. I want you to answer these questions and don't tell me to file a file a foil request because I'll ask each one of these members right now to tell me whether or not they authorized it to hell with the foil request.

Thank you for your public comment. Is there anybody else who'd like to SEE

anybody like take three minutes? Richard Ross count club.

Bill and Jacob, we've long suspected that you along with your former colleagues Christine Kane and Julia Solomon were nothing more than rubber stamps for the supervisor. You may resent that characterization, but at the last meeting, the supervisor only reinforced it either by making you fools, making fools of both of you, or exposing a trouble troubling level of incompetence. You were elected to be responsible stewards of public resources. In that duty, you have clearly failed. Jacob, you hold a law degree, and although you do not practice law, and it's unclear whether you passed the bar exam, your response to council member Migarelli's question about whether you knew an answer had been filing after regular business hours on April 10th was astonishingly weak weak as you said, I knew we had to make a filing. It's all you said for us. Bill, your response was no better. You simply shook your head and said, no. Uh like Robert, both of you have repeatedly m maintained that the zoning amendments were unrelated to the eminent domain action. Yet in March 2025, you were part of the 50-0 vote approving an agreement with Hodgson Russ for, and these are the quotes right out of this agreement, assistance with the acquisition of property from the Red Hook Boat Club and a potential eminent domain action. Did either of you review the agreement you approved to determine whether Hotch and Russ's representation in the article 78 proceeding was actually within its scope or did you simply defer to the supervisor and wash your hands of the matter? Were you also aware that Hotch and Russ filed a memorandum of law on April 17th just before the close of business a full week after the deadline? Were you aware the firm has now been ordered to show cause why there is yet another late filing or is that information too withheld from you? For those watching at home, the takeaway is clear. The supervisor appears to be acting unilaterally. His claim that the previous board authorized responses to the actions blatantly false. If Robert, Bill, and Jacob are telling the truth that the zoning amendments were not related to the eminent domain action, then Hodson Russell at $3770 an hour appears to be working outside the scope

of the agreement. There has been no new agreement authorizing Hodgeen Russ to represent the town in the article 78 proceeding. and the new board members have reportedly been asking for an attorney client session for months. So, how did the legal and planning fees balloon to nearly $300,000? The answer appears Robert, I'm going to finish, folks.

The answer appears to be fiscal mismanagement, unauthorized spending, and a complete lack of oversight or meaningful questioning. The supervisor's conduct is at minimum unconscionable and may amount to something even more serious. As the other two members who put this action into motion and allow it to continue continue, Bill and Jacob Jacob, you're equally culpable and should be embarrassed by your lack of knowledge about what has transpired. All three of you have failed to uphold your elected fiduciary duties and frankly in view of these findings, you should immedately step down. Thank you. Speakers.

No. Anybody wants to speak? Teddy Blank. At the April 14th meeting, we were surprised to hear that none of the board members except Robert knew that an answer to the article 78 petition had been filed on April 10th. How did that make each one of you feel? The supervisor, who claims to be the most transparent, couldn't even be transparent with the four of you. Robert also stated that the previous board authorized responses to the action. Yet neither this board nor the previous board authorized Hodgegen Russ to represent the town for this or any previous article 78 proceeding. So Robert's statement was false, but he'll try to spin it. Robert said, "If this board wants to do something different, they can." Bill and Jacob, based on how he's used you and the position you now find yourself in, are you ready to do something different? Somebody directed Hodson Hodgson Rush to file an answer on behalf of the town without proper authorization or a contract to do so and there's only one person sitting up there that knew about it. I suspect that tonight he'll be asking you to approve a retroactive agreement with Hen Rush to cover himself. Since he showed such disrespect for all of you on the issue, it will be interesting to see who sticks by him. We know he's counting on two of you. On March 25th, the supervisor lectured our highway superintendent about procurement policies. Well, the ramifications for engaging an outside law firm and approving expenditures without board approval are a lot more serious than not buying an EV plow truck. And that law firm, which is charging $370 an hour, is now going to try to convince a judge that their additional filing on April 17th met the April 10th deadline. For less than $10, I'll get him a calendar. Bill and Jacob, it has dawn has it dawned on either of you that we've gotten to this point because Robert assumes your agreement and compliance. You haven't let him down yet and now

he's embroiled you in a potential legal quagmire that risks whatever was left of your reputations. Are you going to allow that to continue or will you recognize this for what it is and what it has been? Robert calling the shots and using both to further his selfish goals. The decision is yours and we don't need to wait very long to see what you choose. Thank you. I'm not done yet. Is there another Is there another speaker? For those of you concerned about the kings and abuse of power, look no further than the man sitting in the middle, the town supervisor. Thank you.

Roman will take you and then we're going to move on to our agenda. Folks, if you have something in writing you'd like to submit, please done talking. I'm going to start. Yes. Thank you. Well, if you would say your name for the record, please. I did. You didn't hear it. You were talking.

Mr. Supervisor, you have clearly established yourself as a wannabe dictator. Disregard for fellow members on the D board before filing docu documents just within the last limit. Shame. Shame. erecting post and rail fence in Cookingham West parcel without consulting affected neighbors. More shame. Disregard for the will of the people. You had 600 people in the school assembly and you disregarded their wish. The interest of time, I'm going to slow down now. The parties of different affiliation can respect and be decent for each other. Dwight Eisenhower recognized John F. Kennedy Jr.'s willingness to admit when he didn't know something and a judgment to ask further guidance. Jackie Kennedy told Eisenhower that her husband had considered him the north star. You may not know that's where you can get advice. The complete story is available on the internet. Such mutual trust and admiration, willingness to pull to cooperate together. Nowhere to be is nowhere to be found in the body I'm speaking to. Mr. Supervisor, you were truly my way or the highway. That goes back to when you were talking to the Daily Catch. December 31st, 2027 is around the corner. Sorry, I plan on being busy elsewhere on the day of your retirement party.

We'll take you and get out. I'm just here again to say please stop this. You can stop this awful pursuit, awful, unpopular, heartbreaking pursuit of our club. I need it. I need my club. Thank you. We have our teacher here and our deputy uh superintendent. Thank you both for coming tonight. Um I know you have questions. So I put together um a presentation. So that should answer quite a few of those questions.

Um there's a document that was in the agenda that was not updated and it was the um fleet overview. So that's for you. And I think I'll keep this here because maybe everyone can see it.

So today I'm going to talk about trucks. Um we have a fleet overview. We're going to talk about old trucks, new trucks, what they do, funding and recommendations. the um supervisor requested an education on how we use our trucks. So, I'm going to try and provide that as briefly as possible.

Thank you. So, the first thing I have is the fleet overview. This is a listing of all of the heavy equipment in the highway department. It consists of 23 pieces of equipment, but not all of them are vehicles. It's important to know that the current inventory is valued at 2,536,880. Each piece of equipment has an expected 15-year life under optimal conditions. The projected replacement costs if you took all of this equipment and put today's prices in it is four $4,342,000. So the budget per year for equipment should be $38,000. It's a lot. Things get more expensive. What we're asking for is an expenditure 2026 estimated $197,000. We bought an electric van. Um we're contemplating two uh Chevy 3500 pickup trucks and that would be the cost for all three of those in 2026. So, the second thing we discussed is old trucks. These are the trucks that were replacing. Anyone wants to come down and look at them, they're at the highway garage. We have a truck number one, 2016 Chevy pickup with plow, $98,000. It was purchased in 2015. That is this one. I have them backwards.

98,000 miles. 98,000 miles, too. But 98,000 miles. Yeah. So, this is truck number one. Right now, it has a lift gate. And this is truck number two. Three. I know I'm not good at public speaking. It's fine.

So, this is a 2011 Chevy pickup with utility body, 120,000 miles. And this is the body of truck number one. This is the 10 or 11 year old truck, one of the ones we're trying to replace. So, the next thing we have is the new trucks. Well, back to them old trucks. You got to remember that truck's 10 11 years old. When we plowed down in the winter, we don't just do a couple driveways or a couple shots. We're out. So, that transmission on that truck, you really want to keep going. Do you want to go till you end up having to replace that?

So, it's 10 years old doesn't mean it's a normal 10 years.

And a couple of other notes on the old trucks. Truck one has body rust, trailer hitch rust, rising maintenance costs, and our department does not have a mechanic. Anytime we have to fix something, it's got to go out. That's expensive. Truck number three is 15 years old. It has the body rusting out underneath the bed liner, and the running board and chassis are rusting out underneath as well. the uh running board, you can just kick it and the rust just falls right off. So, here are the trucks that we propose to purchase. And these are not actual photos of the trucks. They're just like for illustration purposes. So, the first truck would be truck number one, 2026 Chevy 3500, a one- ton pickup. It would have a municipal rated plow, a tow hitch for 20,000 lbs, and the estimated cost is $58,000. The second truck would be truck number three, 2026 Chevy 3500, another one-time pickup, but this one would have a utility body, a lift gate, a tow hitch for 20,000 lbs, and the estimated cost is $75,000.

That's more because it's a crew cab,

right? So, the third truck that was proposed was a one-tonon pickup truck EV. They don't exist. So, there's no features available. It's not appropriate for our department. So, we're not going to put a comparison. Another thing about the um keeping the old trucks versus keeping the old trucks versus the new trucks are new equipment increases an average of 3 to 5% a year. Um the reliability is not there. There's breakdown and downtime during emergency response. The safety features, older trucks do not have backup cameras, smart driving features. um the newer technologies, the emissions, although they are not emission free, new trucks run cleaner than old models. Preventive succession, very important, there's no guess as to how long they will last. A truck, an old truck from a municipality has value at public auction. We take care of our trucks. People know that. They buy them. So instead of keeping it till it's useless, you can sell it at 10 or 15 years and get money to put towards the next equipment purchase. So one of the questions that came up, what do we use these trucks for? Why do we need two pickup trucks? What do they do? They're the lifeblood of daily highway operations. I don't know if you know what this is here. This is a temperature sensor. It's on truck number one. You go out on the road, it'll take the air temperature. It'll take the road temperature. Why is

that important? Tells you what to do with your salt, your sand, your plowing. Are you going to get ice on the road? Are you not going to get ice on the road? So, that's what truck one does. Along with that, road patrol with temperature sensor, emergency response, placing warning barrels of cones, warning lights for traffic control, high-owered lighting for nighttime work zones. And these big lights, you go out, there's a tree down, you turn them on, you can see. Trailer for equipment, materials, and supplies. We plow culde-sacs, small roads. We spot clean roads after storm events. People plow their driveways. They leave stuff in the road. If you've got a little truck, you can drop the plow and get rid of it quickly. There's a pickup body for pole saws, tree limb removal, and hauling supplies, daily road patrol, premeating inspection, site visits, driveway permits, issues, and dig requests from UDI New York. Archtop Fiber came to town. We get 10 to 15 dig requests at a time. That means you have to go out and mark and check each and every one of them. It's almost a full-time job in itself. When you meet with residents about road concerns and it's equipped with a toolbox containing a measured wheel, flares, traffic flags, and marking paint. Truck number three is also an emergency response truck. We consider all of our trucks emergency response because we are emergency responders. We place warning barrels and combs. There's warning lights for traffic control, high-powered lighting for nighttime work zones. There's a trailer for equipment, material, and supplies. It's equipped with a toolbox body

holding tools, chainsaws, traffic control flags, and signs, lifting chains, tie down straps, and any tools needed for the day's assignment. There's a fuel tank on the truck bed for roadside fueling. So, you can go out to the mower or the excavator or any of the equipment and fuel it right from the truck. You don't have to bring it back to the shop. It's a twoman work crew transport and road patrol before, during, and after storms all year round. There's a lift gate for heavy equipment and one of our favorite things, dead deer removal. So, road patrol. Typical road patrol is two men to a truck. We need three trucks minimum. We've got seven on the crew. Usually, it's truck one, truck three, and the utility bed. We check 120 lane miles of road before, during, and after storms all year round. The crew cab on the new truck will enable a three or four man work vehicle for efficient transport when we're doing work out in the field. Nobody wants 16 trucks sitting on the side of the road. So, if you have a crew cab, you can take four people, but you can also just use it for the twoman patrol and transporting crews to and from job sites. You go out, you're doing a job, you forgot something. You're not going to take the dump truck back to the garage. You're going to take the pickup truck back to the garage. So, how do we pay for them? We have funding. There's two types of funding for highway equipment. The one we usually use, which is

purchase, the one we've never used, which is lease. Red Hook is fortunate. They have big reserves in the highway department funds. They can afford to just take money and pay for a truck. But you might not want to do that. So, purchase cash payment from available funds, no increase to the tax rate. We have options. In 2026, we have a balance of $57,500 in our heavy equipment line. The board approved that last year's budget. It's there available for us to use. That'll cover one truck. Transfers from the BB and the B fund balances have been approved by the town board in the past to purchase equipment. In the 2025 or 2026 actually BB fund balance there was $662,630. That's kind of like your savings account for the highway department. The D the B fund balance which is a balance that can transfer to DB which has been used in the past has 1,52,000 in it. There are other things that come out of the B fund, but it has been growing steadily since I've been highway superintendent. Both of these funds are up in the past 15 years. CHIPS. CHIPS is state funded consolidated local street and highway program. That's money the state gives you to do your work. You can use it for equipment. You can use it for paving. Most towns use it for paving. It's a refund program. You pay, they give you the money back, but you can, and we have bought equipment with it. This year, maybe it's a good idea to buy equipment

because paving is going to be very, very expensive. It goes by the price of oil, which we all know is high. You get less tons in plates for the same amount of money over the last year and the year before. So maybe buying equipment with chips isn't such a bad idea. We're estimated to get $248,231 in our CHIPS program just that you can use. That's the only portion you can use for equipment. There's another 50 or $60,000 that you can use on the roads, but they don't let you use it for equipment. You have to get preapproval for this purchase, which we have done. We submitted both of these pickup trucks in the event that the town wanted us to use the CHIPS funding for these trucks and they have both been approved because they do have what CHIPS uses is a 10year life. That's the minimum. A lease municipal leases are not structured like private sector leases. You don't get fair market value per year. A municipal lease means you go out to bid just like you would paying cash, you get the price, and then you get the lease. And it could go two years or three years. So on top of that cost, you're going to have um it's usually a two or three year term. You have to buy out at the end of the term for a dollar. So on top of the cost, the bid price is the same as a cash price with the addition of finance charges, lease maintenance fees, and it results in a higher vehicle cost. The depreciation is factored into the lease payments. So my recommendations

For truck number one, the 57,00058,000 truck, use the HT equipment fund for cash cash purchase. There's no added fees upfront to the cost. Depreciation is offset by the municipal discount by buying vehicles through the New York State OTS vehicle marketplace. you go out and you buy a pickup truck, you're going to pay a lot more than me buying a pickup truck because I get a state discount. So, the depreciation factor not so great. Discounts are not available to the private sector. If a one ton EV pickup truck becomes available, you can trade in or sell that pickup truck, the one that you bought. So you'd have a new truck for two years and then if you wanted to take advantage of the EV for the reduced emissions, you could just go trade it in because you paid cash for it and there's no restriction and your truck will have value because the depreciation is low. The body configuration of a pickup truck, the plane pickup truck, lends itself to EV replacement as EVs have integrated chassis. They're all one piece. They cannot be upfitted with utility bodies and lift gates at this time. A one-ton pickup is a must for municipal towing and plowing operations. Sell the surplus 2016 at auction while it still holds value to the public. Buy this pickup for cash. Just a recommendation. Truck three, cash purchase again. Why pay the lease fee when you're going to own it anyway? It doesn't make sense.

It's not like you can lease it for two years, give it back, get another one and lease it, give it back. It doesn't work that way for municipalities. So, you can use the funds from chips, the DV fund balance or the B fund balance. Due to the utility body and tailgate, it would be less likely to be replaced soon with an EV version. However, if the DB or the B funds are used to purchase, you would still have the op the option to upgrade if they became available, which would not apply if you're using CHIPS funding because chips you can't use for a lease. New York State Highway Law requires the highway superintendent to inform the town board of the equipment needs of the highway department. As the highway superintendent bears the responsibility of legal and operational control of the vehicles, the board has the option to refuse to purchase. And if there are any questions from the town board or anybody else at this time, I can answer them. Mad superintendent, I suggest that they can pay $293,000 to not be disruptive to our meetings. And what do we get for your 293?

Okay. More headache. I have a few questions just to be clear. So if you use CHIP funding, you have to keep the truck 10 years. Okay. You sent us a memo. You didn't make the last meeting. It was either a memo or an email where you said that many municipalities trade in every two or three years for new. Is that the industry standard? Because I I wonder why we don't do that.

No, it's not the industry standard. That requires putting the financing up front. You have to you have to have enough money in your equipment fund to purchase the vehicles in the first place. They do it with plow trucks. They do it with loaders. They go out and they bond all this money and they buy everything in municipal discount and then every two years they trade up.

They don't even change the tires on the trucks. They do nothing to them. There's no maintenance cost. The only thing they pay is the increase in the vehicle cost. But that's a town board decision because they would have to say, "Okay, we're going to go out and buy all these trucks now and you're going to trade them in every two years for new ones and we're going to give you the money to upgrade." But that has to be through the town's funding. It can't be through CHIP's funding. Yeah, that's that's fine. The reason I asked is it, you know, just seems to me like you've got a truck that has to be replaced right now. It's rusting out. It's 15 years old. It's got to go. Mhm.

If there's an opportunity for us to trade in trucks every two or three years to reduce our maintenance and to have fresh new equipment that may have new features or other things that could be done. It seems to me like this would be a good time to start to explore doing that to explore doing that or or just do it because the truck isn't going to last. So a utility body but we're not using chips money. If we're not going to use chips money, we just take That's what I'm talking about. That's why I asked for the standard pickup truck. Yes. Okay. For a customuilt utility body with a lift gate, then it's going to take you at least 7 months to get that truck. Well, that is that the one that's 15 years old or the one that's

that's the one that's 15 years old. The other one's 11 years old. Okay. And the one that's 11 years old is the one that has a cab for more than two people, right? No. No, that's the one with Oh, okay. So that one's the utility body will be like a super truck. Okay. They'll have everything you need for everything that utility truck will do. So you can just purchase the simple pickup with the HT equipment line and two years from now I can say, "Hey, you told me I could get a new truck. Now I want to trade it in and get another one."

I'm just looking at that as an option. um if we can afford it and you're getting fresh new equipment every two or three years. Yeah. I mean it depends on what it is. Okay. I mean it is obviously that's your at your but I was just thinking about it in terms of and the reason why I brought that up is because I know that you want to get an ED pickup and if you trade if we were to trade in then one became available right? If you bought the truck with PhD funds, and one became available in a one-time configuration, which is the extremely important part in this conversation, then you could trade that truck in for a pickup truck if it was able to have a municipal platform.

Thank you. So, follow up uh on that. So, do you envision all pickups will need to be one ton as part of your array of trucks? I know we have two we have two pickups. Well, we have 10 trucks alto together, right? So, imagining traditional smaller rows where we might want to have smaller trucks. The minimum the minimum the minimum is one ton. The minimum is one ton. We have an 18,000B trailer, right? No. for that. No, I understand for plowing and for towing you you want as heavy duty as possible. I understand. Well, just for general maintenance and highway work, you want heavy duty.

You don't want to go less than heavy duty for you don't want to go less than a one ton pickup. Believe me, the difference, sorry, John, the difference between 3/4 and a one ton minimal. Maybe I was told by a dealer he said maybe $500 to $800 where you get much heavier suspension, heavier brakes. So he said for a minute what we use them for. He said it doesn't make sense for you. It's not a cost issue. It's a it's a sizing issue. Well, they're the same size truck. Yeah. You know, one ton pickup truck's the same. You know, it sits a little bit higher. It's got bigger tires.

It's the same pickup. So, what were you in today? Which truck were you in today when you That was truck one. That's a 3500 one. 3500. Okay. That's the one that has a plow on it. And that's a The crew cab that she's talking about is not four-wheel drive. It's only two wheel drive. We don't, you know, we can get by. We don't need fourwheel drive. The crew cab, the older one, right? Yeah. You need to you need to replace that, right? Yeah. Well, and you can wait with the 2016 um 16, but it's just not

we just don't know what's going to happen. And for us to have two pickup trucks and to be able to respond, you know, you're going to put another seven months on that truck. So, sell it while it has value.

Replace it while it's still running instead of waiting until it breaks down and then scrambling to find something that suits your needs. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we were a municipality that was desperate and didn't have any funding, yeah, you just take your trucks and beat the heck out of them for 20 years. But we're not. And that's why we're asking for these trucks now. And you want to stagger your debt load. We are going to have to ask for a plot truck. That plop truck costs $350,000. away for and there's a couple vow trucks that are due to be replaced 19 and 20 years old. You can see

so safe to say for for for right now for today's purposes we're we're not discussing EV any longer. I mean I think Teresa's are we all on the same page with that? I think Teresa's demonstrated that's not going to work and there's nothing well if there's not a if there's not a one ton or a 3/4 you know if there's nothing more than half ton equivalency it's moot

you know it's it's moot I I understand that the really the question came up how how are we looking this holistically these trucks in terms of all the trucks that we will need not only just today but looking forward holistically, meaning if cuz you you had expressed a willingness to take a look at a new option a couple years down the road. And so when we noticed that one of the trucks was definitely need to be replaced immediately and the other one we wanted to inquire with you because 10 years is you know it's not nothing as they used to say in the Bronx but it's also it could last as you said it could last a couple more years but you don't know you don't want to roll the dice if you needed that. I need the reliability and the dependability of a truck

that will respond in any weather. Yeah. Were you looking to use chips money? Was that was that your priority? Okay. That's why I wanted the funding. We don't have if we don't have to use chips money, we don't have to. If that's the only way you will purchase it, I'm game for it. Oh, no. I I I just assume you the HT fund could buy the standard pickup truck. I just assume you buy new trucks and then every do what other municipalities do and look to see two down two or three years down the road and trade in and get a newer even if he's not available trade in and get a newer truck.

Well, that has to be a conversation that is approved by the town board because typically we have to wait 15 or 20 years to get a new piece of equipment. So having that discussion, if you wait to have that discussion, then you are going to lose the opportunity to have these trucks by winter. That's our that conversation right now. And then just remember that using that chips money we're full, we we're way behind on paving now. That's even though we even though we're only going to pave a little bit, a little is, you know, whatever money chips gives us. So we spend on equipment.

Well, I I hear you. I hear you, John. But I I will say, you know, one of the great things is we we we have adapted over the years. So there have been years where Teresa has come to us and said, "Hey, prices are down. I'd like to take advantage of that and pay some more." And we've moved funding that way. Um, I'm not a big fan of of spending money when it may be temporarily high and we get money. We don't use that.

So, let's get back to the point. The the basic point of this presentation was I'm asking you to approve the purchase of two trucks. I've given you the specs on the trucks. I've given you the expectations on the trucks. I've given you the estimated prices which may be lower on the trucks. So that's the best that I can do. you can say yes, we're going to pay for them and then put your um wish to trade in every two years after the fact. I haven't even started bidding a process yet. I gave you the the the whole flowchart that's going to take another two months.

I was just asking to see if that's something the highway department would be interested in doing. Yeah, we have to replace these trucks. I'd love to get it every two years. But that's why I asked about the chips money because if you use chips money then you're stuck with the minimum 10 years which I personally would don't I wouldn't advise that. I and we have the funding to do it. I just want to know and and yes and that that is your decision as a town board. You handle the funding

on that but I I want that's why I was exploring this issue because you had put it out there and I didn't realize that other municipalities on a more regular basis are are turning them in. I understand that these things depreciate, but I think as a as an emergency vehicle, it's good to have fresh equipment. I agree with that 100% trucks. Um, please don't interrupt. Please, I know a lot of you have a lot more expertise in this area, heavy duty trucks. It doesn't help to be interrupted to try to have a discussion with our highway. Everything runs on. Can you please not interrupt on a two three year thing?

It is cost effective in that you have no maintenance costs, right? So if you have a truck for two years, you got a change of tires, you don't have to. You can decide at that time to see what you're going to get for the truck you want to trade in and say, "Oh, it's not worth it." And keep it and keep it. One of the attractive things about going EV stop. They don't work in this situation. Robert, they do not work in this situation. Stop.

Is the m They're maintenancefree generation. Excuse me, please. I'm going to ask you. I want to get out of here. So, I'm going to ask you all to please not interrupt. Okay. The main of the EVs have proven to be extremely low. We've had an even if one is available, buy it. I am not going to ask you again, young lady. Sir, if one's available, buy it then. Ma'am, we are trying to progress. Goodbye. I will just table this issue to the next meeting then. Okay. Shall we do that?

DO WHAT YOU WANT. YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT ANYWAY. Robert's work. Robert, this is your pal. Robert, I want to get I want to get a joke. LET'S BE REALISTIC. YOU GUYS ARE BEATING DEAD HORSE. I WANT TO move this on. I understand the town's interest in EV. We just bought an EV utility van. I drive a hybrid Toyota SUV. There are no one ton EV pickup trucks available. It shouldn't even come into the conversation when we're talking about approval for the equipment that I've asked for.

No, but we we disagree on that. It absolutely should come into the conversation. Wait a second. You've expressed the willingness to trade in a fossil fuel truck when an EV equivalent becomes available. Yes. Right. I I got that in the email. Unless I I did, Robert, but that's not what this meeting is about. This this request is about purchasing the trucks that are available now. Let's not go back to the I'm trying to move towards Yes, Teresa. So, if I'm hearing from you willing like I'm being pressured to talk about the I'm not asking you to talk about

isn't even Robert. Bring it to a vote. bring it to a vote and see what the board will support. You want I think I think I'm almost ready to table this. If you all are going to be so rude as to interrupt the two people, six people trying to come to termination here. Please for me,

let's just let this conversation finish. I've been to two meetings and provided months worth of information. I can't do anything more. The town will decide if they are going to purchase the trucks and how and then I will abide by their decision and we will move on. But it is important that we get through this right now. So, if you could just bear with me for a few more minutes.

Thank you. Um my input having what you've sent to us over the last couple of meetings is that I am fine buying both trucks. I would like us to um consider you utilizing the HT fund for the one truck and to pull the money from the DB reserve for the other truck. So, as Bill mentioned, it's not stuck in a 10-year thing. If we want to, we sign the vouchers, you provide the vouchers, and we appreciate it, and we appreciate Lor's work on it. We know what the maintenance costs are associated with fossil fuel vehicles. We don't have a mechanic. The maintenance for EVs is very different and very low. the the fueling, you have excess solar being generated on the highway garage that could go towards that fuel line instead of the diesel. And I think I just signed a voucher for $416 and then a municipal rate that's very high. So my my point is I think that when it becomes available, I think we would like to explore that option of of trading it in as you said and moving towards a more maintenance-free uh electric vehicle equivalent when that is available. That's that's my input on it and I I appreciate your willingness as you expressed in the email to take a look again in a couple of years and see whether or not um there's a a heavy duty option.

So, so if I understand so, so the funding option that you're suggesting would give us the ability to replace the truck sooner. Yes, it gives more options. So that gives So if there was an EV and it it would it met all the specs, then we could consider it. But either way, it's kind of a win-win because we we could commit to providing the highway department with new equipment. Exactly. Sooner flexibility and flexibility.

Exactly. And and as far as the chips money pulling from the chips, I would again say to you, as I've said to you for more than a decade now, if you need us to add or subtract from any particular budget line based upon economic conditions, I would prefer that to just flatlining each budget line each year because that's not the most efficient way to go. So, as you said today, given what pavement may cost, let's think about maybe we do pave a little less than we anticipated uh for this year. And we'll put a note in the record and when we do the budget again in the fall, we'll say we owe Teresa X amount of dollars for next year when we're hoping, God willing, that the pricing of these things will be less and we'll get more bang for our buck for the tax. Right.

Right. will pay and that's what we have done uh in past and that's why we have such high balances in all of those funds is because we're trying to be smart with your money. So what do we need to do? Any more thoughts? Everybody good? So approval for the purchase of the two the one to come out of the HT line as you said the other one to come out of the DB reserve. So, we need a motion to approve. What is the dollar amount we're doing for that one? 7 uh 58,000. 78,000, I think, for the um the one that would be coming out of the reserve.

The one coming out of the reserve, the estimate is I think it's $78,000. You may find it. Okay. What What's $75,000? Now, that's an estimate. When we go through the bidding process, we will have an actual figure. Yeah. Don't don't worry about that. Just describe the vehicle, please, so we can make the motion. A 2026 Chevy one ton truck one ton pickup. And what about utility? What about the upfitting? Okay. With utility body group. That's all included 78 something. Yep.

Okay. I'd like to make that motion. uh with a not to exceed amount of $80,000. That'll give you, you know, in case things Okay. Uh and I make that that motion. Second. Thank you. Um any further discussion? If not, did you have to authorize the HT one? I think I think I combined No, I think I combined two. Oh, okay. Did I not?

Did you? I don't think you did. Oh, I I thought I did, but I'll start again. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the purchase of the 2026 Chevy 3500 as described by our highway superintendent from the HT equipment line and an additional Chevy 3500 uh one-tonon pickup fitted with crew cab, utility, body um hitch and lift gate. Okay. and uh the funding for that vehicle uh not to exceed $80,000 will be coming from the DB reserve account. So that's a motion again revive

and the other fun the funding for the other truck I said that already clearly said the amount for the other one as as per the recommendations it would be HT and DB and they're both not to exceed 80 no the one is one is going to be the estimate we have is 57,000 I'll make that not to exceed 60,000 on the first one. Okay. As revised the motion. Is there a second, Kenny? Yes.

Okay. Is there any further discussion? No. If not, all in favor? Thank you very much. Thank you. I'm sorry. Now we're talking about beginning conversation about the grant opportunities. Brand, do you want to maybe just start out with why are we talking in April about something we may not apply for until July?

Yep, absolutely. So, um, for the record, I'm Brandy Nelson. I am an engineer with Taiwan. Um for the last few years we've been working with the town on a number of um different projects and we try annually to um meet with you to talk about grant funding opportunities. The town has been very successful getting grants and completing projects with grants. You guys are really good administrators of grants and Conway just want to do a shout out to her. She's amazing. Um the state of New York has varying timing on grant funded programs and um one of the primary grant funding cycles is called the consolidated funding application that typically opens two to three weeks after the state budget is passed. Um so we're expecting that sometime in the May time frame by talking about what kinds of projects you might want to see grant funding for. Now, we have the opportunity to contact the agencies and talk through the viability of those funding applications and get input on how to make a more effective application. So, we're in this window where they can talk to us once the grant funding cycle opens. They can't have discussion with us about specific projects. So, it's helpful if we can talk with you guys now and then do a little due diligence on your behalf and then when the funding cycle opens then we can dig into the specific requirements of the programs. Um, I've got a couple of things that I think were put into your packet. Um, if if anybody wants a hard copy of the teeny tiny printed um Okay, no.

Sorry. I I need to print it on giant sheets of paper, but um I don't Robert, do you have what I sent you in the PowerPoint? So um there's a couple of projects that have been in the town's queue for a couple of years. And usually what we're talking about are capital improvement projects for the town that we're seeking grant funding for um to consider for state and federal funding opportunities. Um and so yeah, thank you. One more slide if you don't mind.

Thank you. Are we Yeah, there you go. If we shrink that a little bit. So, so a couple of things um to consider for grant funding um that we have either um been looking for funding for the last couple of years or that we um have made applications for under certain programs and and the town maybe hasn't been funded for. um as well as um projects that may want to have grant funding sought for them or have had some portion of their project um funded and we want to seek additional funding for construction. So in those top five bullets um we've been looking for a number of years to close the sidewalk gap between um where the sidewalk ends on Route 9 at the Holy Cow um over to Hannifford Drive. There used to be a bit of a foot path in there and I think people still are using it. Um and um we've been looking at various state and and county funds to try and um fund putting an actual illuminated sidewalk in there so that it's safer for pedestrians to walk up to the Hanford. So that's that's one. Um the Rec Park West master plan has um has had in it um a facilities uh like concessions, restroom facilities, etc. on the west side um of Lind Lindon Aav um and other additional ball fields and paths and things like that. So wreck park upgrades. Um the town has a number of bridges as you know and culvers. Um, we had prepared a covert replacement prioritization plan with Teresa a number of years ago and we've been sort of working through she's been replacing the things that the highway department can do on their own, but some of the coverts and bridges are obviously beyond what the highway department can do. So, we've been looking for various um

opportunities to fund those kind of capital improvements along roadways. Um, water district number one. Um, so that's your current water district where the wells are down by the wreck park, the water towers up above Tower Drive. Uh, that is a a system that is beginning to age. Um, and so tonight you'll have an item for tank rehab, but we want to be thinking about other improvements. I think you guys are incrementally making improvements right now to that water system. There may be a point in time we've got to look at at water manes as well. And then other things to discuss um salt shed pre-construction. So salt sheds at the end of its life. Um that goes along with discussions we've had about the grant to to um add brine. Uh and then with the sewer district number one which is here along Route 9 corridor and the town has been successful in getting some grant funds for um both um covering engineering services but also um we need to start putting together kind of patchwork quilt of funds to help with the construction costs. Uh similarly as we're forming the water district for that same area we want to look ahead for um water system improvement funds. Uh that would be for distribution system piping. And then um the villagetovillage trail network has been um worked on for more than a decade. The town's done a wonderful job at the villages putting that trail network together. Um the gap right now is a bridge over the sockill that would connect um the east and and west part of the sockill. um you were successful in getting a grant to do the design work for the bridge, but we'd like to look for construction funds for that. And then um also you were successful in getting a grant to um design the replacement culbert on Willlets drives. There's two there that are very deep

cuts, so they're more than the highway department wants to take on themselves. We do need to look for construction funding for those as well. So those were the the things that I had off the top of my head. Um, but there may be other things as you know you guys are are in the weeds looking at some of the town's priorities. Capital improvement.

I think it's it's a pretty extensive list. Um, you know, I'm watching these communities get New York forward or downtown revitalization grants and I'm thinking in terms of the village. I'm thinking in terms of the TND and putting our municipality in a good place to apply for one of those.

We're talking 5 10 million which would go a long way to help with both the infrastructure and redevelopment. We've got some empty properties. We've got a gas station at our fourth corner. It would be nice to have funding work with the village. Yeah. To consider something that works all the way from the TMD corridor. That's what a DRRi would look like, right?

So, you kind of broke this into grants that are rolling and grants that have specific deadlines that are coming up. So yeah, what I sent you guys is sort of like what is what is available right now for grant funding opportunities and then anticipating CFA will come out in 3 or 4 weeks. Um this is last year's CFA program list, but I did if the same programs are authorized, they'll generally have the same funding priorities, probably similar funding amounts, and so thought we could start thinking about a few of those. Do you want to highlight any ones that that are that are at the top of the list you think for compatibility that have a deadline that are that's coming up?

Oh, I didn't highlight any of the the currently open ones. Um the ones that primarily we could um look at would be um as we get further along in the water and wastewater discussion talking about USDA funding. Um the town USDA funding is for communities with 10,000 people or less. You guys are like 9968 or something. You're very very close, but you're under the 10,000. So um you know that would be a good source of um funds for you all. Um the other ones are um the New York plays grant for for programs um and playground improvements and then um there are flood risk reduction grants which would be potentially good for some of the culprit activity. So those are those are um programs that are open right now. Um, and we can certainly, you know, like I can have a more specific conversation with you guys about if we want to go to the prioritization plan on, you know, look at it with Teresa and put an application together for another Culver, we could certainly do that. Um, but I was more interested in seeing if there's any projects you want us to do some work for.

Yeah. And just for background, uh, especially for our two new council members, um, we'll take the first one, sidewalk connector, route 9 to Hanniper Drive. We did apply to the counties. In fact, we thought we were going to get the grant, but we we we didn't on on our second try. Right. Right. I would suggest we we give that a go again. I mean, we've got our St. Margaret's thing just about ready, though. Yeah. Okay. Um Rec Park West facilities, we did uh do a grant to Warps, right? I mean to uh

meeting um office of parks and rent. Um we were not successful with that one. We should take a look and see what the funding is for that. Um bridges as well taking care of that. I think for the uh cooking hands. So, we've got the Greenway design money. Green wave does have a program. We can do 250,000 for con up to 250,000 for construction. This bridge is going to cost more than that,

right? That we know. We don't know which one we're going to choose. We don't know how much it's going to cost yet, but we know it's more than that. This may not be the year to apply for construction cuz you're not you're not ready with design yet, right?

Yeah. No, the design isn't done. But um the way the grant programs have been working, the state is administratively a little bit on the slow side. So if you apply this July, they make announcements typically in December, like it's a Christmas present. And then it takes about 6 to9 months to enter into a contract before the funds become available. And so if it's for construction, we're really talking about if you apply this year, it's for construction in 2728. Is our application going to be competitive because we already have the design grant or it won't be competitive if the design specs aren't ready.

When we apply for anything that's for construction, the state wants some cost. So, we need to have sufficient amount of cost estimate prepared for the basis of the application and understanding what the municipality's matching obligations would be. Okay. Yeah. So, um, so that's a we we need to have the cost, but you think we'll be competitive even if we don't have the design ready. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Because I think we'll what we can say is we can lay out the schedule for construction documents being prepared by X date and be able to move like once you get to the contracting, the line up the other funding, correct? As well.

Yeah. Okay. Um, there's that. Uh, water district one. We don't have our map plan report. We won't for a while. Right. I think that's early, but the state's been doing the WEIA um off the CFA cycle. It hasn't come out yet. And so when it comes out, I think we want to be ready to apply for How's that mapping going? We're waiting for Duchess County to give us shape files for the mapping. Yeah. Do you have any idea what that what that time frame looks like? We call them once a week. Yeah.

Yeah. It's through the county GIS. I mean, I think they're being generous and saying we'll give it to you. We just don't have it ready yet. So, I haven't been wanting to push them too too hard cuz they're, you know, they're sharing the information with us. They just hadn't put the shape files together. So, yeah. I honestly I'm sorry. I don't know why it's taking so long. Okay. So, let's go to Sewer District. Obviously where right your sewer district um yeah I mean we where did it go

right but we need to um we would like to seek all opportunities for sewer related construction funding and I know Bill and you know you've done some investigation there too. I think we should apply for everything sewer related. But what I guess I'm curious been doing this long most of us. Oh, sorry. Um, since we just got awarded a fairly substantial grant from the state, what's the likelihood back to We haven't even put a shovel on the ground yet

that they would want to give us more money. We've we've already had a conversation with EFC about those grant funds and um they do a mix of um low interest loans and grant funds and so you know we are going to be applying again for some additional favorable financing when um the EFC um IUP opens and so and those are due the end of May. So I'll be back to you with that. Sure. We we fell above the line above the line and so we we had I think 50% subsidy. The question is will we still be above the line with this new year's list? Right.

I Yeah. And I don't remember exactly where that number is, but but I think anything sewer related because you guys have um you have both the sewer collection system construction but also the share of the villages um capital improvements that will serve the town's waste water. Bless you. Mr. Bless, are you are you engineering the um um system where the village is? We are not. No, that's a a different consultant. But um the we are in contact with how they're progressing. Uh they want to expand that to 300,000 gallons a day. That's correct.

To take this and the uh affordable housing, correct? Plus sewer more of the village as well. Yeah. And you think they're going to accomplish that? and and and not have an issue with that fluent going down the stream. So, our understanding in conversations with them is that they've been working with the DEC on all of that and that um they've been green lit to move forward with um designing that full 300 um and then only constructing like an initial phase of 100 or 150. I can't remember exactly what the number is, but yeah, to do it in a in a phase approach. So that's what they're telling us right now.

And they have they having meetings pertaining to that at the village? I haven't been going to those meetings. Um but I I'm going to presume so I believe that that's the case. Yeah. Yeah. They're they they meet with their engineers and I know that they've done Kenny, you you went to a couple of those meetings, the the village wastewater update for those for those plants. Um, so I I I think we really do need to settle with the village uh when they're ready to do the phased approach. We we need to get going. We have ARPA funding. We need to do the RFQ on. Yeah.

And you can you can help us with the template. Oh, sure. Yes, you did want to do that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then I assume in terms of the sewer, I mean it's it's always advantageous when you're collaborating with another municipality. So having that conversation and we identify any funding options to um go in jointly with the village can strengthen the obligation. Yeah.

All right. So, I think we we need to we need to put that meeting together and say, you know, we're ready if you want our, you know, a portion of our 2.5 million grand, our 6.5 million project, our ARPA money design, you know, we we need to we need to go, right? I mean, I think we need to,

right? Otherwise, these parcels are going to be not redeveloped or developed. um for a few more years. I don't think we can, you know, they they may want to wait for the full 300,000. I don't know. It's up to them. It's their plan. But, you know, we have time deadlines that we have to do. So, I think we really need to put this together. And so, the reason I mention that is because I want you to keep that in mind when we go to apply for something. There's no reason to apply for something perhaps that is going to be so far down the line that it's just going to delay the construction. We got to get that done. There are business owners relying on us. Yeah. To get this done so that they can stay in business.

Um I do want to talk about the culverts. You want to talk about we got a grant for Willlets, right? Mhm. Uh my recollection is at the time we got that grant there was a long list of culverts that were all prioritized by you guys and there were several others that were pretty high on the list. if there's an opportunity to get more grant funding to deal with the other ones. I mean, those weren't the only ones that were problematic. Yeah. No, there definitely is. So, I I wouldn't want to pursue that. Yeah. So, I perhaps a thing to do there would be to sit down with Teresa and talk to her about what's next on the list cuz she's been chipping away at a few on her end as well. Yeah. So, if you want me to do that, I can certainly proceed.

Thank you. Um, and I failed to mention because it was hard to get on with the conversation, but I did want to mention to her, Teresa, if you could, uh, Jacob, tell Teresa that my understanding is that the budget will be finished in the next week or two and there will be additional CHIPS funding because both houses have increase in funding. So, there might be another 50 million in the pot. Um, so we might have some funds to do. Um additional work. Okay. Uh what are we missing?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I guess I just was curious if there was anything beyond that list that we had put together that you know you guys in your discussions have said we need to make improvements, upgrade, modifications. Um, well, I I I want to get an application in front of EPS. I I really want us to be,

you know, where we're, I think, perfectly situated now. We've got, you know, the support of Albany for a lot of our projects. It's the easy narrative. We've got the parcels that need to be redeveloped. I know it's a lot of work to come up with those DRRI. For those of you who don't know, New York State has had a program where you can for your municipality, for your downtowns, for your corridors, you can apply for a significant amount of money, downtown revitalization initiative. Sometimes it's a big community, sometimes it's a little one. I think Tanner's going to hook up one, right? Or some, you know, a municipality that small. What they're looking for is like an overall plan with several elements of a project and the narrative is how redeveloping would enhance your municipality. So, you talk about the parcel that's now vacant where there was a fire. You talk about South of Hanford. You talk about the infrastructure. you talk about will we ever deal with that gas station on the on the corner. Um,

so I was involved in Hudson's DRR application when the city of Hudson did theirs and

um, so my understanding from that process was, you know, the municipality would signal to the community we're interested in engaging in a DRR application and what you're trying to do is like build public private partnership where you can show that there's private investment of X amount that will be leveraged by the public investment. And so, you know, the state is really looking for that big collaborative effort. And I I do think that the TND corridor and the village core could could tell a good story together, be two municipalities. Um, but you would want to have um some engagement uh on the private side with different entities who would come forward and say, "Listen, we're ready to do this thing at this location." because your application needs to describe those six or eight or 10 projects and then the municipality can get resources to make improvements to sidewalks and infrastructure to connect those things and create more of a a corridor.

Yeah. Yeah. So, those applications are um they're a big lift, but the state has changed them recently to allow for rural communities like Red Hook to be eligible that I think it was Tannersville that was recently a winner. So rather than just focusing on the bigger cities.

Well, and I think now's the time. I mean, we just heard that the major landlord in the village has put up a full chunk of the village center for sale. And I think that that's something that we, you know, need to factor in and, you know, try to work with whoever or whomever ends up acquiring those properties to make sure that, you know, the future is what the community would like for for all the way from there all the way down to holy cow and beyond.

Yeah. But I think uh the sewage I'm listen I'm all for the the the gas station. I've had numerous people come up to me and talk about that, but I would like to see that separate from the sewage and and see how it's going to work for the developer and uh you know, it's going to be costly for the town. I think it should be put up for a referendum. I don't want this board to make the final decision. Let the entire town show them exactly what it's going to cost. Wait, you're talking about the the I'm talking about the gas station in the corner. Oh, the gas station. Okay.

So, I'm talking about separating that from the sewage from the sewage. You know, I think it's a a good thing for businesses along the corridor. But the gas station, and I've been in conversation with Todd about he's looked into and it's a it's a big number. So, I think it should be done on a referendum being transparent on what it's going to cost. Sure. Not sure exactly what it is. Eliminate the gas station in the corner.

Yeah. No, just to clarify so there's no confusion. When you apply for $10 million, you can say, for example, and don't quote me on this, we're going to put 2 million towards sewer, 2 million towards water, 3 million towards redeveloping the gas station. Fourth corner. We want to put a million something. Right? So, it's it's a suite of projects, things that you wouldn't or ordinarily be able to afford to do, the state will fund it because the state wants to get that economic development that comes along with the redevelopment and the necessary infrastructure. And we have a history of working with the state. We got we were the very first some of you heard me say this the other night. I apologize for repeating. The state launched a proousing program. and the governor did. First, she tried to mandate housing. Then she decided carrots was a better way to go. And she launched this pro housing uh program, $75 million towards housing, $75 million towards um the infrastructure with housing. We became the very first township in New York State at 973 to be a proousing community. Many thanks to Brandon in uh our building department for putting together a ton of data which was required then and isn't required now. Um and we uh with our partner Rupco were able to get $3.4 million of funding towards that uh project up in in Cookingham Farm. So we have a track record. We have a narrative. We have a story that's very easy to make the case for Albany and we have an opportunity maybe to get money for things that we wouldn't normally have money.

I understand that. But I can tell you right now this uh money is going to have to come out of this CPF on to do something like with the gas station. A considerable amount of money. No, I'm I'm I'm trying to tell you along with the state money. Yeah, we're talking millions to accomplish that. Well, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, whatever the whatever the value is of a gas station, you know, to buy it and to remove a gas station is not cheap. You know, you got DC gets involved, you know, soil reclamation and so, but I'm just saying we we need to look at the numbers and if it's going to be a large sum coming out of the CPF that it should be a referendum.

I don't think it would come out of the CP CPF. Is the gas station for sale? No. No, but Todd's looked into it a few years back and it took considerable amount of time to get to where to the right person because that's a major corporation that's involved there and when he saw the numbers it was you know considerable amount of money and they were willing to relinquish the uh so they were available to a sale at that time

knowing that it would be to me it would be an economic boom for the village and he did he actually had an architect do a rendition of what that corner could look like. It's pretty nice, you know, uh not mimicking the old hotel that was there from the '60s, but I think, you know, but you know, there's people I've had discussion with and like, what are you crazy? You know, leave it alone. And then other people are adamant that we should remove it. So, and I think I think it should be for years like a community thing to see what it's going to be and what it's going to look like and have a half a dozen architects uh you know put in their you know uh see what it could be. Thank you.

Okay. More on on grants. Um so I guess my question would be you said it's sort of a lift for applying for a grant like that to get everything together what that would look like. Um, does that mean that it would make sense to try to get that together quickly or is it something we wait a year so we have more time to prepare something like that?

So last year the DRRi ran on a separate calendar than the CFA. So you might have like an an extra month or so. Um, we could certainly make a call up to the state and see if they're thinking of releasing it like when and you know um it might be useful. I'd be happy to send you guys like a small communities award-winning CFA just so you get a sense of like what it takes. But it's it's really like you want to start having a collaboration right amongst folks in the town about and bring specific property owners that want to do something with their property. So I think that's the other thing too is like a big piece of this would be the village and I think

we would need to be working with them pretty closely that's on purpose but we have to be inclined to want to take a look at all this and we've identified needs sewer water you know redevelopment of properties right $10 million is $10 million okay I have a question in terms of working with the village. What What does it look like in terms of um open meetings all in terms of collaborating with them? Like would it make sense to have a joint meeting? There's a number of of items to discuss, right?

Yeah, we have meetings all the time. I mean, yeah, we can have Right. having having the the two boards together because it's like there's meetings but they're but they're meetings of of different mixes of individuals.

We can we can do any combination as long as it complies with open meetings long enough. Absolutely. But I think let's think amongst ourselves if we're interested in trying to pull this off. Reach out to the village. There's another topic I want to bring up that's village related. um reach out to the village and let's gauge their interest. You know, part of the challenges I don't want to fast forward to the next topic, but we're going to talk about part of the challenges of having small municipalities is that they don't have the funding all the time for things that they would like to fund. And when things go up and they have high inflation, they find themselves in a position where providing the same services or level of services becomes a a challenge. But in addition to that, you also have staffing. I mean, we function here on the staffing we need as opposed to the staffing we would love to have because it's other people's money we're using. Um, but in the villages it's a real challenge because they're very part-time and so they're trying to tackle things that are just as difficult, sewer, water, so on and so forth without the funding even to provide in some cases appropriate level. So um yeah, we we should reach out to them and see if they have an appetite. We would have to I think we would have to be the lead municipality. there's a lead municipality in this because we have the resources to do that. Um, but obviously they'd have to have the interest and if there's no interest then we're going to have to look at something else. But

but I think it would I mean how do other people feel? I feel like it would be helpful for us to to reach out to them and have a meeting that is their their you know where they have their entire board or a quorum or

and and our board. Well, again, that we could express that desire, but it would be up to them if they'd want to have their whole meeting or whatever. And um you know, if not, we can send them representative. I have a a hunch that maybe some or more of us would be interested in in being in that meeting. So, you know, think about that too, Christina, as an option. Um just because as you know the meeting schedule becomes so difficult when you have to notice and com years ago we used to have a combined meeting quarterly of the municipalities but it actually didn't provide any um functional benefits. It was a little awkward. It was like having three separate meetings with three different boards there. But certainly the communication and the collaboration is important.

I think we should put our efforts in something like gas station instead of other efforts in the town of potential purchases. He doesn't like. All right. Um Brandy, what else do we have? Water. Uh yeah. Well, I think we I think we've covered a lot. Yeah. So, the only other two are the um the resilient. They're like the third and fourth are the last. Um this the DEC and the DOS have two programs. Each have one program open right now. One is resilient watersheds.

Um the other is community resilience and flood risk reduction. Yeah. Um they're both available for construction on Culver projects. So, you know, I think that's one where we could have a conversation with Teresa. Those are due the end of June. Um, so applications is open now. We could move forward with those if there's a priority that Teresa's interested in us addressing in terms of flooding on town roads related to

Culver. And I understand, I was talking to John, he's left now, but I was talking to John today. Um, that they're maybe going to repave the portion of the retrofit work that we had done in Forest Park for the drainage there. But so far so good, it sounds like. Yeah. What else? Uh so I think I included in the packet there's a lot of stuff but you know how uh regional council um sends us that monthly newsletter with all of that. One quick question.

The LG grants I know it just closed in February. Yeah. Do they have a second period that they open them or is it just once a year? I think Phil it's typically one time per year. Yeah. We can keep an eye open for that though. Okay. So, PAR the transportation. Yeah. Yes. P or Catac. So, it's now a decade after we applied for that multimodal going and we hear about that all the time on 199. On 199. Uh, people who live west of the high school want to have a way for their teens.

I I took out the transportation. So, there are um there was another federal program. I didn't think you guys were interested in that, but I'll pull that information. There is a federal program open right now. I think it's called safe streets. Yes, it says SSS4 something.

Safe streets um through federal highway administration. We would have to work with the Duchess County Transportation Council because you're in their Metropolitan Planning. So, we would need to, you know, contact them and see if they would, I guess, the project, put us on the list and sponsor the project. Yeah. We're we're having a presentation by them. Two weeks. In two weeks. Yeah. The supervisors may Okay. Um,

we need to get with DOT though. part part of the challenge was you need to be on that 5-year capital plan. And I check in with them regularly, but I mean, it won't surprise anybody to know that 199 hasn't been paid in the last decade, but you would think it would be on the 5-year plan by now. Anyway, do you want us to do a little outreach? I think I think so. You know, there's a new regional uh person there. It's no longer That's a state road. It is a state road. Yeah. There's been a lot of discussion. The one going through it. Yeah.

Yes. That's the one we're talking about from from 9G to the village center basically. Yeah. We did an application, Kenny, about a decade ago, Brenda Cable Kaggel, myself, and a couple of others uh for a um federal grant. These are all federal grants. This sidewalk that we did that was did that right was right around that time that was also federal administered through DOT. Okay. Cyber security. You don't need to be involved in that one. Um yeah, the only reason I threw that in was I wasn't sure if the water district needed anything cyber related. Um

yeah. Well, they're looking at they're doing controls upgrades. Yeah. So, and then playground. I know your playground looks really good, but I didn't know if there was um other playground initiatives that were happening in the town. I I never I'm not totally in the loop there. No, but center or what about New York swims? That is not open right now. It's open now. It is open now. No, I'm sorry. You say I don't know that it's open right now. Yeah. Or that open. Only New York plays is open right now that I can find.

Be interested in swims if that was open. Absolutely. What's the change? So, New York State provides money to either build or acquire a pool for swimming parks and it's a program that I think the governor launched a couple of years ago, three years ago, right?

Yeah. So, it can be for um like bathing beaches if you have a community pond that has like a a beach or if there's a swimmable portion of a stream um that is like town town park land for instance is on a stream and and there's a established swimming pool there can be used for upgrades standing the facilities handicap accessibility um water quality monitoring are you thinking about or swimming pool the um pool Robert. Uh, well, that or you know, has that advanced at all? That discussion?

It has advanced where we're it's not so much the discussion just get the ducks in a row and get the lifeguards to make make sure that we could do all of that. So, we're we're putting together that stuff. We now have all the information from Mortal Health um and we've been in touch with them and uh with the camp. So, it could be for that. It could be if we ever had a partnership with the Red Hustle, we could we could do something like that. Um, but those Oh. Oh, they're they're significant. One 2 million. I mean, it's not it's not jump. What did Milton got? I can't remember what

it was. It was seven figures, I think. Right. Yeah. No. Um, but it but it's for swimming. Yeah. So, like Stanford has a swim for something. All right. Uh,

the last year's programs that I thought might make sense for this year, the pro housing community. But if you're talking about um like a shared community planning, Empire State development program as well as New York Main Street might be viable options also to pull together a plan.

Uh clean energy communities disposal coming back. We can take a look at that. I know we've discussed a lot of electric tonight, but we do have correspondence from the uh police lieutenant wants a ED SUV. Um we are also supposedly getting our electric van 9 years after we got that grant. Um, so we'll we'll get updated on these as they roll out in the next couple of weeks and we'll take a look. Um, what do you think? Maybe have you back second meeting in May. Sure.

Well, we'll see as needed, right? We'll see. So, we'll do a little investigating on a few of these priorities and get back to you before then. I think so. and board members, if you would be kind of just take a look at these grant programs, write down your ideas. Don't worry about how you know what you know about the program or whatever. If it's something that you want us to explore funding, you know, where's the town in the comprehensive plan process cuz then the follow on is to update your zoning and you can get DOS funding usually for that as well. Would it make sense to try and queue up for that? I mean, sure. Uh, I think they're targeting for the end of the year. Okay.

Which, so if we did, is that right? Yeah. I think I don't think it would make sense for this year to apply for funding to immediate. So, well, what she said, it's so delayed. You apply now, you don't get it till December. by the time you get the grant so Jacob maybe we can have a call with the US and ask them if we could still qualify for the application given the timing because you'd like to be able to kind of have a smooth transition. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Um, can we emphasize this? We have people in the audience and folks at home. Just a reminder, I announced this I think a couple of months ago. Duchess County is um one of the counties that is involved in this um new program that the governor released. It is to help folks, homeowners who have cess pools and inadequate septic systems that may be at risk to the water body. And um you can get up to 50% of the funds in order to do so. This is not something you know we as a board obviously would be involved with, but I think it's important that we Uh, what else? I think that's it that I have. Bren, do you have anything else?

I do not. You do not? All right. Let's see. Do we need you? Do you want me to stay for the water tank? I'm Yeah. Can we skip over? Yeah. Can we skip the next thing on the agenda? Yeah. So, so let's do the uh water storage tank. Um, and then Valentine from New York. The specs are on our website. They're several hundred pages. Um, and the final version I think would be the same either up there or about to be up there. And so are referenced in that resolution? Well, let's see. Let's get the new resolution.

Talks about bids. And so the bids are the drawings and the specifications usually. Say it again. bidding documents are usually the specifications and the drawings. So, we've got plans and specifications dated April 2026. Gotcha. Want to put an S there. Plans and specification. Probably. Is there a plural specification? Or do we want to say project manual? Is that the right document that this is a 541 page?

That's it. Um I think we would stick with the nomenclature that's used because this is a procurement plans and spec even though the title of it may be project um the recommendation and thank Dan for I guess it's there's the calendar. So his recommendation is if we can let it now we can because it's got border health approval. Um, if we let it on Friday, do a pre-bid uh about 10 days later. Questions, answers, and bids due on the 21st. And Brandy, would that leave us enough time if we wanted to award on the 27th because we have to keep this moving if we're going to get a project done. Are you guys planning that?

Sorry. Can I just ask the document that Dan sent today with the calendar was from well calendar. Are you looking at a different calendar?

The one I'm looking at says one schedule. Oh, that was today's. No, I've got I think I've got the right calendar up. Chris, thank you though. Okay. Well, I can't see what you're looking at. Same thing. Yeah. No, we've done the right calendar. You made me nervous there for a little bit. Um, okay. So, the answer to your question is yes. That would give us enough time to review the bids and make a recommendation for award if you intended to award on the 27th at your meeting on the 27th. Okay.

And then we can work with Tiana to um get the um the the notice of biders posted. Okay. So, the resolution would then have the return date of the 21st. You need to make a correction on the council member names. Yeah, I know. I do that. I'm sorry. Why are you calling out? I don't use Yeah, I don't use that. Chris, can you I don't know if it came from your office. Could you make sure we have the 26 council members in the resolution? I don't need it. I I'll take care of it. Right. But I want Chris to

No. Yeah. Future. All right. uh as modified resolution number 16

16 to include an ask to have the correct council persons listed dated April 22nd to let the bids for water storage tank rehab project with bids to be received until 11:00 a.m. May 21st, 2026 for such later time and date as determined by the supervisor, provided that such publication shall appear not less than 5 days prior to the date set for bid opening. It's water related. Who would like to move it? So moved. How did I know? Okay. Um, is there a second?

Second. Thank you, Jacob. Further discussion. It'll be good to see what what the vendors say it's going to cost. Um, all in favor? Kenny. I William. Myself. I Jacob. Hi. Christina. Hi. Thank you very much. We didn't have any questions. I didn't know if you would have questions. Happy. Tell tell Dan. Thank you very much. I will message him right now and let him know. D work with Diana to make sure we get this out to as many people as possible. We get as many bids as possible. Maybe get it on bid. All right. Thank you all.

I don't I don't know. I don't know that we No, I think we're all good. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Have a good evening. Um, next is correspondence. Uh, received a letter. Um I was notified along with the two mayors um that uh in recent times that um the Red Hook Fire Company was having difficulty getting out on calls on a consistent basis with um enough um uh staff uh uh members and I had asked if they would uh kindly you know explain the situation in a letter so that we can understand you know what what's transpired they at the meeting did give some examples of of calls um you know and I would just first say that these companies have been around volunteers have been around for over a century um many of you maybe were here for the centennial Um there is probably no greater benefit to our community than what these individuals have done for us, continue to do for us, not only from uh emergency response, but from a fiscal standpoint. Um I think all the way back in 2007, I have the letter from the fire company. you know, as a resident, I mailed to everybody and say, "You got to support these folks and and do a a low sap program and and I'm I'm proud of uh the board at the time last year that expanded that over the year before. Um it's it's small pittance for what um

they do and answer the call. Um, historically from what I understand and you know maybe somebody will correct me there have been times when you know maybe the Tiffol company wasn't you know fully you know having the number of volunteers that they wanted but apparently now during 2026 there's been some difficulty you know people need to work there's training you know there's only a certain amount are certified for interior all of that to say that they have experienced, as they say, a noticeable decline in active membership. Oh, by the way, I don't think I mentioned we're all getting older. Um, and that is in this letter. Um, and they're committed to fulfilling their responsibilities to the residents of the township and the village. Um but they are in a position now where they're concerned about whether they can fulfill on a consistent basis the contract they that they have with the town. And I I won't take I think I did at previous meetings talk about the different ways that fire protection services um can be conducted in a community. Suffice it to say that we contract with the village and the redwood fire company for a portion of the township lines that were drawn many years ago. Tivoli fire um we contract with also they are you know even more a municipal uh fire department. I always the terminology um and they do service another portion of the township the northern or northerly part and there's a line I think that goes through a portion of farm so um

they wanted to formally notify us that meeting all all terms of the current contract has become increasingly difficult the intention is providing this notice just to ensure transparency to open a constructive dialogue. Um we're learning the sustainability of emergency response services within our community. And I know this letter was not easy for them to write. Um they want uh the opportunity to meet again with representatives from the town and the village to review current service expectations. Um discuss the challenges and explore potential solutions moving forward. um improvement, staffing, collaboration or other measures to ensure reliable emergency services for residents. And um all all this to bring me to what I alluded to earlier, which is I think we really need to take a look at how we deliver all kinds of services in our community because this is not the first letter we've had regarding service. We've had communications from uh the village uh police department that they are having difficulty retaining police officers and that that is a budgetary um issue. Again, going back to my point earlier, how it's difficult. We talked about healthc care premiums going up 16%, you know, in the latest year when you have a very small tax base, which these villages do versus the tax base of the town. And so I think we should study, maybe get a grant and study how

we are delivering many of these services and whether or not we could be doing something better differently um in order to uh try to ensure that they are financially sustainable in the future. And I think we need to do it with both villages. Frankly, I think we need to do it with the school. I mean, you hear me talk all the time about how taxes, town taxes are lower than 11 years ago when I when I started, and that's all great and grand, but you know, this the simple reality is we're seven less than 7% of the property tax bill. And so, you know, maybe many of you were as surprised as I was to see a $16 million referendum up this year given the capital projects recently happened. Um, and and I will say that, you know, when I ask families about how things are going in school, they are raving about I mean, I I don't think I've heard such positive feedback about what the schools are doing, you know, from a educational uh standpoint. But but that said, there's only a certain amount of money for, you know, each of us as taxpayers, I think we need to take a look at what the options may be and have a third party come in just like we did so years ago, I think it was 2016, 2017, applied for a local government efficiency grant. That's how we ended up with that judicial court study. And it's taken years for the village to say, "Oh, okay. Yeah, we will give you the core. We will consolidate." I mean, the math was not mathing back then. Um, and but I think that's where they're going to go. So, they're going to, you know, if we don't try to get

ahead of this, they're going to have to upload everything. you know, I mean, that's just the reality cuz inflation is far surpassing the 2% cap on a community and they're not growing. You know, that's the other thing is that the villages are not their tax base is not growing like our tax base is. In the case of the village of Tivi, I get the sense that they don't want to grow and that's their thing, you know. I mean that's their identity. You know they like it sleepy and quiet but of course obviously that makes it challenging when you have to you know produce a budget and uh you've got inflation factors working against you. The village of Reddit is trying to get some you know growth there certainly in the in the northern corridor and then the eastern corridor. We'll see if they're successful. you know, that could help a little bit, but it's really the town that has been the one to to get the growth without hopefully the the negative impacts. And and so far, I think we've seen that that's what the centers and green space has been all about. So, I'm rambling on, but all all I would like you to consider, board members, is whether or not you'd be willing to go out and seek a grant to for us to reach out to the villages and to the school district and say, "Hey, can we maybe collaborate on a study about how we deliver services and whether or not there are things that we can do to improve upon?" Do you know if that efficiency grant is still available?

It's an annual grant. It closed February 22. It wasn't on the list. That was

It was not on the list because it's it's off cycle. Um I think it was due February 20 something. So I mean we could apply for that next year. That is a known grant opportunity for us, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't other grant opportunities and we can look into that. And obviously if the villages aren't interested then, you know, there's nothing we can do about that. But I mean, maybe that's part of the conversation around the downtown revitalization conversations, thinking about how we do things more generally, thinking about that as revitalization, not just the physical space, but also services.

Well, maybe we have a joint meeting like I suggested, right? to be with both villages. Sure. I'm just saying. Sure. I think I mean workshopping it as like you know it's before we do that though I would recommend to the board that we were given this report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government about fire departments

and it was a slog to get through. I will have to say it's 42 pages of seven font single spaced but there was a lot of very important information about the somewhat convoluted way the state of New York has um created fire protection service delivery and I think the most important thing for the public to know is that New York State forbids counties and towns from developing their own municipal fire departments. I I can't for the life of me believe they did it. I moved here from Maryland and in Maryland the counties have their own professional paid fire departments and they're supplemented by town and village fire departments that are volunteers. Um, I don't I don't get it, but it's important to read this report because it explains we have a a blended service, if you will, here because we have a municipal village in Tivoli and we have an independent nonprofit here in Red Hook. Um, and there are some complexities associated with the way things are done. And it's helpful to read this report to get an idea just how complicated an issue this is and would be for the all three municipalities to to resolve. Um I'm disappointed when I learned that the state of New York doesn't allow counties or towns to have their own municipal fire departments. It's I would love to know the rationale for why they did that because most places do allow it. Um but that's what we're stuck with. we need to change the legislation.

I I would think that that would be a wise move um considering how many different kinds of fire departments there are, right? How they're funded. Um and the only problem with this report is it came out in September 22. It's a little dated. Uh but they did pull every call data of every fire department in the state of New York going back to I think uh 2000. and they looked at trends of, you know, response times and things of that nature. Um, and the kinds of activities that fire departments, uh, engage in and what percent is this and what percent is that. I just think though that given when we got this letter, um this would be a good time to examine what our situation is um and maybe have a frank conversation about are the things that we can do to um make it better and and not have, you know, one fire department's writing us a letter saying they're having trouble meeting calls. It's um it's it's disturbing. Well, we we have to get ahead of the curve because some of us have been talking about these topics for years and the risk, you know, of being in this position where you have to sort of scramble and figure out a solution. And I don't think that's this isn't going to this isn't going to work operating this way. Um and and in part because you know our role has largely been funding and supporting and you know I hope the fire companies feel like we've been as supportive as we can can be but you know uh restructuring may be what needs to happen and some of the options are we could just contract with one company for the town outside of the two villages or we can create a fire district which includes the villages and then there's a whole board of commissioners and they go to the voters and they, you know, develop a budget. There's a couple different options as it relates to this. But, um,

the reason I asked about the LG grant is that in this report, it talks about how the state will fund these studies for municipalities to look at their fire protection services and the delivery. And they don't make recommendations. Um, when the the grants pay for these studies, they don't make recommendations of what you should do. They just tell you where you are and tell you what your options are. And I mean, right now after reading this report, I I I'm kind of confused about what our options are. So, it might be helpful to have some people if we could get the grant to come in and really look at our situation um and give us, you know, tell us where we are, what our situation is, and then say, "Here are some options for you to consider." So, they're not going to say you should do this or do that, but uh

I think it would be helpful. Well, I think it'd be helpful for all municipalities at the third party to come in and just, you know, without

cuz you know, sometimes we get territorial about, well, this belongs to this mun municipality and this belongs to that. You know, we're we're all here in service of really one hookup. So, um there is a separate the county has been directed by the governor's office to come up with a plan for EMS. We've been asking for a plan from the county how to in support for EMS. um 20 some odd counties out of the 62 already um have a plan, but the governor recognized that it needed to be mandated. And so there will be a plan developed by the county at some point this year um for EMS because that's another service that you know was historically provided by these dedicated volunteers and you know they have jobs and they have other commitments. Sorry. And

Robert, can I just can I add to that for you? The Rup Fire Company, the ambulance has been I used to say proono.

It's not in a contract. That ambulance was organized by its members for its members and their families in the 50s. Steve, help me out. 50s. It grew to where that ambulance was going up as far as Columbia County and all over and run up I believe was one of the first to have an ambulance and they kept that tradition. It's not in a contract. It it's it's it's dead. It's it's on its last leg. Problem is is the mandates from the state that puts on for EMS and and the qualifications. you're not getting volunteers, the amount of hours it takes to come up. And that's that's one of the problems. But that when you touched on the EMS, and I know the county has been working on trying to get a dedicated EMS unit sporadically placed in the county, but that ambulance is not in the contract and we well I when I was involved spoke with the mayor, she was under the impression it was. In that contract, it says emergency service medical services. Okay. Provided by a fireman. It's not. So, it's and they've always wanted to put it in. I think in the past, the towns wanted to put it in and and as far as I understand, the fire company knew that we we can't if we get out with the ambulance, we get out. It's great, but you can't rely on it. But I think what you're going to see, that's going to be the first to go. Well, they've Yeah, they've already told us that that that's the first to go. Um, and just for folks at home, if you're watching or in the audience, just know that fire protection is mandated,

right? Emergency. EMS is not, but but I think it's coming.

If and I don't have a crystal ball. And now that I've said that I think I may have a handle on what's happening, I'll probably be wrong. Um the uh governor has said counties, you must come up with a plan. I imagine in the next fiscal year it'll be counties, you've submitted your plan. Here's some funding implementing your plan. And so I think and then you'll see it be designated as an essential service and then we will be required to provide a contract with a service for for our residents. So, it's really the whole thing is like convoluted right now because you have forprofit companies, you know, and and now almost a monopoly in this area and you have, you know, thankfully we have, you know, a a hospital system that also operates ambulance and and they want to chip in and help out, too. So, you know, we're trying to piece mail it together for right now. But again, this is why we shouldn't have been in this position. We should we should have been as we always try to do think 10 or 20 years forward because you can't scramble uh when you're in this position. I mean the I heard that there were calls where one person was going out, you know, on several calls. So anyway,

and then and that issue, Ron, is also addressed in this report. Yeah. Um, which was kind of confused me because where I come from EMS has always been probably you're probably talking about a fire district. Yeah. And it's, you know, that's that's a complete different ball of wax. I mean, for for years, Robert, you can probably attest to this. The the fire attacks per thousand for a Red Hook resident is under 70 cents per thousand.

Oh, well, I can I can assure you it's under that cuz I know 58. It's like 55 to 58 cents a,000. And Rare Fire Compan has done a done outstanding job and that's been their their drive to keep that as low as possible. It's got to a point now one truck is 3/4 of a million dollars. God forbid something happens to that ladder truck over there, you're looking at three, if not $4 million in 5 years to get it. Yeah. But the the the issue the issue is funding, right? But you know the but that doesn't help the manpower out.

It doesn't help the manpower. And so the what they were facing is last year we need to order a new truck. It's going to take three or four years. It's not too unlike what Teresa is saying. Like it takes Lee time. She doesn't have to worry about funding cuz we keep funding her department and and the equipment is much newer than it was years ago. But but to order a $1 something million truck and then another one not knowing whether or not and working on under a $500,000 to $475,000 budget combined. I think that fire company's done. No, I understand.

Outstanding. But here another thing with the ambulance and I won't I won't drag it on years back. We met with Ed from Northern Duchess Paramedics because we couldn't handle that. If you look at the calls, look how many EMS calls replicants. Well, that's that's

it's a lot. So, we were going to contract, but we were going to have to come to you and the village. I I said we I'm no longer there. The fire company was going to have to come to the to the village and the town. And at the time and and it was I want to say seven or eight years ago, maybe 9 years ago, it was going to be like $600,000 with a dedicated paramedic unit, but it would have covered we could have pulled in my Tibet and Red Hook. There would have been a unit dedicated for us. But fire company certainly didn't have that money. We were working on a $400 something thousand dollar budget between the village of Red Hook and the town of Red Hook.

See? Yeah. Here here's the problem. So, we have municipalities and again, you know, I I wear a different hat for supervisors and mayors and so most of the municipalities have one of those contracts and often times they share it. Yes. It's incredibly inefficient. Okay. You have a town like the town of Northeast that's involved in one of those expensive contracts. It goes up 35% for a renewal, 40 something% for a renewal. They don't even get one call a day. So you have a a an ambulance sitting there, a paid ambulance, a contract that taxpayers are paying for something that barely gets used, but it's life saving.

Well, it's one life.

So it's it's one life. But if you do it intelligently like you do, we have Duchess County Sheriffs. There are eight of them. They're scattered around. They kind of move around as the need is, as they get calls. Imagine if you had something county run where you had 20 ambulances distributed based upon need. You would always have an ambulance, right? It's all the same taxpayers, right? It's just whether or not you're being efficient with this taxpayers's dollar or whether you have a monopoly telling you you need to sign a contract. So anyway, um we've we've tackled this service. We got a letter about retaining police last year. Um you know, we we I think we need to take a look at this stuff. So, I I'm asking you, I don't know, maybe if you're ready tonight, if it'd be possible to approach the villages to see if they'd be interested in in applying for a grant to take a look at delivery of services writ large. Um, they may not want to look how long it took for the village to to say, "Okay, we'll we'll give up the village court in the name of efficiency because they saw what was happening with their budgets. It's a money loser, right?" And it seems crazy that we would have three I'm sorry Teresa's not here and John's not here. I hear all the time from taxpayers, you have four levels of government. You have uh driving a truck on the same road. Three of them have the plows up. Only one of them puts it down because the other three are saying it's not my road. It's ridiculous. We we need to look at these services and there are options. The county will pay

and many municipalities take advantage of this. We'll pay if we plow the county roads that are in there because we're going to go over West Curly corners anyway, right? We're going to go to these places anyway to get to. So why are we not getting, you know, compensated for that? Anyway, I I could go on for a maybe we should have a conversation. Okay. So there's interest. There's interest in maybe seeing if the village is interested in getting together and doing a grant application study delivery of services. That's a one. That's a two. That's a three. Is there a four? Is there a five? Yeah. So we we should have a meet or schedule a meeting with uh

No, I I I think it's too early to I don't like scheduling meetings with people who don't even know that we're interested in doing they may not be interested. So what is your proposal exactly? My proposal is that we as a town board reach out to the other municipalities and the school and ask them if they'd be interested in collaborating in a grant application that looks at how we deliver services in our community with taxpayer dollars to to see if we can come they can come up with it's a third party thing some recommendations and how we might be able to be more efficient. Okay. Without disparaging anybody, more efficient with uh these services and the taxpayer dollars. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's more information is is better. I mean, I'd like to hear from Yeah. Let's see if they're interested.

They may not be interested. Okay. Uh we are required to so next item on the agenda we are required to submit our hours every 8 years that we work just for pension uh verification. Different departments have different work days. The standard work day in uh town hall is 6 hours. Um, we are open uh 7 hours a day, 1 hour lunch. Obviously, this has nothing to do with what we actually work, but that is the standard workday is 6. Um, time sheets. Kenny, we got to get you a time sheet. We don't want the controllers office after you.

I think that I don't know. I've never been in this position where it was not submitted. So, um, this is what we've got. That's all. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, this just a a resolution to uh the animal will certify and this is the time sheets that were submitted and what the hours. You can't get more than that, you know, a day towards your credit. Just so you know. Any questions? We have a motion to approve this and get on to the others. And Kenny, you all uh submit and we'll send in the second one.

Yeah. Okay. So, who wants to make the motion? Bill, you're not on it. Would you motion? Okay. Okay. I'll make the motion. Okay. Is there a second? We have I think everybody else is every eight years you have to do the to do this for the controllers's office, folks. Second. Anybody? Second. Thank you, Christina. Uh any further discussion? All in favor? I I Okay, we are uh ZBA. Um we have some communication on

we received an email from Katie Heracasses confirming that Chris Carney um is willing to serve as a term as DBA chair. Great. Would you like to make that motion? Yes. Thank you. Thanks for that. Is there a second form of ZBA second? Okay. Is there any further discussion? We want to thank Chris for stepping up and certainly Kay for I don't know how many years she's done this, but I think I was part of appointing her maybe nine or 10 years ago. So, it's been a while, right?

Well, yes. And I also want to clarify I spoke to Ann today. Um last meeting we mentioned um moving the alternate to a permanent member. Okay. That is at the moment not needed. She was kind of looking forward to what might happen. So I just wanted to make that clarification. Thank you. And it looks like is still listed as a bill. So I can update that to Christina. Diana, could you change on the Thank you. Okay. I told you it'd be electrifying tonight

in addition to my raising my voice. I think for the first time in 11 years, um, our police lieutenant is asking if we would contribute towards they need a new vehicle. They want the Chevy ED Blazer. Um, they have now had a grant funded uh Tesla Model Y. I remember when we did the ribbon cutting I want to say three years ago with our state senator Michelle Hinch got them the money for that.

Replacing this with some other vehicles. Yeah, I assume he doesn't tell us which one he's replacing. And I wasn't How many vehicles I have to build like 10? Um, I think we should get more information like what what are you replacing this with? And you know, you're you all are going to put me to work to see what kind of uh support we can get for the CV, aren't you? You know,

well, I was going to ask what the what the ask was, what they're looking for. There was no ask yet. This is what they want to buy. Um and they want the the town to contribute um because we have a contract with them for services just like we we did contribute um $100,000 towards the ambulance for a road fire um back in my early days. Well, the vehicle's not that expensive. It's the police package that is, and I know from personal experience, I give it like 16,000 for light bars and wigwags and all those things. Um, but the car itself, I think it was $45,000.

Okay. Before you get too excited, in order to contribute towards this, change the budget and and the contract

and the contract and have a public hearing So, uh, to Kenny's question, let's find out what vehicles they have, just like we did with the highway. Um, what they're replacing it with and, um, right, this is the theme tonight. Trying to be careful with your dollars. Like to think it's been the theme every night. Um, okay. Any more questions, please uh forward to me and I'll uh get with the Pat and we'll try and get more more information. All right, we are at department and committee reports. Let's see if we can quickly uh go through it. Um the first letter in the alphabet, the assessor's office, uh the report is as of the other day. Um folks, you're you're going to get your notice of assessment in the mail, um in about a week or 10 days, I would say. Um the residential trend, so what is that? that is the average residential property as determined by data that New York state collects in the town of Red Hook needs to go up 7% in order to be at 100% market rate equalization rate. So I think she sends out letters still every year that explains just because the value of your property has gone up doesn't mean your taxes haven't gone up and you remember that chart. I hope that shows you the value of the average house and I track it every year for you so you can see and then the actual taxes that

average house pays for because one's gone up a lot and one's gone down a tiny bit. So you will see that your residential property will go up 7% in that uh notice that you will receive. Um, as always, there's grievance day. It's the fourth Tuesday located at town hall here from 4 to 62 sessions. Um, applications are online on our website or you can come in and get them here at town hall. She lists a couple of uh recent sales um in in the municipality. I also want to tell you we have, you know, we talked about the community preservation fund. It's a little search charge that goes on the dollar amount above the county median sales price, which just the state reports is now $475,000. If you want to know what half of the houses in Duchess County sell for, it's above that number. The other half sell for below that number. What And you hear me talk about affordability in this community. When I started here in this particular position, we were somewhere around that county median. We have now exceeded our median is now higher than that. What does that say? It means we becoming more desirable than the average Duchess County uh um community and that presents affordability challenges as well. So, um, that's what I got for assessor. Who's doing building and zoning?

Uh, that's me. That's you, Christina. Thank you. So, the monthly report for April, there were 33 permits, one short-term rental, uh, 82 inspections, 21 cos, zero complaints, and a total revenue of8 $8,976.

Okay. Thank you very much, Christina. Um, we track single family homes. We're talking about single family homes. So, what we're noticing is changing in the market and the development. You heard me talk about how we've had more development even though it's very compact. It's not spread out sprawl, more development than the last years um than we've had historically um in gener maybe not generations, but decades prior to that. We're now starting to see a little bit of change. I think it's fair to say maybe less single family home uh construction going on and a lot more renovations. Um that still continues, you know, with what's going on in the economy. Um it stands to reason also that large development tradition there will be completely finished this summer. So if you want to know how desirable your community is, that's sold out and not to just people from outside. I know people like to say that many people in red have moved to tradition because they wanted that sort of maintenancefree lifestyle that goes along with it and neighbors and so on and so forth. Okay. Police. Who's got police? Is that you, Phil?

Yep.

So, for the month of March, that submitted us a report that they had 107 calls in Red Hook and another 14 in Tivoli. They issued 23 summons, traffic summons, and they made six arrests. And they were able to get us this next page, which is the uh the number of calls. It's alphabetical order by the type of call that they went on. And I um there's a couple on here that I always like to highlight. One actually goes to the issue about EMS. They had seven medical emergencies and seven mental health. Um they're often the first on they're the closest. They now have defibrillators in all their cars. Um you know, they're not EMS, but they get there fast. Um and and they can they can uh they can be nimble. The other one is at the bottom is uh the welfare check. Um they have 19 welfare checks in in that month. And I and I want to point out just what a critical service that is for the public. Um if you can't get in touch with a loved one um and you know they've gone silent on you, you call 911. They will send a car to a house. I know of two instances in the last 3 years that they saved someone's life. They showed up and there was an unconscious person on the floor and got there in time. And that's because uh a family member or another person who looked after somebody was calling couldn't get through and uh and they one of them they you know they had to break in. So I I think it's important to remember the you know police officers their jobs are not just crimes. They they they truly serve the public. um they save lives and um I was shocked when I saw this report that there were that many uh welfare checks in the month of March. Um and I'm grateful that they're here and I'm grateful they they certainly as a police department I I you know I worked with a lot of small police departments in my career. This police department punches above its weight

consistently. Um, and you know, when they're having trouble keeping uh police officers due to financing and other things, that's one of those things in terms of the grant, an LG grant to try to find a way to figure out if we can get more stability there. Um cuz they they are a good police department for their size. That who's doing recreation?

Okay. Uh summer wreck programs. Uh oh. So folks, uh, sign up for summer wreck. You hear us say it all the time. We're very proud. We offer free summer wreck programs so we can have a community for every June 6th, June 13th, 5 weeks. Um, you need to your child needs to be in the Red Hook School District in order to qualify. Um, so the programs are they're finalizing them now. They'll be available on the website. you can see not not only the morning but the afternoon. Um we've got $15,000 from the uh county uh towards that very successful I think I mentioned this at the last meeting. Very successful fishing contest. Many thanks to Brandon Ter. I think his last name is misspelled but we thank him anyway. um and Scott Stoddard uh who uh organized this year's uh fishing contest and to mother nature who cooperated and finally um uh court lights. Um there's been some question why why don't we have the tennis court lights on when it's you know very cold. Um, and so there's not only a seasonality to it when we open the park, but there's also a temperature thing. I guess we don't turn on the lights till 10:00 at night when it's 40°, for example. Uh, the teams have been out there, the school's been out there. You heard me talk about delivery of services. You know, years ago, there was a little bit of kurfuffle, we'll call it, because the school had to pay the town because the school was using the town facilities. That's what shared services is all about is sharing the burden and sharing the facilities.

Um, and so they are doing that again um each and every year. Uh, synthetic field reconditioning. So, there was a lot of discussion about the school getting an artificial turf field that was voted down. One of the things that came up is that there's maintenance associated with that. There is some maintenance associated with that. Um, we had a little maintenance done. Um, but it's not anything that would, you know, necessarily warrant not exploring those options. There may be other reasons why you may want to not explore those options. Um, blue garbage and recycling containers. Okay, this is not all that excite exciting. Uh, we want to thank the state again. Um, do do you hear me kissing up? Uh, we want to thank the state. Um, I was able to work out a few years ago that we could in the winter time have pickle ball at the Eddie Parker Center, residential center, what has been a dormant or closed facility. and yet still not transition to something more active. Um, that is one thing, you know, we didn't talk about with grants, but I would ask you to please put your thinking cap on. We need winter activities for young people and old people, but especially teenagers. Um, and so if there is a facility that we could work something out for teenagers as well, um, that would be great. Okay. uh staff tree work, cooking ham trails. The trails are looking good. Occasionally we hear people say, "Oh, maintenance of trails." It's not much maintenance for the cooking ham trails. They're not perfect. Um they have slope to them and anybody who's worked with trails and slope knows it requires a little bit of maintenance.

Um they're getting great use. People love them. I will say though, please folks, there there's a reason we have the rule to keep we almost didn't allow dogs on Cookingham trails because we were worried that people would just let their dogs run free and then we would have more incidents, right? Like we had, you know, uh dangerous dog incidents. Please keep your dogs leashed for everybody's benefit when you're when you're on the trail. Uh yeah, counselor offices. We have a new we have a new rep park staff person also by the way. Uh parking lot striking pain. Yeah. So you hear me say we have renovated the entire park. True. But I think the parking lot, the south parking lot may be ready. Right. We did the north parking lot just a couple of years ago. That south parking lot could use a little bit of uh TLC.

Do you know when the sign up is for the summer camp programs? Somebody's not paying attention. I think I said June 6th and June 13th. Okay. Right here. Right here at town hall. Okay. Because it wasn't on here. That's why these reports are so long. Who does these? He does this. He has more he has more paper. He has an entire office of booklets. He doesn't amaz. Um, okay. Water. Okay, let's talk about water because um, you know, we do need to update a little bit on some of the trees. Was it before?

Oh, did I tre? No, I see. I guess it did. Okay. Oh, it's at the end. Okay. Well, since I'm the leazison of the water department, go ahead, please.

So, the water board, uh, just so people are clear, the board is different than the department. The department runs the water. The board is a governing body, if you will, experts. the quarterly. They met on uh March 26 to talk about and finalize their decision to want to rehab the tank and put it out for bid. Um and they also had a sub very long conversation regarding rates, water rates, and what they're going to need to do because as I said at the last meeting, rates have been artificially low for a long time. How to raise them uh without being draconian. so that we can develop some reserves so that when the bill comes due on other major projects and it is coming due uh that they'll have it and um they had a meeting just the other night um they they have not approved those minutes so I'm not going to get into it but they they are we are waiting for them to send us a memo with what their recommendation is for what the what they're going to recommend that we raise the water rates to. We do raise them every year. We have traditionally um but it's always been like 5% or 6% and this year they're gonna they're going to be asking for something else.

Can we can we tease that? Can we you can tease it. I'm not going to tease it. So you heard me talk about maybe I didn't mention tonight. I think it was Tivoli. Tivoli they had an assessment. I think I remember the mayor saying because of their tremendous infrastructure costs that they've incurred with replacing their WPA funded infrastructure something like a $1,300 assessment. I hope I have that right. It's about that annually.

Um annually the water the water board has opted to just have annual increases replace the funding. Remember, there are there's some funding coming from Bard College. There's some funding potentially coming from the sale of at least four of those five water district own parcels and then um some moderate increases in the rate. So, their goal is to not hit their users over the head, so to speak, with a very large one-time assessment. Again, you know, this is part of the whole collaboration between the taxing districts. Can we work together so that the taxpayer doesn't worry about, you know, what this entity is is planning for a big capital project or that entity. Um, so that's the teaser. No large assessment. Okay. And maybe no assessment at all. Okay. What else?

We got DBA report ZBA.

They had one meeting in April. They had two items on the agenda. One was um uh to amend an amend variance that they had already approved uh with the zoning district and lot coverage. The other one was a variance to reduce the required lot frontage from 50 ft to just over half that 25.86 ft to allow a lot line adjustment for a fly lot and they uh classified seeker and scheduled public hearing for May.

Okay. Thank you Christina. There's just right past.

Yeah. Trees. Short and sweet. Yes. A brief uh report from the tree and preservation commission um from last night's meeting. Um they finalized details for the Arbor Day celebration which again is happening this Saturday from 10 to 2 here at town hall. We encourage everybody to come out for that. Um 10 trees were planted on April 18th and April 20th. Eight of them at Red Park West, one on Pitcher Lane, and one Saric Road. um what I've seen from the committee emails that uh that went very well and people were happy with it. So, thank you to the committee for the work to do that. Um and then the world school arbor day poster contest entries were judged. They were presented this Friday 24th for our day. So, thanks to the committee for all the work forward to the celebration this weekend. Okay, folks. I want to thank you for coming tonight. Um, at this time I'd like to uh make a motion that we close the meeting. Is there a second?

Second. Okay. All in favor? I Thank you all very much for coming. Stay healthy.