Town Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. Um, keep an eye on the Okay. Good evening everyone. I'd like to call the January workshop meeting to order. It's January 22nd, 2026. If you could all stand for the pledge of I 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. Can you do the roll call? Councilwoman Alba is absent. Councilman Coleman here. Councilman Smeith Sassen. Councilman W here. Supervisor now.

I am here. Second computer looks like what? Mayor Lou, can you say something? I can. All right. Can you um Yes. Okay. Great. So, we had um Justice Alba had requested a swearing in at a meeting, but um she's not here. So, we will move on to the acceptance of the agenda. Um so, I'd like to make Did you bring the amended version that I had sent?

Okay. So, they can make a motion to accept the agenda as prepared um by the town supervisor with the following amendments that we add um an appointment of a chair to the CBA. Um a truck order item. Um and that's it. So, we'll second.

Uh any discussion? All in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries. So I wanted to start by doing the seeker declarations for the local laws on the agenda. Um and uh so Mary, I want to confirm that I just we don't need to do a resolution. No, you don't. Some some boards do, but you just have to mention because they're type twos. Okay. Well, maybe I'll do Is it okay to do them all together in the same resolution? Because they're type twos. I think it is. If they were, you know, unlisted or type ones, I'd ask that you do them individually.

Okay. Um, so I guess we could do it as a resolution. Um, it would be a roll call vote. So, um, I'd like to mo make a motion that, um, pursuant to the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act and its implementing regulations, the town board finds that the um, adoption of each of the above reference local law is classified as type two action under seeker. So, that is local law A of 2026, local law B of 2026, and local law C of 2026. Type two actions are actions that have been determined to not have significant adverse impact on the environment. No further environmental review is required and no further action under seeker is necessary. Do

I have a second? Second. Um roll call vote. Councilman Alba is absent. Councilman Coleman I. Councilman Smeith is absent. Councilman W I. Supervisor Nan

I. Great. So we have to start our workshop meeting we have three public hearings. Um I will be requesting from the board that we leave the public hearings open at least for written comment for um you know 10 days or something like that if that's okay with you. So I just wanted to mention that at the top of the meeting because I think sometimes people don't know that we have it we tend to leave the public hearing open for comment. Um, so the first public hearing we have is on local law A of 2026. This is a local law amending local law 2 of 2023 amending chapter 128 taxation of the code of the town of Rochester. Um, the senior citizens tax exemption. Um we have um we allow public our public hearing participation in person at the meeting uh through Zoom or by written comment. So when I am opening the public hearing, we will first see if anyone is in person who'd like to speak. Then we will look to see if anyone is on Zoom who'd like to speak in the public hearing um before we move on. I do it in that order. Um, so the the local law A of 2026 brings the um annual income limits for the senior tax exemption to the same level of Olter County. So that's why we're doing this because it makes it a lot easier for taxation than for the public and also um

it is raising the limit um of exemption which given you know how um given the financial reality of moving through the world year by year I think um is a good thing. So with that, I will open the public hearing for local law A of 2026. Is there anyone here who would like to speak on local law a joined us through Zoom that would like to speak on local law A of 2026?

Okay, I think we have to ask to mute now or they can put their hand up maybe. depth. Is there a way to put your hand up? They would ask to unmute. Yeah. Or we can ask them to unmute. Okay. Should we ask? Why don't you ask um Miss Nunees that if she'd like to speak that she unmute herself? Yeah, but we have to give permission for that. Mayor, that's what I'm saying. I think

uh Miss Nunees, if you would like to speak, can you indicate that by raising your hand or commenting in the chat? Okay, I don't see anything in the chat. Okay. So, I'd like to make a motion that we hold the public hearing open for written comment until, let's see, February 2nd.

I'll second. Yeah. What the specific time? um until February 2nd at 5:00 p.m. or written comment. Any discussion? All in favor? I

I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Okay. So, I'm holding it open long enough that if we were to make a proposal of a change, there would be enough time to circulate that version of the local law ahead of our next meeting in case we wanted to adopt that. So, that's what why that be. Okay. So, I'd like to open the public hearing for local law B of 2026. Um this is a local law that um is rescending local law one of 2011. Um creating chapter 100 municipal parking lots. Um this would delete that chapter. Um I do have that um chapter that local law is in the public meeting materials link that's linked at the top of the agenda. Um, and that is a a law that bans overnight parking in the municipal lot from 900 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Is there anyone here who would like to speak on local law B of 2026? Is there anyone who's joined us through Zoom that would like to speak on local law B of 2026? You can type in the chat or raise your hand using the react button. [clears throat and cough]

Mary Lou, can you put anything in the chat? Yes. Okay.

Do we receive any written comment? No. Okay. Did I do anything?

Sure. Another person giving it a minute. Um I did uh the proposal that I made of the of a replacement law. Um we have that. We just thought it needed some a little bit of work. So, I have I have that still shared and in the public drive. Okay.

So, um I'll entertain a motion to hold the public hearing for local lobby of 2026 open for written comment through February 2nd, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. I'll make that motion. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? I oppose abstain. Motion carries. Okay. Um so I'd like to uh open the public hearing for local law C of 2026. Uh local law C of 2026 is a local law amending local law 1 of 2023 amending chapter 128 taxation of the code of the town of Rochester article 5 exemption for disabled persons with limited income. Um this local law will match the income limits of the um exemption for disabled persons with limited income to the senior citizens tax exemption. It has been the practice of the town to have those two income limits matched. Is there anyone here who would like to speak for during for the public hearing on local laws C of 2026? Okay. Um, is there anyone who has joined us on Zoom that would like to speak on local law C of 2026? Um, I'll entertain a motion to hold the public hearing for local law C of 2026 um open through February 2nd, 2026 at 5:00 p.m.

Shall make it. You should specify that's for written comment. for written comment. Sorry, I thought I said that. I'll make that motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I oppose. Obstain. Motion carries. We did just get another person join the meeting. What do we do if someone came to comment, but they come after me held it open for written comment? I think um I mean you can reopen it if you'd like. Someone can make a motion to reopen that public hearing for comment now. Okay.

Or you can let them know that you've moved past that and they can submit a written comment. Okay. Well, I'm I'm inclined to be accommodating. So, I guess uh we Louise Kelly Johnson, did you uh come in to make a comment on one of the public hearings?

No, just to listen. I'm sorry about that. Oh, okay. Um Okay. So, that's it.

All right. So we'll move on to the agenda. I'm just will all the public hearings have been held open for written comment until February 2nd, 2026. So now it is public the public comment portion of our meeting which we are only taking public comment addressed to the board through written comment or um in person. We are not taking comment during our regular meetings through Zoom at this time. Um, so with that, um, I will ask if there's anyone here who would like to address the board.

I'll just say that I'm hoping that we can I know I understand well I understand I believe that the proposal for the granary project tax exemption was held over from the meeting on Tuesday because they had received more comments. Um I'm hoping that there's going to be um more dialogue um at the town level and also when things like this and I understand from talking with with people that um perhaps the board and the town weren't given a whole lot of information in advance that would help them to communicate with us. Um which is unfortunate. Um, I'm hoping that um when when proposals like this come up, it would mean I understand that a lot of these hearings are for public comment, but you can't ask questions and that is really tricky as a resident and as citizens want to learn and you want to know. It really doesn't give you that opportunity to have dialogue. I know we had some dialogue um when the in project came up and I'm I'm hoping um that can leave um things can be more reflective of what the needs are of the current residents in the town. Um visitors are great, hospitality is great, but there's a lot of people having difficulty with housing and food security and things of that nature. and people who've lived here and want to continue to live here, who are, you know, middle class and lower middle class as that divide becomes greater and continue to afford um to reside here. And all of those things to me need to be factored in when um tax relief is offered because unfortunately we all know now that nothing is free. you know, some somehow

things get paid for and it's usually through tax dollars. I understand it's a county level situation. I just um I'd like more opportunity and more it's just it's with my limited understanding of how things work. It's just all of a sudden I heard from somebody who was outside of the town that that meeting was occurring and I had heard that there was interest in doing the Granary project. I had no idea that it was linked to further tax relief. And then when I started like, you know, going through the peels of the onion, I'm seeing that they've already had some monies from grants and some other relief and it's it's kind of a lot on the people who reside here. Not everybody. We do have an influx of money and people who have more money and that's great, welcome. But there are people that are struggling. Um, so I'm not against the project. I'm concerned about the tax relief. So, thank you.

Thank you. Do you feel comfortable sharing your name for the record? Oh, yeah. My name is Annie Duet. Okay. Thank you. Um, would anyone else like to address the board? Um, so we'll go ahead and close um the anyone online. We are not doing that.

Um, sorry, I didn't mean to say it. I just announced it at the top of the We like had this whole conversation about it last time. Okay. Um, so I'll close the public comment portion of the meeting. Thank you, Michael, for handling the Zoom. Uh, it's now town board member time. Would any members of the town board um like to address comments or have anything that you'd like to share that's not on the agenda?

I can I can address some of [clears throat] what was just brought up in the public comment. Um, so the public hearing that happened here was not uh any town body. Uh, that was the Olter County IVA. Um we've we've absolutely received feedback uh from other people uh about the noticing that happened with that. Uh I spoke with uh people from the IDA um twice this week and kind of expressed some of these concerns and I know they heard it from other board members here and from other people in town. Um, and they were they were aware and uh they did say that they received a huge amount of comments both uh in favor and against. But I just want to be clear that any of those decisions about tax relief are outside of the uh this board's purview and outside of any town board's purview. Um, we do have it on the agenda tonight because we had discussed uh sending something not necessarily as uh part of the public hearing for that, but just as a board, you know, letting them know some of the feedback we've been hearing from residents. And so that's that's something we're going to be discussing later today. I do know that it was their meeting was at 9:00 a.m. this morning. Uh, I'm sorry,

yesterday. Yesterday morning. I don't know what date is what day is it? Thursday. Wednesday. Um you can actually watch the meeting on uh YouTube. They have all of their meetings up there. Uh that discussion was actually removed from the agenda. So no decisions have been made uh good, bad or indifferent. Although I do know that the uh public comment portion of that has closed. So you can't comment into the record of that specific project. But they always accept public comments about anything on the agenda. So when it does come up on the agenda, um you can still participate and make comments there and kind of express uh some of your perspective on that. So um but yeah, I appreciate the feedback.

Thank you. Apologies for being late and coming in the middle of your public comment. Anyone else have anything? No.

Okay. Um, I h I'm making an adjustment to the abstract. So, um, if you guys like just give me a couple minutes, I have to do a little bit of math. Um, this next resolution So much. Okay, sorry about that guys. I just had a last minute adjustment to the abstract which was audited by the board members and I just wanted to make sure my numbers were corre correct.

Okay, so I'd like to make a motion that the town of Rochester Town Board accepts abstract 13B of 2025 and approves the payments and the following amounts. General fund prepaid bills $45955 $36,237 for unpaid bills. Highway fund is $738.50. Street lighting fund is $720.97 and escrow is $2,497.40. Do I have a second?

Second. Any discussion? Um I think the board knows this, but anything that should be count towards the 2025 budget gets these larger than 12 month in the year numbers. Um but hopefully that stops at our next audit so that we I can officially close the books. All in favor?

I opposed staying. Motion carries. Um, so I'll make a motion that the Town of Rochester Town Board accepts the 1B of 2026 abstract and approves the payments and the following amounts. General fund prepaid bills uh were $125.35 and the remaining $117,853.7 is to be paid. Highway fund $93,6327 and escrow is $3449.

Do I have a second?

Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Oh, I have to table C because I didn't um I wasn't able to get these resolutions. Um, but I do we do need to start taking the um issuance of the ban out because our first purchases will be coming in pretty soon. Um, and I can't pay for something and then repay it back with the ban funding. So, we have to actually have that funding in place. Uh, so at our next meeting, I'll want to move forward with that. Um, resolution D. um the um is the signing of the insurance contract and I'll make that motion as presented.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. So, um, if anyone are those policies are in my office, if anyone's curious about our policies, um, we pay it comes to about $150,000 a year for our insurance. Um, Councilman Coleman, uh, did you want to do the appointment of the ZBA chair? I added that to the agenda.

Uh, sure. Uh, I would like to make a motion to appoint Sam Zarovski uh to the position of ZBA chair. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. I abstain. Motion carries. I'm glad you came, Charlotte. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to pass that. Um then okay so I got this today the this allegiance truck international CV. Uh this is a truck body. No truck with a missing fat.

Yeah. So, I'm going to explain this, but I'm I just realized I'm going to get all my words wrong. So, I'll try to translate.

Okay. So this we were going to order a truck that was one thing but because of tariffs the they're not able to give us like the actual cost because the tariff rate for the new truck which would be coming from overseas um is I guess variable. The salesperson at Allegiance Trucks had the idea that if we bought something off of the lot, then there wouldn't be a tariff on it. And then the actual body, the rest of the truck is actually going to come from a different

supplier. Um, my only concern with this is I have I we need to make this purchase contingent upon the ban funding because I don't want to um I don't want to do anything to uh jeopardize the issuance of the band. Um but it will end up costing less than what we budgeted. Um and both um I think we need to say in the um resolution that these um it's in my notes these flyers are hold on just cabin chassis. That's it. So,

um they are on a bid and I'm trying to find if it's state I or county. Hold on. I'm going to get that. I want to put that in the resolution.

Any questions before I put together? So, the actual truck body components, um, do you have an estimate on what those what the range of estimates would? I don't have a range of estimates. What I do know is that it will end up costing less than $212,000 all week, including the

Yeah. So, the cabin chassis um were Okay. um superintendent Fry had said it would be around 80,000. So this is 73,900. And then the um body will be coming from a supplier in Ellenville called Reed. Um and I hit I have them here. I can ask. And why did the terrorist apply as international came? Yeah. Um, you're asking a great question.

International is under Ford's umbrella I believe or J Ford or Jams um which are both notoriously they're they make the cars here but the parts are made overseas. sell all the pieces to build the car together are subjected to the tariffs. That's typically how it goes. When the cars are built here, all the pieces are made outside of the United States and shipped to your

Volkswagen. Okay. Okay. Um but um yeah, I was told that it would um be less than 210, which this seems like it will be based on this innovative way of solving problem. Buy all trucks and pieces. Buy all trucks and pieces. Yeah. Wait, what? Um sorry, can you give me the total for the bed again, Erin? It was like 2500. Did you use that?

The cabin chassis is 73,900. It's that um it's at the bottom of that right there. No, no, the back of it. Oh, I don't know. I I don't You don't know how much the bed's going to be? I don't know how much the body is going to be. And we budgeted 80 for this. No. How much? 210,000. So the body can be 150.

Yeah, it'll plus the plow and it'll be the too. Um, so I guess it would be coming from overseas, but I don't have the specs. Um, do you feel comfortable authorizing the purchasing of this contingent upon van is the ban is? Yes. Yep. Okay. So, we have the resolution from the last.

Okay. So, I'll make a motion that the town of Rochester town board authorize the highway superintendent to place an order for the 2024 International CB cab and chassis in the amount of $73,900 from Allegiance Trucks which is uh in our procurement policy. see piggybacking on the county bib and uh the ordering is contingent upon the issuance of the ban.

Second. Any discussion?

All in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Um Sue that was it for resolutions. Put my agenda back together. That was got a lot to discuss. And then we have um an executive session um at the end of the agenda. So, number one, I just wanted to do an overview of what I've been doing for the file system um for the town board and I can also mention what I've been doing for the public. Um so, the public is easy. Um we I post the agenda publicly 72 hours in advance of the meeting. So that's typically Monday by Monday evenings at 6 or 6:30 we I try to post any document that we we should be posting what we're adopting publicly. That's one of the reasons why my I follow my predecessor's agenda um philosophy whereas that I put all the resolutions on the agenda that way I don't have to post separate documents of resolutions. So if we know we're doing a resolution, we have a statutory obligation to share that with the public. Um so that is how we meet that requirement. But if there are documents that we adopt or we are going to be discussing um within reason, uh we make those available to the public. So um what I do is at the top of the agenda there is a link a Google Drive link and it's public and it says at the top

of the agenda view public meeting materials posted by 24 hours ahead of the meeting and you can click that link. In that folder are a bunch of folders that are the meeting dates. So there, if you click on it today, you will find the January 22nd, 2026 meeting folder and I put everything in there that I had a public, you know, a document that is um not something that's confidential. Um, and I put those documents in the folder. So, I add things to that actually throughout the month, but I t I will have what everything that I have available, I put in there 24 hours ahead of the meeting. Um, and sometimes I will put things in there after like if I think of something I think might be helpful to the topic, I will also do that. But anything that we're actually planning on adopting or discussing, I put in there by that deadline. for the town board. The town board has one of the things we're trying to do is have a better file access system for the town board so that it's easier for you to both see everything that we need to get you prepared to make the decisions that we need to make on the agendas and also reference materials like adopted policies or um the work we've done and like what the end product is. So once we're done with it, I also want you guys to be able to see what that product looks like. So I do have a we have a SharePoint site that's for town board meeting materials and there's a home page that I share with the board. Um, and it typically what it has is all the

documents that I share with the public. Um, and if there's any other sort of reference material or background material that we might not necessarily be even talking about um, specifically um, it goes in there. Um, so on the homepage there's a view of all the documents that's sorted by the current agenda. So you can if you look at that you can open that current agenda window that's on the homepage and it'll blow it up to the full screen and that has all the backup for the meeting in it. So um I was numbering it by the agenda but I don't think I did that this week. Um any questions so far by the board? Okay. And then our full documents from like all the meetings since we've been doing this. On the left hand side, there's a menu and there's a documents tab. And if you click on that, that'll show you the an unfiltered version of every meeting material I've shared with you. So, um, that goes you can reference anything we've discussed or talked about in there. Now, the next thing I'm going to set up, which I think I'm going to make separate from that, is like an archive. And the archive will mostly be um documents that are available to the public also because it'll be like adopted policies. It'll you know those types of things. Um so I'm going to make another area because if if it's sorted with all the meeting documents, I feel like it's

going to get confusing. So what we're working on will be in meeting documents, but what is finished will be in like an archive of like actual adopted and approved final versions of things. Um I haven't made that yet because I that I was kind of putting everything all together and this week I felt like it might be easier to keep those two things separate. any feedback, questions, needs, anything from the board?

Well, I think one thing I'm curious how the board wants to do wants to go about working on documents. So, we've been putting PDFs in this folder. Is the intent that at some point we'll put in word documents so that we can work on things in the document and then uh discuss that in the board meetings or do we want to just have static versions of it? Are you asking me first or

anyone can jump in? I mean, I think it's helpful to be able to edit or to suggest edits online as long as versions are saved that it's not over. It's been posted um and also when policies are adopted um and kept in the PDF form as a final adopted document. I think it's important to also have that as a word document so that it doesn't scramble to retype and break the PDF to do future edits. But I think all of the documents should have embedded in the in the in the footing or whatever the the actual file means. So we know what if you print it out you know which version you're looking at. So

um thank you Mary Lou. We are unable to move the camera. Okay. Sorry about that. It's stuck. Everybody's just gonna have to look at me. Yeah. This is usually when I get up on a ladder. So, on the battery, I'll bring my little screwdriver, but I can't pop the battery. Did you try Did you turn the camera off from here and then turn it back on? When it gets in this state, like when it's at the ground, it'll zoom, but it won't and it tilts somewhere.

Yeah. Okay. Well, a a gentle little nudge usually reduces it. Um, so I, as the one who does most of the work in terms of like pulling everything together, one of the issues I have with multiple people editing a document is it's very hard for me to make a final version sometimes because I'm looking at a working version during the meeting and um, just having to keep up with it. And then also anything that the board correct me if I'm wrong, but anything that the board is a working document is a permanent record.

So there I I also understand the ease of being able to all comment on the same document, but I feel like I don't have a great understanding on how we should be keeping those record versions. Um, so that's one of the reasons why I was thinking my final version section should be separate from town board work. Um, and there's been a few times where things are edited where I didn't think they were going to get edited and I was it like threw me off. Um, and then when it's in I also get when it's in editing mode I always forget and then I like you have to turn it off editing mode. And so part of it is I have the a lot of the permanent or original documents are in my sort of custody, but then once we put them into this shared space, it's harder for me to know how to keep track. So I think as long as we could develop a system for doing that, I'm okay. But right now, I don't really have the I don't really know how to do that. Mhm.

So the way law firm would do it is if like you have 15 people reading a version of a document um each of the 15 people edits their own document and submits them for review and incorporation or declination to whoever is controlling the document which would be you. So I mean I see it can be I it it can be real difficult thing but it's just uh to keep track of but it's it's just a lot easier to add

a suggestion like editor as there is in like the Google suite on the Microsoft suite there is there is right

I think what I'm bringing up is like which one which is a record and like what right because they get we're not all editing at the same time. Obviously, that would be a meeting if that were happening, but um there's that portion of it. And then I was saying that sometimes I'm take I'm trying to do everything during the meeting, but then when I get back to make the final version, I'll get confused because there's more little tiny edits and things that we didn't discuss in the meeting and I have to go back and make sure that I'm actually putting together the um you know, making a final version of something that we're working on is a challenge no matter what. But I think the other thing this relates to is if maybe we need to develop a file naming system and have like what's called what we're calling a working version and which would be separate from a draft because like if the what I present to you when I introduce something I'm trying to date it like I'm trying to track it on the document so the public can see it. I understand that we can track that with metadata, but in terms of the public when I'm putting something in the public folder, I'm still needing to track it in the actual document itself. So, we could try having a working version that is a word document and I and I can put the original draft as a PDF so that we always have a baseline. Um, that's one idea. Yeah. I

can I offer something here? Yeah, sure. Um I I'm just concerned that even if you have a working document and everyone's working on it outside of a meeting, that's doing business. So it it may be a violation of open meetings law. I did look into this um and I can find the opinion from Association of Towns. We did a training on records uh in October that Councilman Coleman and myself went to where they actually said that that that is okay. Um because of that you're not like all you know you wouldn't want to like be having

you're not all doing it at the same time. Right. Right. Yeah. So I can try to find that but they they made a distinction between that and sending Okay. Yes. I had an opinion from the committee on open government. Great. Okay. I'll try to circulate that so we feel good about it. But thank you. What if in the meeting if we go to process, you know, whatever document, whatever policy that we've all put our edits into on [clears throat]

um on SharePoint, are we able to like lock the document or like are you able to lock the document? So, can we like make that like the procedure that like after a workshop meeting like we lock the document in the meeting so we can't add more edits outside of that so it doesn't like have any more tweaks for you and you can make the final version but we still have that record of the edited one as we discussed it before. Yeah. Does that make sense? That makes I can look into that. Yeah, you you can do that and I was going to suggest something similar. I think if we have like a cut off period before the meeting like you want to edit

5:00 p.m. the day before then you lock it you that gets versioned even though SharePoint versions it we can actually do a version one or date dated version that gets discussed in the meeting and then that's a record. Oh yeah and we can remove what we want as version two and then that's a record

if we have to bring it to a second version or pass. I like that idea or I don't mean I like that. The other thing I wanted to bring up and I know I know that government is slow and it is laborious and that having a shared document that we all work on together and then we can come to the meeting and be like, "Yep, yep, no, no, no." And it's faster, but it's not as transparent to the public. And one of the things that you know having paper versions and everybody coming to the meeting with your own comment is there is a public a verbal discussion that happens about editing. So, I would like to find a happy medium between having three-hour long discussions about whether it's may or shall um and not sharing our thought process behind what we're doing when we're editing something. So I think that was the other thing I was thinking is um we could also try to I could also try to do a better job of verbalizing what edits like the nature of the edits and if there are substantial um changes we make sure that that's that the public has access to that um deliberation. get those get the rationale for the proposed edits or whatever just be certified comments in the the editable version

that we would you mean then post publicly and then throw the document on the screen when we were talk about it in a meeting. Yeah. I mean, I'm I think that's the other tool we can actually utilize is putting them up on the screen, too. Because in general, editing by committee is not a uh very efficient process. Yeah. Ever. We were talking about that at the housing committee. [laughter] [gasps]

But yes, I agree with you. But I also want to make sure that the public I I think it's important that we are able to uh share that the public can witness the deliberation part which can doesn't have to be the nittygritty edit like when we're spending 15 minutes words smmithing something that's not the same as every saying hey that I I stand behind this change because of these reasons, right? That's what I'm getting at. So,

I agree with you, um, Erin. I think like I'm fine with doing like red line edits of like grammar, like specific verbiage we want added to something, that type of thing on the SharePoint. But I yeah I think that the actual reasoning and things like that should be discussed here and in the meetings I also and publicly

and right now we haven't really done anything that I think is but if we're doing laws or uh a chapter review of something it you know it might be something we change we end up doing like a 180 which has happened and I just those are the types of things that I'm wanting to make sure that the public is included in our deliberation. Um, any other feed I mean any other feedback about what you guys need in terms of documents or backup that you want me to think about were

No, the only other thing that might be relevant to this is I know we're discussing Kate put together the record retention policy. Mhm. We can also implement something in these files where it will automatically save and mark things as records. So yes, I just think and that was one of the comments I had on that is I think you know any kind of electronic thing beyond email, we just need a process and all of that should be part of that document,

right? Um, so in um an operational way, just that link that I'm sharing with the board, that's to our it's a group. It's a site that the board is on and Kate is on. Um, if we need something more confidential, I will make a space that's like more a confidential space, right? Um the there's a search bar at the top. If you're searching in there, you're searching in the like the site that I've made for the town board meeting. So if you're like not able to find something, you can always use that search bar. Um I'm not doing it right now because I think I got a little stressed out and I forgot. But I have a notes um that I've been doing for the meetings. So, that's mostly for me, but that is another reference point that board members can look at if you're like, "What happened in that meeting?" I've been trying to put uh notes from the meeting in there. Um the other thing is there one of the things I there is a calendar. Now, I just wanted to talk a little bit about that with the board. I find calendar events really helpful. In fact, I kind of can't live without my calendar. like I I don't know what's going on unless it's on my calendar. Um I made meeting events for everyone. I shared them with the whole board so they would show up on your Outlook calendar. Um I would I was thinking about making an annual calendar or I could just that would that gives the benchmarks for you guys because there are things that we have to do by certain times. Um, I can make an annual townboard calendar that's separate, so you can turn it off and on, or I can

make a bunch of events. I just kind of wanted to see. This is something that is very important to me. I understand if you guys are like, why are you asking us about the calendar? But I like to have the benchmarks. I think it's helpful to be like, oh, right, it's budget. We have to pass the budget by this day. And you know, we have to there's just things. So, just so I'm understanding, you're saying you could either make a separate calendar that we could turn off or you could just invite the board to events that you're making that are like in in your calendar deadlines. Yeah. I I like that approach better because I forget about calendars. Yeah. Okay.

And then you get reminders. Are you guys okay with that? Yeah, I'm I was I'm impartial on either way. Whichever one works easier for you and less work for you. I wouldn't be my vote. Okay. I'm with her. Okay. Yeah. Like either way, I'm not.

Yeah. I made We have one I have three calendars plus my staff's calendar. So, um, one of them I made separate just so I can turn it off so that I'm not looking so that because for me it's too many things, but for you guys it's probably not going to be as many. you don't you're not booking your days up with um with board stuff. So, we'll try that and if you're like this is too confusing, then we can always change it. Okay, we'll do that then. Um and then we will if there are any I'm I was uh very not liking Microsoft at the beginning, but I'm starting to like it a lot now. I know. Um, so I've been getting to know it a little bit better and if anyone wants a deeper overview of some of the tools, um, you we can you can come and we can look at it oneon-one. the what Michael was referring to we will pro we will be implementing something for records retention and that'll be um hope I'm hoping it's mandatory because it makes it easier um in the long run if we have things tagged by their record retention policy. So you Michael already set that up but um once we implement the policy it'll be like a road mapap for what people should do with um emails and any other records really because you can use those tags in other places

like your calendar sorry um okay ready to move on I'm sure you guys are very ready to move just chugging through this agenda.

Okay. Um the Okay. board vacancy filing filling. Sorry. Um I wanted to check in. We have a number of applicants for mostly expired terms, but I have a few applicants for the zoning board of appeals. Um, I wanted to see if you guys wanted to interview. We did amend the policy, I believe, so that we don't have to interview them in public. Um, I wanted to see how you guys wanted to do the interviews for the everything really, but starting with the zoning board of appeals because that one we now only have three members. So, it's they have to all be there in order to have a meeting.

And how many applications? Um, interesting. I'm gonna have four. I thought we wanted to do at least the ZBA and planning board in public. Yeah, but I think you guys changed it so we didn't have to. Yeah. Right. I But I still think it's good policy to do those since they're public boards that have decision making authority.

I think it's good to see to have those be public interviews. So, do you want when we do that, does the board want to schedule a special meeting for that or do you want me to schedule it at the top of the next agenda?

Do the top of the next agenda. I mean, if if there are a lot of different things that we have to interview people for, maybe schedule if it's only four for the CBA. Yeah. The um let's see then the advisory boards. Um how did you I uploaded all those. Where did they go? Microsoft. That's weird. I uploaded all of those. The applicants folder. Yeah,

I didn't see anything. I never saw anything in there. I had like 10 things that I uploaded in there. Ah, there's a filter on it. Okay. Weird. There's a filter on it. If you take the filter off then you can see them six. So most of these So I also wanted to ask about we didn't want our default to be appointing um incumbents

incumbents um although except for the zoning board of appeals everyone that has expressed interest is is an incumbent is or is not

is um so would you how would you guys like to deal with that just give it um we went ahead and put an ad out in the Schwang Journal that goes into February, I think, just because, you know, we haven't gotten we still have vacancies. Um, and so we can just do a rolling basis. Um, but with this group of incumbents, how would you guys like to handle that? It's um, three ECC, one climate smart, one board of assessment review. or system review is not an advisory. It's a decision making.

Right. I'm saying I'm sorry. I know I s I know I said something about advisory. Um what I what we have right now is all incumbents. The only one that's advisory is the climate smart. Um do you guys want to interview the incumbent applicants in public? I don't think

if we get multiple applications for an incumbent seat, is that when you want to do an interview? Yeah. Okay. All right. But if there if there's one vacancy and there's from an incumbent, right? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, ACC still has vacancies.

They do. um board of assessment review does not um though I think this this individual had a very very short term and I think is a good I don't see a reason not to reappoint them. Um Climate Smart has some vacancies. Um, so yes, we we did the public hearings at the top of the agenda. Um, all the public hearings were held open for written comment until February 2nd, 2026 at 5:00 pm. Um, so would you like So we'll see what comes in over the next week, but otherwise I would put these appointments on the next agenda.

When is the uh deadline for expressions of interest?

Um, see, let me see what we posted. said February 6th. So I put that so it's like a week ahead of our next meeting. So we'll see what comes of that. And but if we don't get any applications for incumbents seats, we want to probably just appoint them, right? Is that what we want to do? Unless there's an issue or something like attendance issue or um Okay. Great. Um, so for hiring policy, I just wanted to ask the board, what positions does the town board want to interview for as a board is I've been doing it peacemeal. Um, and we do need I we do need a hiring policy. So if if anybody wanted to draft a hiring policy for us to consider, I would welcome that.

You can do that. Okay. But one thing that I'm we don't have to talk about it, but I feel like there's a few positions that you guys have already said, yes, we absolutely want to interview that as a board. For sure. department heads and well there's one department head and I think anyone that has a supervisor employee and and law enforceable you guys wanted to interview too

but then what if you got a position that question is a lot of public interface um such just somebody in the office in the the building department or I mean I think we can we can always discuss it if there's a position yeah I mean I think that we should just look at them case by case and see so there's not that automatic yes no I mean not an automatic interview we're not ready to do

we know when the vacancies come up but we discuss it and something feel that board of views are I think it's we do have um I think it would be good to cover in a hiring policy whether like off advertising the job internally yes

and what that is and then what our policy for putting job postings out I personally think positions should always be posted and that we shouldn't just fill them unless someone is getting a title change which I think is different. So like we're going to do a civil service title change for someone because it fits their job. That to me I don't think we need to interview for but um

but I think we should always advertise and then like you know have some sort of rubric when we're hiring. But I've been doing that on case by I've just kind of been making my own rubrics depending on the job. But um so that's kind of what I was thinking Charlotte to help take some of the decision- making out. Um I can get something together. Okay. Thank you. Do you remember the workshop meeting next month? Sure. Yeah. I have it done by

Yeah. We never know when we're going to have a vacancy. I was about to say something. I was like don't say that, Erin. Okay. Um, so email policy. Do we want to workshop this? The board take a look at it. I glance at it. Full disclosure of cheese. I'm not well prepared. I had food poisoning and then the flu for the past 10 days.

So, uh yeah, I didn't read a lot comprehend what I did read. Did you want to walk us through this version? Mine's on my desk. Oh, just Okay. Um so I don't have Okay. Um

Okay. So what I had done was took the three samples that the state gave me and based on each topic I went through and thought what best described what we are looking for uh in the policy and I apologize that I did not switch it to records retent um we were what did you want to uh change it to Charlotte from email it was it's electronic records is that Yeah, it was electronic, I think, or digital records. I think I said maybe it was digital.

Yeah, I think I did digital. So that it was any form of like that would cover social media postings, all of that. So this is a 13page document. I would totally be on board if there's things that the town would like to condense um if they find necessary. I do think there were a few things that there was some overlap, but I also think it explained really well um the those that are going to be heavily involved in this process. Um I full disclosure am not the most techy person. So there were things that were in this policy that I didn't even know if we had the capabilities of doing. I did speak to Michael on a few things and he basically told me everything in there Microsoft can do. Um, this has been very eyeopening for me as far as record retention goes and um, there's been a lot that's changed over the course of the years of how they've even what they've considered records um, with emails cuz at one time every email had to be saved. It was a record and that has changed. Um, so this was definitely eye opening to me. Um, and I think that it is really important that employees are trained on the email system and that they do sign a disclosure that they are aware that these are town records whether they use their own personal computer or phone. That is all explicit here as well. Um, that there is no um privacy on your personal devices if you're going to use them for town business. Um, I thought it did a good overview of the records retention time frame. We could cut that out if you want or we can keep that in there as well. Uh, every

department does get a section of the records retention that's handled in their office. Uh, so they can review that at times and then they do contact me from time to time on other things that they are unaware of. Um so they do have an understanding of what the MU1 schedule is but I do think it is good to keep in here as well.

Um and it um expresses the importance of foil. Um so I didn't know where the we the board would be interested in doing any cuts along the way or um things that we can weed out. It's entirely up to the board um how they feel about that. just go through this here. I think it's important to talk about the appropriate use of the emails to include and enforcement. I really like the idea of a records advisory committee. I'm, you know, in all the um samples, they were pretty specific as to who should be on the advisory committee. Um, and I don't know how you feel, Erin, if you think it should be a board member rather than the bookkeeper or because the board is more aware of a lot of the internal email. So, I just thought there's some language we can change there as well. Yes.

Um, as the advisory um and then I think it's important to keep the preservation of backup material in here as well. it covers us in the long run and who our email users are. That's important to stay in there. So, um I don't know how the board feels who's who's been able to read through the whole thing. It is 13 pages. Why don't we more detailed discussion? Yeah, I agree. I agree.

I put some comments in there. I think it's good. I think Thank you, Kate, for putting this together. Um, there's a few things that and Mary Lou, you haven't looked at this yet, right? I skimmed it. Okay. Because like there are things that [clears throat] are requirements of the IT provider. So, we're going to have to talk the fish and say, are you willing to do this? Like, do we have to mod the contract to include that? Um there were do we have an appropriate use policy? What? An appropriate use policy and yes. Okay, we do in our practices manual.

Okay. Oh, it's not called that, but um so little things like that. We just have to make sure we have to Rochesterize it. Um there's things about like I think I think we need to figure out some of the technical stuff like this says that we'll have autodelete. I don't know if we want to have autodelete.

Um this also like when we when we talk about employees like do we want employees having to flag records? Do we want it to automatically flag the record and then someone like Kate who actually knows what's a record and what's not can go back in and uh change it if it does need to be retained. One thing I was curious about Kate you might know like so board members and supervisor are forever retention right

but like they talk about staff can delete list serve stuff spam etc. And I think that goes for board members too, but I wanted to make sure that there's no requirements um at the state level that we can't do that or we need to retain some of that stuff. How I have processed it is there if anything that's contract um draft of any kind of laws, anything financial, anything that could potentially end in a lawsuit you have to keep. But I do believe you are able to get rid of spam mail. Yeah. Okay.

That's how I perceived it. Yeah, that's that's what it seemed like to me, too. And I think we talk about staff can delete it, but like we should clarify if it's staff and elected officials, but other than that, I think it's I think it's good. We just have to we should have Mary Lou go through and and then there's other things that are um you're giving yourself work. So, I don't know if we want to include that. We could pull some of that stuff out. Like there's like the records management officer will periodically, you know, go through emails and make sure people are flagging them correctly. So, as long as you want to sign up to it, but we may want to say like

eye opening. I was like, "Oh, wow." The other thing I think I'd be a little bit more explicit about using county email for personal business just there fewer electronic brand express have absolutely I mean one like I have a few thoughts like my first one is when you know sh we talked about making it for electronic records and part of me feels like that makes a lot of sense but then this doesn't cover everything, right?

So, I don't know if we want to make it so that it covers text messages and even like the when I found out that my agendas that I like take notes on are like permanent records, like I was like, "Oh, I mean, I keep them, but um there's stuff like that where it's like you don't realize that

things that you're working on on your computer and all of that like are permanent records." And um I know I need to develop some kind of file naming system because I I'm not consistent with it. Um so I don't know how we want to deal with that. Then the other thing I was thinking is from the policy and I didn't read it in depth but what we were just talking about is like the accountability that like yes public officials are all responsible but I think it should probably get in a in a way of taking a little bit of work off of one person's shoulders that it should be put into the um management structure that like there is some kind of accountability to your super to your direct supervisor that they that is ensuring that these things are getting taken care of. There are some like departments that are going to lean in really hard to this because it's going to make it easier to fulfill foil requests,

right? Which to me is like what it's like going to help so much with the time in retrieving documents. Um, but I was thinking for some people that they might not have that kind of motivation and um, we are going to need to make sure that that cuz it can if you get behind if you're like me and you just have like an inbox. Um, it is then it becomes like a huge amount of work. Can we also incorporate like a periodic audit? Yeah, Kate's got to do it. That's what across the shelf you guys. Yes.

Just I mean just to make sure that the 50 people who have emailed Yeah. I think I have a good idea are doing it. I mean do it every six months for the first year or so and then Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we and we have to figure out cuz it's possible, but we we should make sure that there's a procedure in place like if somebody's going to access other emails to validate that, maybe there's like two like supervisor and town clerk have to be aware of it so it's not one person can just do that. Yeah. Um,

my favorite thing is email users must assigntigible subject lines which I never do. I don't know if we can require that of people. I'm doing I never accurate and descriptive intelligible. Yeah. Yeah. So, I I think this is I think this is great. I can find me. I'd be willing to go through and um see if there are things that we need to to add. Like I put comments in this, but yeah, maybe this we can edit edit versions.

I think I put in a PDF. You did. That's I have my little PDF note somewhere. my highlighting. I mean, you are the problem. [laughter] I knew who you were talking about. Let's be honest. Uh, Councilman Coleman started editing my agendas. That's when I was like when I was chairing. No, it was not when you were When you ruled the world.

Oh, I did. So, yeah. I did do that. Okay. Fact. Um, okay. So, when do you guys want to have a more in-depth conversation about this? At the business meeting or at the workshop meeting? Is the business meeting so far? Is it very? So far, there's nothing on the agenda. Let's do it. Yeah. One technical thing we do need to figure out is the two-factor authentication. I think we want to have that enabled. And when we were first signing people up, there were issues. So some people have it on, some people have it off where you need like your phone to login. Yeah.

But we do want that as like a requirement, right? So we have to talk to fish and see why some people couldn't get that to work. Um, so we were talking about if we're going to add comments to a document, we should maybe have like a cut off. So we could try that with this.

So um, I mean I try to have things to the board two days in advance so that everyone has a chance to read it. In the case of this, I think if there's going to be a lot of comments, we might want to make sure that there's like a day for everyone to review them. Does that make sense? Yeah. I would say minimum 5:00 p.m. the day before the meeting, but

Okay. So, have your comments Well, I'll put a Word version in SharePoint. Have your comments in that by 5:00 p.m. on February 11th. Okay. Um, moving on. Letter to the IDA. So, we at our last meeting talked about the board felt like we wanted to have a correspondence to IDA. We tal we did discuss how we didn't if if board members as individuals wanted to submit a public a comment to the public hearing we could but as a body we wanted to make have a correspondence more about their process and being more inclusive and um making sure that we as the public officials have enough time to digest just what it is, you know, what they're doing. Um, so Charlotte drafted a letter for us. Thank you, Charlotte. Uh, Councilman Coleman made some comments. Can I let the two of you take it away?

Sure. So, Michael, I wasn't able to see what you had commented for today when I was looking when I tried one. So, I think I just saw what you edited, not like the actual red line. I just saw the final text. You know what I mean? when I read through it because I did see that some of the verbiage was changed in it.

Um, and it didn't really have any I don't remember having oppositions. Um

um so I would for overall I think I would like to insert a kind of a overview statement that is about what I would like to see just in general like I personally want I thought the superintendent the school superintendent comment I thought was kind of along the lines of what I was feeling is like it would be nice if um we were engaged and like our budgetary like what we think about whatever benefit they're offering and I have not had time to dig into this but I kind of want to see some financial data from a um taxbased perspective like I understand that there is a philosophic idea of economic development but are there any is there like a any data that they produce when they make the decisions. And I admit I'm ignorant on this. I have not like looked at those decisions. But um you know, we sales tax goes to the county in the state. we get a share of it, but it's based on um assessed value of the town, not of whether or not the sales tax is being generated in the town. So, um I understand like that school taxes also are like more of the tax bill. So, you know, there's a lot of considerations about that, but I guess it's so tight, like the financial situation for us is so tight that I'd personally like the idea of economic development to expand our tax base in a direct way recently.

So, you know, I think it would be great to just have more engagement and like feel like it's not a complete silo even though there the impact is on the taxing district. So, I'm sorry that was rambly. I would like to insert something about that kind of more general idea of like what this has shown us, what the economic impact is and potential benefits. Yeah. Like if we could get if if we had more about what their thinking is and if we could maybe have some input on that level, I think that would be helpful. Um

I agree with that. Absolutely. And I I think well one of the things just talking about what what we were discussing so my impression was it was not the intent of the board to comment specifically on this project good bad or indifferent. Um some of the issues and concerns that we've heard from residents some of the issues and concerns that I think we shared was in terms of the notification and our overall awareness and the public's awareness of uh what was going on. And I think there are two things you have to take into consideration, right? There's the statutory uh obligations, which is statutory minimums,

stat minimums, you know, you have to put it in a paper, you have the notice, blah blah. And then there's the reality and the experience of people um and their lived lives and everyone's busy. And it's it's I mean, a lot of what this letter is talking about is it's a busy time of the year. It was the middle of the holidays. The decision was made to schedule it right before the holidays. The notices went out. um in the middle of, you know, major holidays.

And I think that all of that, you know, leads to a potential interpretation that it was done intentionally to sweep it under the rug and to bypass public comment. Whether that's their intention or whether it was an unintended consequence of of, you know, an aggressive schedule, I mean, we'll never know. But I think that it's something that should be raised because it it causes or creates an air of suspicion about their general practices. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean this board has been guilty of that of of putting out you know notices during a busy time of year and we got a lot of feedback from the community and we responded to that feedback and we we you know made not not only made steps to to get additional feedback and make sure that people were aware of those changes but then we went back and actually looked at that. Now I will say in conversations with the IDA u a few points of clarification that they made. One is that I was I was told that they they actually spend a lot of time uh reviewing the comments and it's not uncommon when they get as many comments as this that that they actually are very thoughtful about it. They're encouraged by council to actually review those things and make sure that that when they're making decisions they have uh considered all of the feedback that they're getting the community. I think the second thing uh to for people to be aware of is there are you know clawback provisions in in the actual decisions and so whatever they're basing their decision about the economic value of project X compared to what the evapance are if if they're not meeting those obligations there are enforcement mechanisms to go in and say okay you told us you were going to do X you're you're not meeting those obligations therefore or you need to pay back some of this money.

Do you know what the enforcement mechanism is? Yeah. So, cuz I have their example one where that was under consideration was the uh skating rink. Yeah. And didn't they get a pilot and then it they got it they lost it and I think there was some challenge whether they had to claw anything back and I think there was a some I think there was litigation and that was on the basis of they didn't provide enough jobs. Yeah, they Yeah. Do you I don't know. I wasn't around for that, but I was a child.

Is was that something that was reported or they had a mechanis an enforcement mechanism that was overseeing the operations of the business that caught it? I think it was reported. Okay, that's what I thought. I don't think that they do. I don't I don't know whether there's an ongoing audit. I think Yeah. Well, there's inspections. Yeah. No, my understanding is there are there are inspections and there are based inspections that are done in the process understood from the application too.

There's oh it's in a bad state in a bad way. There's a lot of good information on the IDA website terms of what the policies are, what the requirements are for the applicants, what enforcement is after the fact. I'm trying to look I had it up probably. It's in one of my 8,000 browser windows here. See if I can find it. If I can find it, I'll forward it to you. But what I was told was that they they are aggressive and they have a lot of means at their disposal to to be able to look into these things and make sure people are adhering to them. Uh that said, I still think I would want the board to just comment generally about, hey, this is a feature. This is some of the feedback, right? This is the reception. I think it would be to everyone's benefit to at least consider additional comments. So, public comment session public comment portion is closed. Marylu, I think they can you can reopen public comment public hearings. I would not

I know that that we can for us. I don't I'm not familiar with the laws for the IDA. Yeah, they're subject to the same general municipal open meetings to law.

Yeah. And I think the other the other piece of feedback I mean two things. one for the few days around the public hearing there was a lot of confusion like whether or not this was us or you know so I think that to me was like you know when at first I didn't kind of it didn't really I didn't really process it at first but then once people were calling me and texting me and emailing me I was like oh nobody knows what is going on and they think this is us um and so we you know I want to make that clear that there should be a if it's better promoted then it's clearer what is happening and I think the other part is and I didn't I don't know with NS if the IDA hosted a question and answer session but something like that I think is helpful and they did say in their meeting on Wednesday that they had budgeted for more uh community outreach and that they would be reaching out to um communities to do more promotion about like what the IDA is and separate from like individual applications to like have more engagement and I think we could put something in our letter saying that we heard that they were making a commitment to that and we strongly encourage them to do that.

Yeah. So if you go on the website the USA website in the top line there's something policies and bylaws click on that and then there's a policy on enforcement of agency projects suspension discontinuence modification of financial assistance. So that's it's like a nine-page document that kind of goes into that and what the responsibility is of the chair to collect information and what the mechanisms are for taking additional enforcement actions. But I I think overall I mean government should be transparent. These decisions especially ones that impact taxes and residents should be as transparent as possible. So for me I think it would be in in the interest of the community for sure to make sure that that stays open to comment. And like I said, no decisions have been made yet. So I don't know if they consider that, but I think we should suggest that as a board.

Yes, that that should that was at the end of that letter, right? Yeah. And they said that at a minimum they he could like hold it open for written comment if not renotice the entire hearing because Yeah. I thank you guys and it's important for um allowing me to bring the letter for us to edit and uh put forth to the IDA. I do think that um we should add more generalized issue with how it was noticed. Um, you've made a comment saying um that not just for this public hearing but for all public hearings, this is how we want this to be followed in our township that you publish it in our town paper that you notify the board directly electronically and by certified like those things. So, um yeah, I agree. um my I didn't get to read all of her red lines, but I will review that uh tonight, but I don't think I remember like seeing anything that like I argued with. I know it was mostly like pervation grammar. Um

yeah, I I I think I think too it looking at uh tone in the in the letter I I don't get the sense that this was any kind of intentional effort to not be transparent. U and like I said as a board we've stepped in it not not kind of thinking uh about things and I think that's what happened here. So that's kind of the perspective I would pick of this is like you know here's what we're like I didn't want to I didn't want to put that on the board without you guys also agreeing to that of like showing that like that much just

I mean I think we have to assume that they were acting in good faith and they just made some poorly timed decisions but the opinion yeah it it leaves reasonable doubt that they wanted this community to hear this community's feedback. It it leaves space for that from how it the events unfolded. So that's I completely agree. So yeah, I can add a a little length paragraph in there about that too.

And the other the other thing I just wanted to confirm because it's weird in terms of I just want to make sure the dates are all accurate because I think the meeting where they scheduled it was the 23rd, the public hearing was the 7th. Um, and then when like people receive things like when when Kate or whoever signed for I don't think I don't know if you actually signed for it. Whoever signed for the letter. Look, Kate signed for it, but they didn't hand her the letters. Someone else lied. You signed for the she signed for the certifies it.

I signed for the certified copy, but they did not give me the letters. They said they had already given the letters to the town. And I said, I better not get in trouble for this cuz now I'm signing for something that you're not giving me. He said, "You already received the letters this. We just didn't rip the back piece off that time." Yes. Oh, okay. And that was at either the 5th or the 6th this year because I went to the post office to get the mail early. Yeah, it was that to get taxes that came in the mail. Wait a minute. So, he gave you the on allegedly gave you the post office gave you the envelope with the green. Just gave me the green. Told me to sign the green tag.

Green tag to sign. And I said to him, "What are these for? Cuz you're not giving me mail with this." And he said, "You already received them, but we forgot to rip the tag off to have it signed for." And they revolt the address to Aaron. So, did they write a new green slip? No, they ripped them off, but didn't have anybody sign it. So, they must have been holding it for someone, right? And we were closed Thursday, Friday. So, doesn't make sense. The mail the mail got distributed either the 5th or the 6th. And the mail was put in my on my desk the afternoon of the 6 and I didn't look at it until someone told me there until we talked before that.

So they must have ripped it. I'm confused. I'm a little bit confused. Oh Mary Luke Bat. Um they if they'd ripped it off and not had it signed. Yeah. There's usually the gummy part that stays on the letter. Wouldn't we had had that on an envelope and somebody's like, "What the heck?" Yeah. That I mean, was confusing to me from the get-go. When they get certified, they put it in a little card file, but behind the desk. Yeah. And they give you the notice. Usually have a yellow notice.

Has the white and green version, but not the I didn't see the the green version that we have. That goes back to the the county. So, I had a yellow slip and I went up to the counter, but it was for a certified piece of mail that I did get that day. Usually, no. When they give you certified mail, they give you a little handwritten It's like a Yeah, it's a white piece of paper. I think it's got like pink across the top says certified mail is being held for you at the desk. So, I went to the counter to get that piece and then he ended up giving me three pieces to sign and I said, "Well, you're only giving me one piece of mail. Why am I signing these other two pieces?" and he told me, "Okay,

because you guys didn't sign for them when we submitted them." And I said, "Who's it for so I don't get in trouble for anything?" And they said, "Aaron." Okay. All right. Well, that's just my my part of it. There definitely was not enough time, especially for someone like me who was on vacation, right? Some girlfriends that were supposed to have 10 days notice. Yeah. So, we should definitely not just supervise that. So, for getting this to the IDA, um, when is their next meeting? It looks like there's a public hearing on the 5th in the town of Lloyd and but they're not. So, I think they're on the 21st of every month.

I think they meet I think their regular meetings the third Wednesday like for like their regular business meeting. So, do we want to circulate? Do you guys want to circulate another final version or do we want to say we have enough? We're going to authorize you can authorize me and Charlotte to create this final version and then I can put it on letterhead and send it from my office for I'm for me. I think that you I mean you I conveyed my sort of thought process and and I don't need to say it again. Okay. But I don't want to speak for Michael. No, I I put my comments up. You're all over it. Um you are.

Yeah, it looks like December 17th might have been a meeting when they scheduled it, but yeah, it's every Wednesday. Yeah. Okay. I think regardless, we still need to go about applications on the cell. So plenty of time to touch them. Um, yeah. So we able to make a motion for that? I think we should. Okay.

So that we can say that it's from the town board. Uh, I make a motion that the town of Rochester Town Board authorize Supervisor Allen and another town board member to finalize the letter to the Ol County IDA expressing concern about the Yeah. notice period and process. Yes. Oh, so second on behalf of the town board. On behalf of the town board. Any discussion? All in favor? I

I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Okay, we are kind we're getting to the period where we all start to feel like it's getting late. So, um I we had talked about one of our top priorities as being public uh sessions. Um I wanted to let the town board know that the townwide reassessment public information session will be February 17th at 6 PM. You're here. I made a calendar.

Um I will make it just got scheduled today. Stacy already made flyers. We're going to distribute them throughout town. I I thought I was going to have some here, but there was one last minute change to the flyer, but we'll get those out this weekend. Um by Gar Gar will be here. Um we have someone from the state that's coming and our assessor will be here and it'll be an information session I with question and answers too. Um Hm. It's a Tuesday. Yes, it's a Tuesday.

Yeah. So, that's good. We just knocked one off because we said that that was really important. The other one that came up at our last meeting is a board and commission open house. I wanted to gauge um the boards. I put the when the one that we had a couple years ago, I just put that together and it was really fun and kind of informal. It wouldn't have to be a town board meeting. Um, do you guys

like that idea? What I was thinking this year is if we could invite, we wouldn't want there to be a quorum. If there if there was going to be a quorum of different boards, we would have to create a joint meeting so I can gauge interest. But this year, what I was hoping is we could have more of a group discussion about what the different boards and commissions are working on this year and then also have it be a more informal kind of open house. Uh but that was one idea that I had. So they would present some of their projects. Yeah, that's good.

Um, that would be the one reason to make it a town board meeting if the town board like wanted to be like, you know, receiving and questioning as a board. But now, if we schedule a meeting and we don't have a quorum, we can't run the meeting, right? Right. No, I think we just play it. Okay. Figure it out as maybe once we find a date. Um, I wanted to ask if because you then Councilman Coleman asked me to add traffic and amplified sound to the list. So, do we want to have an info gathering session on traffic? I'm looking at you because it's

I don't think we have a we have feedback. We have feedback and we have a list of of areas. Um yeah. Okay.

The next big thing that we committed to in 2025 that we didn't do that um for public session is amplified sound. Um I thought that the housing form that we did was a really great model for how we can get public input. So I thought what if we applied that model to the amplified sound issue because it was a very everyone it was a very inclusive forum in that everyone left feeling positive about the event and that's kind of what we want to bring. Not that it's going to be pos like necessarily it's not a

no the topics aren't positive. the topics aren't positive, but the engagement and the way that everyone is like respected in that space I thought was so I wanted to ask about that and what time of year we were looking at and who what involvement the board wanted to have in that forum and then we can backtrack from that on I want to have it far enough away that we could promote it and if we wanted to do like We did for the housing one, we had two. If we thought there was going to be a big turnout, we could do two sessions. I I think it should be early spring. Yeah.

Late March, early April, just because the the season when, you know, there's a lot of events and amplified sound is more of a concerns kicking off late spring, early summer. So, it' be good to have that feedback in case we want to take any actions to support. Okay. So, uh, do you should we talk about Michael, um, or Councilman Coleman, the two of us, do you want to take a look at the format would be used for the housing forum and see how adaptable it would be to this issue? Yeah.

Cuz one thing that was helpful is to have like someone with subject matter expertise for amplified sound. I'm not sure who that would be, but um you know, we had a few, you know, we had people that were prepared. Yeah. One request we had is for demos, like decel demos. Decel demos. Yeah. Yeah. So, plugs. We have ear plugs. Yeah. Anyway, we should take a look at that and see. That would be cool. We could do it outside backyard, too. Yeah. So that they could see what it was like outside.

Yeah. or if we do it in April, we could potentially do it at the park depending. I guess it's weather depend. But yeah, let's take a look at that template and see how adaptable we think it is. Yeah. Just to to restate, the discussions last year were about commercial um operations, amplified sound. Yeah. Specifically, music and things like that, right? Yeah. We're not banning all sorts of other things or or even discussing. Right.

So, we also have a new code enforcement officer starting on Monday. Uh I've already opened the discussion about sound with him and I think it'll be really important to get their input because the enforcement side of this is what is the most difficult in terms of measurable decibb and like if it's a concert v you know like how how is it being applied in that field? So, um, okay. Any other public sessions that you want me to? I think we had talked about not just the reassessment, but maybe something about taxes um later in the season.

Oh, how like how to read your tax bill, right? Is that like rather testing? Yeah, even if you did that more towards the summer as the budget process. Yeah, I think the budget and and then the when the assessment rules are published

we will probably have more housing things because if if we are getting this grant I applied or that we applied for or if we are putting another real estate transfer tax on the ballot potentially we'll want to have we'll also want to save space for that up. Busy, busy, busy. I can't believe it's already in my mind, it's already February and it's going to be soon. So, okay, next agenda item. Um, Councilwoman, all the requested that I put this on the agenda, but I also spoke to our uh coordinator. So, did everyone look at what Councilwoman Alba circulated about the emissions priorities?

Did you were you clear on what the ask is for that? Clear the ask. Okay.

But are those how are like the town of Rochester has a huge amount of public land and forest. How is that offset calculated? So I was told that that is something that we get are getting a lot of points for in other places and for this it's looking forward. So if we were to say we have a goal of conserving more land or we could say we have a community preservation plan now and that maybe could count towards a plan of that would then reduce future ga greenhouse gas emissions. Does that make sense? So that we could incorporate I did ask about that specifically and that's how we would incorporate that but we couldn't really plan for what has already happened I guess. Um so basically the two I can kind of synthesize it down. What they really kind of wanted to know is do they does the board want to have input on what is going in this document before they draft it or should we ask them to come up with something and then share it with us? Because basically they want to submit the greenhouse gas inventory. And in that document that was actually put together by the county, um there's a section of like what our priorities are. I gave a little bit of feedback that I thought, well, this isn't going to work for our town because we don't have X, Y, or Z. Um, but if you guys had ideas or if we want the climate smart task force to kind of put something together,

what this one is for is for the community, not for like things that we have direct control over. So, it's more about policy, legislation, and um, education. One of the questions I had, another question I had is in the statistics that they have for like household generation of whatever. How how micro are those calculations? Are they looking at the county? Are they just taking the nation and dividing it by the number of households and figure out what the per capita is?

That is that's a good question. temporary until you saw it's um I know that it's based on publicly publicly available information. So I think some of it might be specific just for specific and some of it is going to be like based on like per capita in the county. Let me look real quick. I think there was a couple citations they have 11.8 the the totals they have for county and

the waste generation recite all of that is us like there's things that I know we're submitting as reports that are us um but in terms of some of the other numbers I'm not sure electricity usage I think is something that would probably be specific um but just be curious how what those dinosaurs are. That was the first question that was posed to me is like who made this document and I was like we didn't have anything to do with it. Yeah. Um not the the town. The town.

Yeah. The county and that organization ICI or whatever. um they did that and it might have been a product of the previous grant that we got but there's no uh it's not something that like the town actively worked on to put together. There might been a you know it's possible that supervisor Ben had provided some documentation to that but it didn't to me it didn't look like it because it was published in 2024. So it's called the 2022 inventory. It is. But if you look at the bottom, it says this template was produced in 2024. So I

Yeah. And they site laws in 2023. Yeah. So I think the data was collected in 2022. M and I believe that was part of one of the things that we got out of that grant that we had but um I think it was like a something that came as a bonus

regarding your question. I don't know that I would want to have input in the initial drafting, but I also think it would be helpful for the board to at least know the larger themes that Yeah. So that we don't get something and we're like, oh, this is not we have to do massive revisions to this. Um, and I also think, you know, people on that committee are people that are interested in in these issues and have a lot of knowledge and background about them.

But if this is a document that's going to kind of guide the entire community, their impacts to agriculture, their impacts to, you know, other industries, I think it would be useful to have some of that initial discussion happen. like maybe if we have them come to a board meeting and workshop some of those things, see what the themes are and then they go back produce something and then we can look at it afterwards.

Okay. So I I was kind of thinking something similar. Now, they do want to get our bronze status submission in for the May deadline, which means they want to have our submission in like a full month at least in advance because they're not getting about the level of granularity that goes into the points analysis. There was something that they told me they took points off for that I was like, really? um which was that our free exchange because they don't accept donations when a volunteer is not present. They knocked off they only gave us half the points cuz we're not open and on a predictable basis.

I'm Goodwill Salvation Army. No place that accepts donations like things when someone's not there. I was like it's a hazard in liability. No, I was like, but our transfer station's open, but people still leave stuff there. Yeah. Um I was like, can't we just say um because you can still take stuff? Well, we also publish a schedule when volunteers are there, right?

We don't have a schedule because it's kind of based on availability. Anyway, yeah, I was like they the coordinator of course was as frustrated as I was but was like that is they are very strict and so they foresee having getting a lot of questions back and then meeting they have the matrix by which they calculate points. Yeah. But it's um to the level of granularity that it's like gymnastics judges. It is. Yeah. It's like gymnastics judges. You don't know either. Well, no. I each area of points is like a full very wordy like thou thousand page minimum about

word that. Yeah. Yeah. So the predict being open on a predictable basis is in there somewhere but it's not like you know when you see the line item you're like great we've got it but then when you dig into it it's like the standard they have is like gold level standard or bronze status but just kidding. Okay. So, the things that I was thinking is um you know like they were saying yeah saying that we want to encourage biking is maybe not something that we want to do in our town as a priority right because we don't have good we have hills biking around 80 square miles.

Well, also we don't there's not infrastructure for commuting bike commuting connecting the rail. We do. And it takes you from award to Crocs. We get to revitalize transportation. There's a restaurant on one end and a park bathroom on the other. Yeah. Um playground.

So yeah, I don't think we should be promoting biking. I do also I personally did and I said this during the CPP and I'll say it again now. We don't have a conservation crisis at all in this town. There are plenty of our resour trusts that operate here in our township. Like it's crazy the amount of preservation we have. So like when they're listing their priorities, I think it needs myself I would like to see that they're listing things that aren't con just Yeah.

more conservation or more rail trail. Yes. Yes, because those to me aren't priorities though helpful and great resources that we have. I don't think expanding them more and more over like making sure that there's support to the CPP, you know, expanding them and what the purpose of the expansion is. So like expanding rail trails isn't promoting commuting, it's promoting recreational and economic. I see. I hear you though. One thing I was thinking is like I think leaning into um promotion of energy efficiency is something that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and creates a better like cost savings to the homeowner and quality of life

and a better quality of life and so I think as a promotion it's more like housing forward to do that type of so like I'm with you on that and I think we can make that step. Yeah. I think just I I mean I also though feel in general though housing aside that we have like if we'll become a state park the whole town at some point if we don't stop. So um we'll be the new euseity. So like that it can go to that extreme too is like I don't want to happen also to this area.

Yeah. I will say with climate smart it they have made it way more uh population and housing focused. Yeah. So I think this data was, you know, I that's what I was kind of thinking is like if we we can put it because I've one of the things I know is like doing new builds and stuff is like and solar farms and all that is like really exciting, but the thing that has the biggest impact is making buildings efficient. Taking a building that already exists and making it more energy efficient. And I think that type of thing is not about conservation. It's about like you know

Yeah. So I think they would be really open to that because the climate smart itself has shifted a lot more into that direction. They have a whole housing action section now.

Yeah. And I would also like again a critique coming from the original CPP process um that while I don't think that more of our town needs to be preserved for conservation, I will agree with the priority of our prime and historic farmland that nutrients can't come back once it's develops as a priority environmentally. That that speaks to our food system. that speaks to the nutrition and being able to obtain nutrition, nutritional um access in this area. So I think that that is a huge climate smart impact also that I would like to see at least something. Okay, great. So I'll go back and say that we we have these highle feedback in terms of priorities but otherwise if they could if they feel comfortable putting something together and then letting us take a look.

Yeah. Like we would just like these incorporated with what else they have. Yeah. Um uh all right. I don't need to talk about the highway truck purchase because I put that on there before I'd gotten vote. Okay. Mary Lou amending the resolution regarding the sale of an abandoned portion of Queens Highway to a neighboring property order owner.

I sent out a resolution this afternoon and I put it in the the SharePoint. So, if you're interested in doing it tonight, you can. If you want to become more familiar with it, we could do it at the business meeting. But basically, last I'm sorry, corner of city hall. It's Queens Highway and City Hall Road. Could be. I have it as Queens Highway in my file. Um, it's the one we did last April.

Yeah. and we we came up with the resolution and the resolution we'd give them the deed and then they had nine months to go get the the lot line improvement from the planning board. Um I I'd shown that to them beforehand but then it went to their title company and they said we can't ensure title in this way because we don't know [clears throat] what's going to happen. Uh so I had a a meeting with the title company and the various attorneys and we came up with a different solution in which we approve a sale again subject to public referendum but it would be contingent upon them in the next nine months going to the planning board getting the lot line improvement. we would cooperate with them on that because we would still own the the abandoned parcel. So, we'd have to, you know, consent to the application and they'd have nine months to do that. And if they get that done, then we can sign the deed over. There's the conditions of them paying us $1,000 and paying for all the expenses, including, you know, going back to my meeting with them late last year. So, it's kind of just flipping to having the [clears throat] the lot line improvement first and then they'd get the deed.

So, you said public referendum. Did you mean subject to permissive referendum? Permissive I'm sorry. Permissive referendum. Yes.

I think it's fine. Yeah. Yes. So, If you'd like, you could make a motion to pass the resolution as presented. If you're you've all had the chance to read it, I'll make And if you haven't, you can read it right now. It's in your email and on the is it called SharePoint? Yes. Okay. I'll make a motion to pass the resolution regarding the Queen Queens Highway as presented. Second. Any discussion?

All in favor? I opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Okay, Kate, we're going to have to do another permissive referendum. Yeah. Okay. [laughter] Thanks. That's 30 days. Yeah. Um well, I won. Good night, Jerry. Oh, good night, Jerry.

Um I wanted to let the board know I'm opening the community center as a warming center this weekend. Um Saturday and Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Because we don't have like staff for it. It's basically me unless anyone else wants to cover a shift which we can talk about offline. Um my plan is on Sunday if we do get the snowstorm but it's that is a situation where people might need a warming center um the highway department or our emergency services coordinator are going to pick me up and deliver you

and deliver me here. When is the snow supposed to start? Sunday morning. Sunday morning. Sunday morning. Um, so Zullie, I I'm there. I'm opening the community center as a warming center this weekend.

So that'll be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The county I've coordinated it with the county and I'll be alerting our local I've told the fire district. Um, but I was saying basically it kind of it's just me open for the warming center and let So I'll I'll either be here for those 16 hours, but if a board member wanted to come by or take a shift, I have a feeling it's not going to be like I want the option here and in order to do that we have to post hours and stuff. So it's but I'm going to make coffee. we have a shower. So, especially, you know, uh then the other thing is if we do get a storm and there's ice and it knocks out power next week, I will be working around the windows of time that the community center is available. depending on how much snow we get and what happens. Just thinking about this as being an emergency location and being able to offer our hot showers and

when we've had similar uh weather situations in the past, how many people showed up?

I don't know. I when I've did the cooling centers, no one came. Um, but I think given that the high on Saturday is like 10, um, if there is a need for anyone, I'm imagining, and I spoke with Jerry about this, the the most likely case is that someone would need to get transported here because they are out of heat and then while they are finding a place to stay, they have a place that's not cold to stay. And sort of a tangentally sorry,

do we have um are we prepared? Are you prepared for bug fuel increase?

Um I mean I'm prepared as I ever am. Um, so we do have a staff member that will do them with me and we bought cans. When I was out, Councilman Wyn did a fuel an emergency fuel delivery and you didn't know all of that, but we have some cans and um we typically would fill with the fuel that is that the highway that we get that the town give us. Um, but the way that that is supposed to go is the sheriff's are the contact point and they are supposed to contact the town supervisor if the emergency fuel providers are unable to get to that location. So, if something were to happen, say during the snowstorm, I would probably rely on the highway department to help get me somewhere, you know. Now, I do need to get a lesson on bleeding lines. Um, in case someone is out of school,

you got to do is you got to just get an empty soda can. I'll just take you on the next. I'll show you. Okay. I'll um also I can be like on call on the weekend if you want to go do an emergency fuel delivery if you get one since you're here if you want. I I can confidently say yes to that. I don't know what the rest of my schedule is like that I've Okay, we could potentially go. Um, I will say uh one point we will be the only warming center outside of Kingston. Yeah.

Unless others have. We got a email asking if we could. When I had food poisoning last week, I was at I had one day I had to go to Ellenville Regional Hospital to the emergency room and there was probably 15 there I would say at least 10 people in the middle of the night in the lobby just sitting

to stay warm and all of them asked me if I could they could use my phone to call and find out where the warming center in Alenville was and I had to unfortunately tell them that there wasn't. So I did say we didn't have because our community center is our everything. What I said is that if the county if needed because they asked if they provided staff and equipment could we accommodate overnight and I said if you really need it we can figure it out but we have to coordinate it because like so I didn't that's why I listed the hours that I did but if we if the county has a need for that I think we can see if we can work around our schedule constraints. I would like to push back on that point that this community center was built on a grant to be an emergency shelter in case of an emergency, natural disaster or weather emergency. It's supposed to be a shelter that can has CS in it and is available to sleep in. That is the risk that this community put in taking that grant and making our community center where all of our programming and all our meetings happen is. Unfortunately, if there's an emergency, I would rather know that there are people who would otherwise be freezing here than line dancing.

Well, I I agree with you. If there is an emergency, I don't think there's going to be any programming, though. Yeah. So, we would absolutely open it up as the shelter. I'm talking about if they have people that they need to place somewhere and we don't have that equipment. We don't have beds. What um isn't the AlaGville fire station also a emergency? Yeah. And so is the so is um a can be. That was going to be my next question. Can we maybe see or request I think it's great to have this as a as a warming center, but could we possibly see if Aport

I did talk to them up by Queens could maybe act or I didn't I didn't I was thinking we could maybe use the courthouse as an additional center. I was thinking that the last time it was well the heater doesn't work in there. Well, right now right now obviously it's not ideal but the heater doesn't work if it's under 15. So, um, but yeah, so I was, uh, I was thinking that we should really have another satellite place to open as a warming or an electric charging station, like, you know, charging station for people or somewhere to come shower, you know, what have you. Um, when our town's, you know, 90 square miles, this might be the center kind of, but it's not to everyone. So,

yeah. No, I want to be clear what I was talking about with overnight is like this weekend if they needed like I can't by myself. I got you. I'm sorry. I thought you were saying but the county asked and everything and obviously if they could use if they if they were to assist with it by providing staff and the beds could we do that and I said absolutely but just we had to take it day by day. So you have to we have to coordinate it because it depends on what's going on. So like if there is an emergency absolutely we're not

Yeah. Um but what I was talking about is just people needing a place to stay overnight if in a non-emergency if there's not emergency declared. So

um but we'll post that on the website. I haven't didn't get around it today. So, I wanted to let the board know that um that was it except for our executive session unless I missed something. Oh, I did miss something you guys. Okay, it probably doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but the vouchers. So, every voucher week is like, is the board are we going to do it out of a meeting or are we going to do it at a meeting? I never I feel like I never know anymore. And um I just wanted to bring up that having us do the audit outside of the meeting I'm totally on board for. However, it creates these internal deadlines for when staff and I have to do everything so that I can offer a window for the board to sign up and that creates quite a bit of stress. So when we're doing that and then I we end up having to do the audit at the meeting anyway, it feels like oh we could have kind of you know maybe not had that deadline. So, two things is I just wanted to bring that up. Um, because especially on a week like this, it's very stressful cuz we're closed on Monday. So, we're like working a really hard to like get the vouchers done. But if we didn't need to have done that, then it feels like, you know, it'd be nice to be able to plan, I think. And so I two things I wanted to say is like should we go back to doing it at the meeting which makes the meetings really long or could we have like a set schedule where like these two board members do it this time these two

board members do it this time or do we say these two board members just do it every time cuz we do have you know maybe you guys don't want to do that because it like you want to audit them sometimes but anyway I wanted to bring that up and see if we to come up with something that's a little bit more predictable. I don't mind coming in to assign them in your office. It's just depends on travel schedules. Yeah. So even there if you have a assignment period it's you might have to Yeah.

I don't mind coming into your office to do it. I just signing up on the calendar and like remembering to do that because it's not for you know three and a half years I did it at a meeting that was the last Thursday of the month and like I knew what that schedule was of when to I had to do it. So like the fact that we break it into two abstracts for the month now like I can't my brain doesn't compute that to try to figure out when to come in and like remember to sign up on that hour. I would prefer to just do it the whole month, one shot. And whether that's at the at a meeting or at your office is not particular to me. Like, but if it's like the last week of the month, one of us have two of us have to sign up, like it would be more helpful for me if it's like I know the last week of the month I have to come sign up on it at some point if that makes sense. Or like whatever week works for you. Would I would it are you do you get the calendar notifications on your phone?

Yes. Because I could just set up an automated One of the things that I was thinking about if you guys want to keep doing it outside of the meeting is um part of the stress is I don't hear anything from anyone. So, no one tells me that they can't come. So, I'm like sometimes on Thursdays I'm like, "Okay, I guess no one's coming." So, it's that like I think you Yes, there have been a couple times, but yes, my he I don't know how, but like Michael signs up like within two seconds of me sending the email with the sign up link. I'm waiting for it to come every day. Wait, [laughter] you still send it?

I send a Yeah, I send it in an email in the agenda email, but I like coming. There's cookies at the office sometimes. Sometimes donuts. Well, if somebody brings cookies up, but I could set up a calendar. I can set up a calendar thing that reminds everyone like a week in advance or something. Yeah, I think that would be helpful. Yeah. Also though for night well I [laughter] can we also though go back to only one? I I like two because you get bills paid faster and it's

we are now used to two in terms of like paying people and there's a couple that we've realized are always late unless we have them. So unfortunately my Are you calling me out? No, we're I am not calling you out. [laughter] Okay. I'm calling out the ones that we only have two weeks notice to pay before the deadline. Um so like our credit card bill, we get it. It's we don't have a full month to pay the credit card bill. Um there's things like that. So we I did bring it up to both Jessica and Stephanie and they both like the two

and just evens out the room. But you could also commit just to one a month. I think if to me I'm like if you if we're like if you're like Wednesdays at 3, you come the last one or whatever, that could just be your day and then you um the schedule is very

Okay, understood. Well, it sounds like we should keep trying to do it outside the meeting. I'm requesting a little bit more communication just in terms of like if you can or cannot do it. Um I think the autonomy, how do you say that word? Anonymity of a calendar invite also I think kind of takes away some of that personal like hey can you do this? It's like you don't necessarily have to respond to a calendar sign up. So, I think I just wanted to call that out that like I'd rather have that. I don't want a calendar sign,

right? That's what I hear you saying. Yeah. Like I know if I were to every time I've texted you, you get back to me right away. So, um I'm just not I think if I we can um just kind of work towards some more planful communication around it, that would be really helpful. Um okay, we have an executive session. Anything else?

No. Okay. Um, I'll make a motion that the town of Rochester Town Board enters into executive session at 9:01 uh for the purposes of discussing matters that lead to the appointment of particular persons and matters regarding uh the litigation between Sue Brook and the town of Rochester and potential litigation. Second. Any discussion? I All in favor? I I I um

for the record, I'll be abstaining from one of or not recusing myself. Okay. From one of those discussions. Great. Um all in favor I I opposed. Abstain of going into executive session. Motion carries. Um, I bumped