Town Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. Soon as somebody

Okay. Yep.

going to start the meeting tonight uh with the pledge to the flag. If we would please to the stands one indivisible. So tonight, first thing on the agenda here is that we do have one brand new board member in Larry Waters. We also have uh two elected people that restart for me to take the official title now as opposed to appointed and uh the reelection of course Ed Zelaney and the uh judge Grabowski has agreed to come in and swear in the new members. So if you would So

I James domnly swearnly swear that I will support the United States and support the Constitution of the United States in the Constitution of the State of New York and the Constitution of the State of New York. and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of division. I will faithfully discharge the duties of town supervisor. Supervisor. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you coming in.

Yeah. your neighbor.

Yeah. Congratulations to all of you. and judge, thank you for coming in tonight just to complete that task. Uh at this point, I'd like to have entertain a motion to adjourn the board meeting and move into an executive session. Uh the reason for this executive session just so that everybody knows is that this is the organizational meeting and there's a long list of items that we need to go through uh together to decide who gets what duties uh like who gets to be the liaison with the highway department, a much coveted position and some of the other ones. So, we we need to go through those in the executive session, have a little discussion on those things, and we'll be back out here as soon as we can to reopen the meeting. Uh, appreciate your patience through that. We'll try not to make it any longer than we have to. So, could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting into executive session, please?

So, move. Second. We do a roll call, please. Yes. Linda, yes. Larry, yes. John, yes. Jim, yes.

And with that, we'll move into executive session. We'll be back, like I say, as soon as we can.

We're going to reopen the uh public meeting. Uh we did skip over, I'm informed, uh any public comments on the agenda items before we um move on to those other items on the agenda. One of the things we are going to do in terms of uh public comments from now we're going to make sure everybody we made an attempt here uh Kevin Smith has has volunteered to come in and help us make sure that our audio is working. Uh that we all have spare batteries up here should they go dead. um that the YouTube is streaming as it should so that people It was pretty frustrating for me. I can tell you when I was sick uh and John Massidi ran the meeting, the microphones didn't work. There were no batteries out here and you couldn't hear anything on the stream. So, I'm hoping we can get that straightened out for everybody um that uh wants to watch the meetings. Okay. So part of what we did was go through an agenda of setting responsibilities for this board. U these will be published in the on the website in the minutes. Um we've assigned things such as liaison to certain committees. Um I don't know whether I should go through

these here publicly.

Have to read them. Okay. We'll have more description, but the supervisor uh will be following town law 29 and 125. Uh we'll publish those uh a summary of that law that authorizes the the duties and responsibilities of the supervisor. We've named the penny saver. I'm not sure who owns that. I've got to look that up. The name that is our official newspaper of the town of Shelby where we'll be putting our public notices. Tomkin Tommpkins Bank uh will continue as our official depository for the town of Shelby. Uh the town of Shelby will participate participate in the joint youth commission and we've assigned or we've had volunteers of Linda and John Pratt to represent the board on that commission. Uh John Pratt uh I don't know if you'd call it volunteered to be deputy supervisor was rather reluctant but John Pratt will be take the duties of deputy um Dan Wolf is zoning he will continue his zoning code enforcement officer. uh Bill Bacon as the acting highway superintendent in the absence of Dale Root. We've appointed Chief Debbie Taylor as the fire warden, Chief Zack Petri as the fire inspector. Regular board meetings, we've had a discussion on that and we've set those at 6:30. kind of a compromise between two

different views on that. Town payroll system will be direct deposit only. The highway superintendent, highway, MEOS, town clerk, hourly clerks and secretary will be paid bi-weekly. that the monthly and semianual payroll be paid with the second bi-weekly payroll of the month. Authorizing Deputy Supervisor John Pratt and the town clerk Darling Ridge deputy clerk Pam Henry to sign in my absence. The mileage rate as per the federal rate is 72.5 cents per mile for personal vehicle use. We've appointed Linda and Ed Zelane as coordinators to the highway department. I will take the appointment as the coordinator to the town clerk. Did I? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Councilman Zelane as department coordinator to the town judge. He'll continue in that role. Uh Councilwoman Lemana to serve on the citizens advisory board. Larry Waters, Councilman Larry Waters and I will serve as liaison to the village. John Pratt as deputy supervisor serve as the liaison to the Orleans County Legislature. Councilwoman Limina and Councilman Pratt to serve on the joint youth commission.

Councilwoman Leina to serve on the ambulance committee of the town of Shelby. We appointed Don Lan, Dale RDE, Councilman Zelane to serve as the advisory committee for all Shelby cemeteries. Appointed Dale Root as cemetery adviser of Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Don Lannon as cemetery administrator of Milville Cemetery. Continue the appointment of Shane Sia as the town historian. Town of Shelby will sponsor the senior citizens of Western Orleans County. Point CJ Woodruff as the water superintendent to appoint Darlene Rich Pam Henry and Councilman Larry Waters to serve on the records advisory board. Point Pam Henry as the fair housing officer, Pam Henry as the deputy town clerk, appointing Darlene Rich's tax collector, and Pam Henry as deputy tax collector, Darlene Rich as register of vital statistics, Pam Henry as deputy register of vital statistics. Kirk Myill as planning board chairman, Kevin Smith as zoning board chairman, appointing Darlene Rich as records management officer, and Pam Henry as records management clerk.

So, those are the official appointments of the board for this year. Again, they'll be published in the minutes and made available as long along with all of the salaries. Um this year for all of the positions that we've discussed uh the only raise I can tell you was for the town justice and one of the town the just court clerks. The rest have stayed the same. Yep. So, as we've gone through this, can I please have a motion to accept those appointments and the salaries?

So moved. Second. Pam, can you do a roll call, please? Roll call vote. Ed, yes. Linda, yes. Larry, yes. John, yes. Jim,

yes. That's the first resolution of the new year. Uh, I've asked the board to approve um and I've included some information on the New York State Association of Towns Conference for Newly Elected Town Officials. It's on January 21st, 22nd, 23rd in Corning. Uh, the registration is 250. Uh I've missed the registration for the official board the official uh uh attendance discount. This would be three nights at 125 hotel and some meals. I'd like to get approval for that. I'm not sure I'm going to attend. It will depend on the workload here, but I would like to get board approval if they so wish. I've included um what is included in that uh 3-day training. I would actually not stay all of the third day because it's mostly designed for clerks, town clerk. Any discussion?

Can I get a roll call voter? Do I have a motion to approve? I'd like to make the resolution to approve the supervisor's attendance at the New York State Association of Towns Conference. I'll second. Can we do a roll call on that, please? Vote. Ed, yes. Linda, yes. John, yes. Larry, yes. Jim, yes. The only thing the only thing I would mention is that when you go they will give you a bunch of handouts if you bring an extra copy back for Larry in case Larry doesn't Yeah. can't doesn't make it next year.

Right. Yeah. I wish that I think you had said before they had these closer, but they used to be in Rochester.

Used to be in Rochester. Now one is in Albany and one is in in Corning. Again, the workload here is such I'm not sure I'm going to make it. The just so everybody knows again this is an open book for us here. Uh, the auditors are supposed to be coming in the second week of January. I I don't think that's a good week for me to be absent. So, we will see. Now that I have permission, well, I'll play it by year. I think it would be valuable, but we'll have to see. Um, we have before us and we've talked about and we've put a couple of uh copies out. I'd like to set uh um have a resolution to set next board meeting on the 13th of next week, the second Tuesday of the month at 6:30, a public hearing on a proposed law to that members of public bodies can participate in meetings via video conference. So, I'd like to have a motion on that if I could please that we set next Tuesday as the public hearing on that.

I so move. I'll second. Pam, can you do a roll call, please? Roll call vote. Ed, yes. Jim, yes. Linda, yes. John, yes. Larry,

yes. I'd also like to have a resolution to set up allowing me to set up auto payments for health insurance premiums and for the credit card bills. We've run into some issues where the bills have fallen through the cracks and we've gotten behind on one healthc care payment uh that I took care of this morning. uh we should be setting these things up. We don't have the staff here to monitor all of the bills. Certain things certainly uh should go to autopay like the health insurance. Uh that does not mean that the board does not get to see those payments. Uh but they would see them after they are made and paid because those aren't going to change. We've had an issue with the credit cards not being paid. Uh, I'd like to see that as an autopay that does not prevent the board from accessing the bills and questioning all of the items that have been charged on the credit cards. They will still see all of those. If there's any questions about individual charges, we can do that. But we end up getting late fees from the credit cards and that's certainly something that we don't need to do.

Can I ask a question? Absolutely. You're when you say autopay, you're saying they're going to come in and take it. You're not talking about prepaid where it gets approved automatically. As soon as it comes in, it gets paid. You're Well, how would you like to have it set up? I guess I'm asking then. How would you like the resolution to read? As an accountant, I tend to not like people coming into my bank account. So, I I would say make it a prepaid where as soon as the bill comes here and it goes to single source, they pay it immediately. They don't have to wait except that they have to pay it by by check. Somebody has to be here to cut the checks. It can't be a

I don't know. So that would be Well, the bank one is okay because our we have the credit card with the same bank we do our bank. That's correct. So that one's okay. That's the only one I'm talking about. The health insurance. The health insurance though is something different. Okay. I mean that's a standard payment every you know month for independent health. But independent health will come in and take the money. That is correct. You still have a record of it and they will notify us 3 days in advance of taking the money. Yeah. I guess because we're doing our bank wrecks every month, I could be okay with that. But the concern is that what happens is it gets taken out for multiple months and if the bank wrecks aren't kept current,

all of that would we would certainly send that to to market would get copies of all of those. the accountants would give as they are paid. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any other questions on that particular item? Can I have a motion on that resolution? So moved. We have a second. No second. Can you do a roll call on that, please? Roll call vote. Ed, yes. Linda, yes. John, yes. Larry, yes.

Jim, yes.

Something I that came up just recently was that Dale has a request uh has requested from the board. uh there's a meeting in Albany that he'd like to attend. So Dale, if you would come up and explain that uh to the board and let them every year, um a lot of the highways, all the highway superintendents go to Albany for advocacy day where we go from office to office in the Senate and the Assembly to talk to people that are apt to not vote for the increase in our chips and we are broken up into groups and teams and uh we spend the day advocating for our um chips money and it uh opened up. It's uh March 3rd. It's an overnight with a bus trip. So, we're looking to increase $250 million across the state and it is I've been there every year except for the first year because of COVID and it is an excellent opportunity to meet a lot of the legislators up in up in Albany and tell them of what goes on on this side of the state. So, um, yes, I'm requesting the opportunity to go.

I was just looking at the, um, the cost is the bus trip, which is usually hundred and some dollars, and then the hotel one night in Albany. The cost of it is nothing because it's kind of paid through our association dues. Do you know Do you know what the hotel cost is roughly?

Um 250. I I don't know. I can get that. It I brought the paper that came, but there's nothing on it. We meet a lot of the um assembly and senators at the reception the first night before we go up to the cap. Dale, how many times have you gone to this? Oh, but the first year or so, five times. Has there ever been a positive outcome? Absolutely. Give me an example. We got a raise in our chips last year. By how much?

I don't have the exact number. I don't know. But it was um we went from 260, Town of Shelby went from 260 to 277. What dates? What dates did you say? March. Um, March 3rd and March 4th. It sounds like a good program. Could you just when you get back next meeting, give us a report on how things went and Yeah. how you were received and all that.

Mhm. Oh. Oh, I have another question. Hold on. We Well, we obviously kept the budgets very tight and we didn't put anything in for conference. Where will you take this out of? Um, that's a good question because I don't have nothing in my contractual. So I'm not sure where. Well, we can't we can't take it from anywhere other than can't move it from No, you can't move between you can move between lines in the same in the same fund, but you can't move between funds.

There is money in contingency. It depends on whether the board wants to authorize it to come out of there. We'd have to take a look at that. And is that DA or DB? That I don't know. I have to look. This just came up. Okay. I think we should look into that and find out from Dale the hotel and meal cost and can we then address it at next week's meeting? Well, it would be definitely probably under $400. So, I mean, it's not um lifealtering. Let me look at the budget where it might come out of and I think that we can bring it up in just a week from tomorrow. Okay. Okay.

Yep. And I think though it would be good to get the cost of the hotel so that we know what that is. Okay. Any board comments at this point? I guess I have just one. I'd like to welcome Larry as a new member to the board. Um, I think you'll find it interesting. Uh, give you an opportunity to to uh u exert some of the ideas that you that you've had over the years. So, um, we look forward to it. Uh, this is new year and actually a new board with all the changes we've had over the last year. I'm looking forward to it. Uh, lots of challenges. One of the issues that we discussed in our quick, not as quick as I would have liked it, executive session. We will do the best we can to keep these meetings short and on track. Um, appreciate you all showing up for it. Uh, I think one of the early questions that came up was, do you have a list of things to the board? you have a list of things that you want to accomplish or that you see need to be done. And the group of people sitting here some time ago did come up with that list. I've distributed that list again. It was done quite a while ago to all of the board members. I've asked them to review it and we will share it with the public for what we see needs to happen uh going forward. You've heard a lot from the board as we've worked through some of the issues uh that we were left with.

There's still a lot of those, but there's also some forward thinking. And I think that we want to show the public that we're not concentrating on the past. Uh that we are looking forward to making things better and smoother and giving the taxpayers um what they expect for their money. Um, and that's especially important now since everybody that lives in Shelby has gotten their tax bill. So, uh, we do we'll do our best we can to handle that correctly. At this point, I'd like to entertain any, uh, comments from the public if they wish to the Yes, please. to the microphone. We want to make sure that people that

Yep. Um John Massiti had mentioned he had potential for um serving the board on a uh committee which is yet to be established with the board to approve such a thing. And then in the last board meeting there were comments about um the serious effect on Jan Massi's life from all his participation and personal life and all that stuff. So I I'm checking to see whether that committee is still potential.

The the committee is a potential. Okay. All right. That we that's something that we'll be looking at and we'll make public as soon as we we have to look at what are our options in forming and I can just put it out here in public. One of the issues that we've been wrestling with and continue to wrestle with is water. Not so much supplying areas, but what's the cost of water? what's how we're billing for it. There's a a large number of items related to that. We get water at two different sources at two different prices, yet we've never addressed the price differential uh to the customers. There's a whole range of issues that that are um quite frankly probably a little difficult for any one person on this board to resolve or even as a group. So there is a thought and there's some legal things that we have to look at in order to form a citizens committee. Um so that'll be something that we'll be working on. Any other comments or questions? Yes, sir. There you go. you get your cameo appearance.

Yeah, there we go. Uh, Ed Gribowski, Justice. So, uh, just so I don't know if you shared it with the rest of the board, but I delivered the audit letter today. Yes. So, I'm sure Mr. Zelane is going to be getting a hold of me at some point. There's no rush, but we do the board audit so you can finagle somebody else to come in with you and I'll lay out everything. And of course, we never have a problem with the money. So it's just a matter of let letting me know when the other question I had I was here at the last meeting and when you brought up about the uh remote uh participation in the meetings

I had asked this question and hopefully you're going to publish a a broader resolution when Kathy let you know about it but uh I know uh there are restrictions on voting and location and I had asked that the last time. I know you weren't here, Jim, but uh a geographical jurisdiction. Here's a copy of the proposed local law. Certainly glad to have going is that what's going to be discussed? That's correct. Yeah.

No, that copy of that, I certainly I'd put out a couple copies. One one of the issues we do want to address a little bit is I know there's been always a big issue about foil. If somebody wants information, come in and ask for it. If it's going to cost us a lot to produce it, then we'll probably charge you. But there isn't a We're not hiding anything here. So, I'm going to make it a lot easier for people to get information. We are trying to control a little bit some of the costs. Printing a bunch of material for the meetings that nobody takes or they take and throw in the garbage and don't look at. We're open. I'm open. Anytime. Ask. I'll get it printed for you and get it to you. So, if there's like the road use agreement that we went through, I don't know how many copies I printed of that, uh, most people don't care about it. If somebody does, I'll get it for you. We'll make a few copies available. You'll know what we're voting on. Uh, the local law certainly is something that will be something to discuss. We found uh by working with the um New York Association of Towns and the lawyers there uh provided us probably oh at least a dozen um local laws that were done by other communities of our size and larger u allowing this type of activity. So what you see here is a culmination of of of those comments more suited towards our particular situation. So happy to have that part of the discussion next week. Thanks. Okay.

Just making sure we're doing everything legal. Oh, you bet. And uh you know in my budget I brought up to you guys uh I had to have an increase in contractural uh because I had mentioned to you guys that uh we're getting in more non-English-speaking defendants

and uh the interpreters cost us money and I had mentioned to you about jury trials. Well, lo and behold, I have one Wednesday. So the place is going to be packed on Wednesday. I have uh 40 jurors coming in at 8 o'clock in the morning and the two attorneys are going to go through the voadier and we're going to set seven jurors and go through a trial on Wednesday. So, I'm glad that you guys increased that line for me. Uh unfortunately, it's not under our control because it is a constitutional right

and I'm glad you said that you do have some contingency money for the end of the year. The only other thing I asked, I've been talking to Margaret about uh maybe getting an update every month or so on how my budget is going because I had asked her that and I know uh Dale gets an update occasionally, don't you? But it would be nice if we had a like, hey, at the end of the month, here's what you got left or every other month or something. So, we try not to go over

Yeah. I'm not I'm not sure how that's tracked, how the court is. And and every meeting that we have have had, we do put out for the public in the supervisor's report budget to actual. So Dale at any time or any other department head or anybody else in the public can pick it up. They can look and see what the budget lines are, how much we spent in those budget lines. Um I'm not sure how I don't look at it so much for court. I look at it a lot more for the other elements. Okay. But certainly uh every meeting we have that available to the public and I it may provide you the kind of information you're looking for.

That might do it. Okay. Thanks. So on on our budget to actual for the A fund, the court's numbers are in there and we can actually set it up in QuickBooks where that report is emailed out to you just you'll get a lot. I I had been talking to Margaret about it and she we didn't get in much in a in a discussion. You'll get everything in the A fund, but you'll still have the three or four lines that pertain to you that you can just look at. Dale, same for you. We I'll make sure that the DA and DB fund reports are emailed to you every month so you can look at them. Perfect. It just made me think of one other question. At the last meeting, uh you guys uh approved the $8,000 for the HR guy. Has that started?

Has not started yet. That'll be set up here shortly. They want to come out and do some training. Okay. Thank you. So, we've gotten through the holidays. That is going to coincide too with the new time clock and with the other issues that'll be associated with that. If there's no more comments, um, appreciate you all coming. Can I have a motion from the board to uh close the meeting? So moved. I have a second. Second. Can I have a roll call vote? Pam. Roll call vote. Ed? Yes. Linda?

Yes. Larry? Yes. John? Yes. Jim? Yes. Thank you. See you next week. Happy new year.