Town Board - Regular Meeting

We're going to start off with swearing in our newest police officer.

Thank you.

John, if you would join me up here. I have the pleasure, as supervisor, of going to the graduation for police department. And they show the video. And it is amazing the amount of officers to put on the town's website so that people can understand what we've accomplished. So if you will repeat after me, I, police officer, state your name, do solemnly swear.

I, police officer John McEnroe, do solemnly swear. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the state of New York.

The Constitution of the state of New York.

And the codes, rules, and regulations of the town of Shelter Island.

And the codes, rules, and regulations of the town of Shelter Island. I will faithfully discharge the duties of police officer, abiding by the rules, regulations, and general orders of the Shelter Island Police Department, and I will serve and protect the people and property of Shelter Island to the best of my ability. Congratulations.

So just on behalf of the police department, I just wanted to extend our sincerest thanks to the town board. We have gone through an evolution of the police department over the last couple of years as senior officers start to hire out and we bring in bringing new officers to the police department and the town board acting as police commissioner has done really a A fabulous job of recognizing the needs of the agency and bringing in what I call the best of our community and our newest officers really exemplify what our community is about we every day, try to help. and support our community in so many different ways. And it's important that we continue to do that because it makes us a stronger community and a better police department. So we truly, as a department, appreciate all that the town board has done for us. And I also always extend my thanks to our family, our police family and our extended family. Without the love and support of all of you, we can't operate as a police agency. So I thank our current officers, Some of our retired officers are in the audience and their family. John's wife, Mariana, and Marion, his mother, are both here today. We truly appreciate bringing you on into that extended family, and we look forward to working with this community as we go forward as an agency. So thank you all. Thank you.

moment to let everyone who wants to leave now leave wait can we shake it down thank you

John?

John?

So I was around from the beginning, you know? And the Jaleel thing.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

All right. Now that the room is almost quiet again, is there anyone in the audience for public comments?

Thank you.

So at the last WNAC meeting, there was a lively discussion about a commercial mooring feature for the rental people. And so I just wanted to state that if you get a chance to watch it, you know, Lynn Riper made some observations, which in themselves are accurate, but I don't think takes the whole mooring fee structure and how it relates to the town into account. So I just want to say briefly that since the fees were raised at the last administration, or I would call it administration, but anyway, since a few of you have joined, there has been a drop, I think, in the amount of moorings in the town. People have relinquished mooring. All right, OK, no problem. And so if you look, if you're planning your budget, Amber, you will see that, I don't know what the number is, but you might start to see a drop in the overall revenue coming into the town in the moorings. And so it's like almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that you're going to want to look to rent the moorings to fill that gap. And I don't think that's necessarily the way to go. and for other reasons. And I also want to encourage that the ability for, and I'll call this commercial, not the rental mooring, but there's a community of people that want to be in business on the water in this town. And we need to be able to facilitate those businesses by allowing moorings in that sphere and allow them to have access to the water you know, commercial purposes beyond just rental moorings or a rental mooring in a different sphere of, you know, that needs access to certain services that you think that are right now provided but might not be needed for a certain type of mooring. But anyway, that's kind of where I'm at with that.

All right, done. Thank you. Anyone else in the physical audience?

Yes. Will you be discussing the irrigation code for Walter Richards, 17 Osprey Road? Will you be discussing the irrigation code or just drought restrictions today?

Just drought restrictions.

Just drought restrictions. Thank you.

I'll move to the Zoom audience. Mike Gaynor, I see you have your hand up.

Hi Amber, thank you. Yes, Mike Gaynor, 8 Cobbett's Lane. I wanted to make the community aware, for anybody who hasn't already heard, Sylvester Manor Educational Farm is gonna be having a massive party this coming Saturday, June 27th. I've been very vocal about being opposed to that event from a bunch of different perspectives. I think it's a very inappropriate party to be having at that, given the history of Sylvester Manor. And so I have been posting these flyers. You can't see them all over town. And they're pretty aggressive. They read Saturday, June 27th, 13th annual Sylvester Manor Slaver Appreciation Gala and Disco Extravaganza. There are 300 slaves buried on that property about a couple of hundred feet from where Sylvester Manor is going to be erecting a series of tents, a dance floor. They're going to have a DJ, and they've had this event 13 times. And some years they've been told they had to have an outdoor assembly permit. And this year they're not, they're not being required to have that. And so that, that Amber and my, Is that correct? They do not have an outdoor assembly permit, correct?

No, and they are not required to unless they are requesting a variance exemption from the noise part of the code.

And we know they're going to have a new day and we know every year.

I thought that was explained to you a couple of weeks ago.

Amber, as I think you know, I've got a very long history. I own one of the largest building permit businesses in the United States of America. I know a thing or two about permits. And applicants don't get to determine whether or not they meet the requirement. Any reasonable person, they've hired a DJ. I've complained about the noise before, as have other neighbors. Those policemen that were just there in that room have been to my home. They put up a massive amplification system. We know this is going to happen. You don't hum along with a DJ. Ben right there has been at these events. They're extremely loud. The last time I spoke with you, the first time I spoke with you about this at the town board meeting, Amber, you said the reason they don't have to have a permit is because it's on private property, which is just not true. And you know that's not true. Then I confronted Meg the next day, and she said that it doesn't need to have a permit because it doesn't require town services. The building department is issuing permits to them for tents, to erect tents, because tents are inherently unsafe things. Michael Lasantis is gonna be required to go over there and conduct inspections. Chief Reed, our chief safety officer, and all of those policemen are all going to be apprised of what's going on that night because it's the largest, the single largest event On the island, every year, any reasonable person would know that they should have to get a permit for this thing. People are going to be served alcohol for five hours at that place. Then they're going to file out onto 114 and they're going to be driving. I don't believe the attendees at that event are impervious from drinking and driving. It's an unsafe condition. Somebody's going to be, people are taking all sorts of drugs these days. As we all know, it's a very serious problem. Somebody is going to head down 114 and Frank from Slice is going to be pulling out of there after a hard day's work and he's going to get T-bone. You know what's going to happen? There's going to be a shotgun suit. And the town is going to get joined inside of that. But unfortunately, because you're not requiring them to get an outdoor assembly permit, they don't have to name us as an additionally insured. So you're exposing us for that. 500 people, 250 drunk drivers. You're lying to the community about this, Amber. You're trying to cover for that organization. Any reasonable person would say that that is an unsafe environment and the town should be coordinating with them hand in hand. Don't make me put Chief Reed in the inappropriate position of having him to admit that he's coordinating with them in order to do this. So we're providing town services because Chief Reed is not stupid. He doesn't want to be on the hook when there's a tragedy over at that property. Parties with 500 people, alcohol, and DJs need to get outdoor assembly permits. The fireworks are going up in front of you right now to ask for an assembly permit. Oh, and it's going to be a fraction of the size of this event over at Salt. Then Tom Spadik's kid, we're going to have an event for him over there. He's getting an outdoor assembly permit. I'm glad you find this funny, Margaret. You guys won't find it funny when somebody is hurt at one of these events. It's a very dangerous environment, you guys should be treating them the way you treat everyone else on this island, and you don't do it. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Got it. Thanks.

Anyone else? Brett?

Hi, I'm Brett Serreras. I'm a local. I just want to clarify those comments. Shelter Island fireworks is the single largest event that happens on Shelter Island. It happens in coordination with the town board. It happens in coordination with the fire department, the ambulance, and the police services here. And it is arguably one of the safest events. I see no reason why this other event wouldn't take that place, but I just wanted to make sure that we're clear. The fireworks is the largest event on Shelter Island, and with the help of the town board, is accomplished successfully every single year.

All right, if there's no other public comment, we'll move on to our agenda, which we're starting off with outdoor assembly permits for fireworks.

Hello, it is great to see you all. I saw many of you yesterday. So I am once again, first, congratulations to Officer Macro. It's very exciting to have seen the police force grow and to be able to be here for that. That was really wonderful. I'm Katherine Brigham. I am here once again for the Outdoor Assembly Conference for the Shell Brown and Fireworks and the fundraiser that we do at SALT. As in years past, we have met with the heads of all of the departments, so Highway Fire, the town, the police, the Bay Constable, EMS, thank you. Please let me know if I forget. Everyone has been looped in yesterday. We had a great meeting. We went over the logistics of the Yacht Club to make sure that everything is safe. The packet has been provided by Grucci, so that should be in your emails and you have that. The only additional thing was that we were adding the Shelter Island Yacht Club to the insurance policy that covered the town for the loading and unloading of the fireworks. South Ferry has a designated ferry that brings them across. They then go to the Yacht Club. There is appropriate signage that is up for the loading and unloading of the fireworks onto the barge. The anchors are set. The barge goes out. The fireworks go off. The barge comes back, the fireworks are unloaded, and by first light on Sunday, thanks to the help of our amazing highway department, the beaches are combed, and it is like nothing has ever happened except for the great memories. So I am here to answer any questions. Please tell me what I may have, you know, where I can help you.

Does Ford have any questions? I was at the meeting yesterday. The one item that I will note is that I'm looking at the right for the application. Yes, the date, the timing. That's correct. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot. Yeah. Anyone in the public have any questions?

Okay.

Yeah, the reason this application has to get an outdoor assembly permit is because it is on town property and there's also a noise exemption. And there's fireworks.

Literally in the outdoor assembly permit application, it states if you are having fireworks, you must apply for a permit because we do need to coordinate PD, EMS, the DEC, the Coast Guard. There's a million different people who get involved. The Sheriff's Department, the county, yes.

So yes, that is why you do need this outdoor assembly permit. Happy to fill it out every year.

All right, if there's no questions, we'll move on to the next one. This one is for the Fireworks Eve fundraising event itself.

Great, so the Fireworks Eve fundraiser itself is our biggest fundraiser of the year. As many of you may have seen, and in case you have not, this year was a make or break for the fireworks. Prices are rising everywhere, and I think everybody knows that. You've probably felt it yourself. every year as the fireworks we raise money and our goal has always been to raise money for the fireworks that year and a little bit for the next year every year we've gotten a little bit less and a little bit less in donations just as people tighten their purse strings because of that we this year did not have a reserve that we could dip into and so this year it became we either are able to raise the money for this year and some towards next year or this event will not be able to move forward And it has been a wonderful event and we love doing it and we would like to see it forever, but the reality is, if we cannot raise money for it. We cannot put it on and so for this year we still have a deficit, we still are not at our goal so is our single biggest fundraiser of the year. We are asking for a noise exemption for the extra time so that we can raise that money and hopefully bridge that deficit and put us in a position where we do not need to raise as much money next year and we're not worried about being able to pay our deposits and the things that need to be done so that we can do this event. So that is why we're asking for it. It is a great event. We have done it many years. SALT is very gracious. We have a lot of community support. We have a lot of people who have come out both to the event or the event and in support of the event. And that is why we were asking for the noise exemption.

We noted that you are going to have the music from 6 to midnight.

That is what we were asking for.

And I know in past years, I think last year it was approved for 1030. I think the year before that it was 11. I had to go back. It was 11.

So I just thought I'd bring that up since that was the only change. And just to understand, so you're asking for the additional time to hope to raise more money?

Correct, to raise more money because we would love to not be in this position again. We would love to be able to say confidently that the fireworks is going to happen every year. And that is why we're asking for the extra time. We need to be able to sell merch, raffle tickets, all of the things that we do. to collect those donations.

Do you find that you sell more of those things later in the evening?

Yes, and this is probably a surprising fact, but once people have been drinking and dancing for a little bit, sometimes they tend to donate more money. And so those later hours become especially important for collecting that money.

I just wanted to understand that.

Absolutely.

And it's fair to note that we were negatively impacted by the fact that we were forced to close down earlier last year. Yeah, it did have an absolute impact.

Did you find that you raised less than expected at last year's event? I know it was a smaller, it was a small amount of time, but did it?

Less than expected. And it was also kind of disappointing because the community, you know, they were very aware of what had happened. They had all watched the meeting. It became its own thing on social media, which is kind of out of our control, but it definitely put a damper on the event.

And I know I mean, just to bring up, I know that some of the Just to like put it out there, I know that there have been some questions around like salt and this tar pedal neighbors, but it was my understanding that, even though I know those neighbors and salt are working things out. When they had they had come last year, and specifically and I and our meeting they had said specifically that they were not concerned about this fundraiser.

That was what was stated last year was that they were concerned, and they were working things out, and I know that they're working things out with salt. whether the fireworks was not on their radar in terms of something that was bothering them about the situation.

Okay. I may say that that was evidenced by the nice letters in the reporter from those neighbors who had said, we don't mind that music at all. And kind of, we don't mind it. We'd love to point out that any donation from anybody who's watching now can be made to trialfireworks.com. You can go there or you can mail a check to P.O. Box 452, Delbron, New York. 1, 1, 9, 6, 4, we're grateful for the record.

That is Kelly and Brett Serrano who are board members. So, in case anyone's wondering who the, um, the twins in the outfits are.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right now. Thank you.

Any questions from the board? No, no, no. The public. Okay, and I'm just like, while we're on it, we're just on board. Think about them.

I don't have a problem with the right about it.

Oh, it's a good night. Have we heard from the, um, the talk of the road people?

Yeah. So we, I mean, we, we just had a meeting with them recently and they like specifically said, although they, you know, they are working on ongoing things that they, one night for the fireworks, they were, it was not, they were not worried about the one party. Yeah.

Is anyone here today?

No. Yeah.

Thank you, Kat.

Thank you.

Just to explain, the only reason they need that this outdoor assembly permit, because it's happening on private property, doesn't need town resources, is because they want a noise exemption to have louder music longer.

Yes.

And it's for a not-for-profit. Great. That's why you qualify. It's because you're a not-for-profit. Sorry, I want to come up and do it more again.

I have a lot in my brain. I just also wanted to mention... After meeting with everyone yesterday, I mentioned it there, but I want to mention it here again for the record. Everyone who helps with this event, the community, the Yacht Club, the fire, the EMS, the police department, the sheriff's office, the gang constable, the community members who help make sure that the trash goes in the garbage can, the bathrooms that get dropped off, the businesses that donate their time and their resources to help put this show on. This is the reason that it happens. And we are so grateful and so thankful Um, from the bottom of my heart, this is a community event and is the best of shelter island. And so I just want to thank the board as well along with everyone for all that they do to make this happen. It should not go unnoticed and we are greatly appreciate it.

Thank you. All right, we've had a yesterday addition to the agenda for an outdoor assembly application for a fundraiser trooper for Cooper and we. Thank you.

Oh, yeah. Allison on 11 Mark Street, one of the owners of Salt Shutter Island. We're on here twice today, but this is a much more simple request. We had been kicking around with an idea for a fundraiser for Cooper Spotted. Jimbo Thiner and I talked about having a ball. We had talked about a lot of different things. This weekend came up as one where there wasn't any conflicts as far as what was going on on the property at Salt, what was going on elsewhere on the island. We are going to open up the shipwreck, have a kids area. We have volunteers doing face painting and crafts, things like that. We have some donations from Lens, which is Tom Sladek's vineyard. He's going to be selling food and drink. And we have a sort of like a rockabilly style band playing. So we are here to ask for the noise exemption, but we don't really need any other coordination from Or you see in the OCMT, any of that sort of stuff. So pretty straightforward. Just want to mention that, you know, Cooper and the Spock family are a large part of this community. I think anyone who's raised kids on Shelter Island has a certain sense of camaraderie about what having a young family on Shelter Island is all about. I myself have twins, so I know how hard that specifically was, even without all the additional, you know, things that Cooper and his family are going through and dealing with. So we're here, we're partnering with the Central Post, American Legion, and they are a 501c3. And that's kind of my feel. I'm here to answer any questions and elaborate if needed.

The event is on July 3rd, 5 to 11 p.m. Expecting 500 people over the course of the evening. Max, probably. Yeah, that's max.

Any questions from the board? The time is from 5 to 11. And you don't have a rain date or anything, right?

No, this is something that we kind of said, let's, let's give it a go. It's the 1st time we're doing this, but I've been on our minds for a while. Maybe we put it inside the building. Like, we did it. I don't know if anyone's there for that query. Yeah, if it rains, you got to find a way to try to still stay open. The season feels shorter and shorter. Again, while we're trying, that's why I'm trying to do this in July and August rather than in the fall or the spring. The seasons get shorter. We need people here.

I don't have any questions. Let me see. There's an important question. Jean, I see you raised your hand.

Come on up. Jean Krause. First of all, I just want to say thank you to Keith and Allie and Salt for being so community-minded to be able to host things to support the fireworks as well as our community. Jim started off today by using that word community and I think this community is rallied around my great-nephew Cooper Spotic who we know has very, very severe cerebral palsy, epilepsy, amongst other medical needs. The willingness of Keith and Ali to organize this fundraiser in support of him goes beyond and above what people do to help each other. One of the reasons for fundraising is that Cooper has had his first stem cell infusion this year. which is all out of pocket, not covered by insurance, as well as he goes two times a year to Boston for three weeks for intensive neuro physical therapy, which is also not covered by insurance. So there's a lot of money that we're trying to help so that we can help Cooper to have the best chance. So I encourage this board to support Keith and Ally the way they are supporting our family and our community. Hope you will grant the extension of time for the noise. Thank you.

Any other questions? And again, because this is on private property, it wouldn't be subject to a permit except the fact of the noise exemption. All right. And we'll put all three of these on for Monday night. Thank you, everybody.

We shall seek out with them. I like the spirit. We have work to do.

Next on the agenda is Oyster Keepers has a request, and I see up there. Hi.

Hello.

If you want to tell us a little bit about this, Ariel, and just state your name for the record.

Yes, my name is Errol English. I'm over on Hangar Road and the request is fairly simple. We've been working with the Cornell Cooperative Extension program for a few years now to put oysters in Monantic Creek. About three years ago, we put a test reef right at the end of the Hager Road Peninsula. And it was incredibly successful. They told us it was the fastest growing oysters in their entire group of oyster reefs. And that's because for any of you who have been into... Mineta Creek, it has a lot of algae in it. So it's tons of food, it's warm, and that's exactly what oysters want. So after seeing that success, we wanted to grow what was there. And our real goal is to restore the oyster population in Mineta Creek for now, but we'd like to expand to the historical levels that used to be there. And I think it's well established now how successful oysters are. Um, but one of the things that, uh, you know, is kind of a North star for us that we've been really excited about and is Stony Brook university in Shinnecock Bay between 2012 and 2019 did, uh, restored the clam population. And so over those, was that five years, four years, um, Obviously, it's a much bigger body of water, but they planted 3.2 million clams that dramatically increased the speed at which the entire body of water was filtered from about every three months. months to every 10 days and every three days right where they had planted the clams. That led to a complete eradication of the brown tide, which had been a yearly occurrence starting in around 1985. It caused the eelgrass population to dramatically increase and it's continuing to increase. And as of this year, they've increased clam landings up to 40 times in Shinnecock Bay. And then they compared that to neighboring parts of the Great South Bay, which didn't see those same improvements, just to show that it wasn't just environment, like general improvements in the environment. So we want to do something similar in um uh starting in minita creek which is already shown that it is a really great place for an oyster reef but also is a really great shape because it's kind of shaped like a balloon so any oysters not any but a lot of the oysters fat as these uh oysters mature over a year um will stay in the creek and will lead to lots of natural recruitment and oyster growth in the creek. And so our goal right now is to plant a million oysters, which will filter between, you know, People say 50 gallons a day per oyster. That's under ideal conditions. But let's just say up to 50 million gallons a day of water filtration will reduce nitrogen levels by 150 to 300 kilograms a day, will remove a lot of suspended sediment, will... uh, remove a lot of the algae from the water will, um, uh, permanently removes a lot of nitrogen from the water. Um, I already said that the, and all of those benefits lead to, uh, eelgrass, uh, um, uh, being able to grow in the creek again, which obviously leads to, um, the scallop population growth. And so that's what we want to do. And we've been working with the DEC. We've been working with Cornell. We've been working with Stony Brook University. And our goal is to create spat on shell the same as Cornell has been doing, but at just a much bigger scale so that we can, again, restore the historical oyster population in the creek and then once we can demonstrate success there we'd love to move to other bodies of water and hopefully eventually you know the whole peconic bay thank you have you been in conversations with the menace creek keepers yes yes we've been working with them the we um uh they are working with after the original um oyster reef success they started talking with cornell and are putting in another oyster reef in a different part of the creek and we just want to build on all of that work okay good any questions from the board

It looks like the location cited in the application is like the exact same location that Cornell is using for their reef. And I was just wondering if that's going to conflict with them trying to collect data on the oyster growth and population. If they're trying to do like a more controlled study, I know that they're starting a second reef in Banana Creek down more closer to the inlet. I'm not sure if that's if this location is a good idea or if you should start a third location.

We're open to doing it anywhere. The reason that we want to do it there is that's the original reef that we had planted with Cornell. So this summer there, like you just said, are working on that other reef and we want to expand. So right now we have that small area and we want to expand to cover that entire peninsula because it's a really good substrate right now for oysters. So we just want to grow it larger. One of the things that... I learned from talking to Michael Dole at Stony Brook University is that because of dermo and DMX, the two oyster diseases, you need to reach a critical mass within five years where the oysters are reproducing. And that requires both density and growth. individual density like every square foot and also a large area because of the way that oysters reproduce. Otherwise, the reef will just die. And so that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to just grow that reef and we're trying to grow the whole population in the creek so that we can get to that critical mass so that the reefs don't die.

To Meg's question, have you been in contact with the co-op that originally planted, that set up the seedbed?

Yes, so it was actually, I worked with Cornell and paid for the installation of that specific reef. And then I've been talking to them. They were our first call. about expanding that reef and they've moved their focus over to the other reef. So this is now our responsibility to expand this reef, which is what we're trying to do right now.

So are you working with them on this? I mean, I don't understand the connection.

We worked with them to plant the original reef. We talked to them about expanding the reef, but their resource constraints, they had already put in their allotment with the hatchery and they just weren't interested, didn't have the resources to expand this reef, which is why we decided to start working on it ourselves. Okay. So our goal here is to just bring in resources that they don't have. So we're sourcing the shell, we're sourcing the oyster larva, and we're building our own setting tank so that we can do what they just don't have the resources to do because they're focused on other areas right now.

OK. Can you coordinate with them so they can help track the reef? Because the original one, I believe, is part of a larger project that they're doing. So I hate to throw the data off by adding more to it without them having realistic understanding and measurements of what's happening if it's part of a larger study. Because I think that's what this is with the addition of the second reef.

Absolutely. We've been talking to them. They were our first call. We've been coordinating with them and we've also been working with Stony Brook University. So we're working with every organization that's working on the creek to make sure that we're kind of in lockstep.

Seems like what's missing here is some sort of letter of blessing. But all 4 oysters more oysters, this sounds like a wonderful project, but with Cornell there in place, it seems like we need something from them saying. Keepers are great happy to have them continue this and work in this area.

people work in coordination or something like that just so everybody's on the same page because I know we did just give approval for them to expand for Cornell specifically to expand to do a second read um and I agree oysters are great we want more oysters but I also want to make sure that it's it's done correctly and that um we're not accidentally like tanking research that could help in the future sounds like we're asking for

Just like a letter from Cornell just saying, we know about it, we're working together.

Yeah, something that shows that you guys are working in cooperation.

Erroll, do you want to do that outreach to them, or I can do that?

Sure. No, I'll reach out to them. Would you like me to just send it to the town clerk, the same place that I requested this get put on the agenda? Yes, please. Yeah, that would be perfect. Okay. All right.

Any other questions from the board?

No. From the audience? Right up there.

Hi, Berkeley. I do a little bit with oysters, but in a commercial venue. But it's encouraging to hear people, you know, wanting to do things in a nonprofit world. So I encourage anything. So I understand that the spot is, Like that you want to plant these that uncovers with the tide and then it covers back up. Is that the spot that you're using?

Yeah. Yeah. We're planting in the intertidal area. And the reason that we're planting there is because the creek is so shallow. We don't want to go anywhere where boats would be traveling.

Right.

Okay.

It gets too muddy. Yeah. Yeah. So then the other thing would be you know towns really in favor of more oysters that you could possibly consider some kind of regulation to allow a fluency, which is like a powered like accelerator of growth in like if somebody wanted to donate some of the Doc space and. You know you could. allow them to put in a floating dock that has a very small seed. And then it has like a pool pump or something that fans the water and sucks it through. So like an upweller. And they call them phlepsies, whatever. And then that accelerates the growth of these juvenile oysters. And then you can use those for rehabilitation or whatever other purpose. So that's something you could consider as a town board at different views. And I don't know if you're buying any oysters. I used to supply them. I still do. There's a program in Southampton for a reef, and then they contact all the oyster growers in the fall to, if we have any big ones, to put in that reef there. They usually have some extra, so if they want some, they can contact them.

That would be great.

Any other questions?

Anyone on Zoom?

OK, we will await that letter from Cornell Cooperative Extension. And if we can get it before Monday, we'll put it on the agenda resolution approving this.

Thank you.

Thank you. And next up is that code and update. And there was a Scrivener's error when we adopted this and it This is posted on the town website to set a public hearing because we're changing local law. The changes to section 53 dash 8. there was a cross reference to section 53 dash 17 and it is actually 5316 was the correct reference. So that summarizes the change. I just wanted to make everybody aware of it. We'll set the public hearing on Monday. month are we in? Sounds good. So that's that update. Moving right along, WAC recommendations for drought restrictions. We received a letter dated June 15th from the Water Advisory Committee. We are in severe drought conditions notwithstanding that we started to get a little bit of rain but not that much. And we have Andrew Chapman here to discuss the WAC's recommendations and suggestions.

Good morning. Thank you for having me. Could you put the slides up?

Next slide, please.

So you can see from this chart that Year-to-date precipitation is lagging each of the last five years of water. We've had a recent chart. First of all, the water year, we defined it as from October 1 until September 30. So this is the last five water years, not the last five calendar years. You can see along, there's a heavy blue line along the bottom there. That is year-to-date precipitation for the most recent water year. In other words, October 1, 2025 to current. And you can see above that line, there's a dashed line that goes from the origin basically up to about 43 inches, 46 inches. That's the average precipitation year to date for the last five water years. And you can see that we're significantly below that. We're about 11 inches below the average. The chance of catching up by the end of the year is, in our opinion, low. And the reason is that all the vegetation is very active now, which means that when it rains, like it did last night, that's not going to really get down into the aquifer. It's going to get caught by the vegetation. transpired, you know, it's going to be evapotranspiration that's going to put that water back into the atmosphere as opposed to getting down into the aquifer. So here today precipitation lags and we pass the period of the year when we really get good aquifer recharge. So if you go to the next slide, you see what's going on in the aquifer itself. This is a time series for the last 10 years. Seasonally adjusted levels average over the four largest monitoring wells. So we started in 2016 over on the left, and then you go to the lower right, you can see where we are now. Again, this is the level, the water level above mean sea level in these four wells. on a seasonally adjusted basis, which basically means we are in the roughly 13th percentile when it comes to the last June, 10 Junes that we've been tracking this data. The seasonally adjusted is important as opposed to absolute because we get a lot of rain and recharge in the winter. We get a lot of withdrawals in the summertime. It basically takes all that out and looks at at where we are on the seasonally adjusted basis. Now, let's be clear about what this metric is and what this metric is not. This is what's going on in the aquifer relative to the last 10 years. This is not an absolute measure of water in the aquifer, because that's highly variable, because the aquifer varies in depth. The aquifer varies in quality from place to place. So we're just basically saying, look, relative to the last 10 years, we are at, we're near a low point. It's also not a measure of what's available to you in your well. It's just those four wells. It's an indication of the potential for stress in your well, depending on where you're located. But it's not a measure of of water falling like in a lake. Could you go to the next slide, please? So what are the implications of this? We think that this could cause some stress, particularly in the near shore areas, because there is a saltwater-freshwater interface. That saltwater-freshwater interface is pushed out. when there's a lot of water or head or pressure in the aquifer. So water is flowing and moving in the aquifer from the center of the island out to the shore areas. And the more water there is in that aquifer, the more it pushes and pushes that saltwater interface out. And conversely, the less water is in the aquifer, that saltwater interface tends to move back. So probably the wells, the private potentially higher salt levels or chlorides are the wells in the near shore area where the aquifer is the, the freshwater aquifer is the thinnest. And as that saltwater interface, saltwater freshwater interface starts to move back. Somewhat more theoretical, I suppose, is the second bullet here, which is if you've got quality concerns in your well, you could see higher levels of somewhat higher concentrations of contamination in your well because you've got less fresh water coming in from precipitation and flushing that out. In other words, if you think about it as a fraction, the numerator is constant. In other words, the amount of contamination is constant, but the denominator is less. So those are the two things to be concerned about. Next slide. What's our recommendation? Go ahead and use water. Use it sparingly. Just don't waste it. And consistent with that is our recommendation to ban the use of sprinklers for irrigation between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily. About 50% of the water from a sprinkler used during the heat of the day never gets to the root zone, just evaporates. So if you're running your sprinkler, essentially, that's right, you're wasting half the water. So we're not telling you don't sprinkle, don't irrigate, we're just saying if you wanna do it, don't do it between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Do it in the evening, do it in the early morning, you'll have less evaporative loss. The other guidance is, and this is consistent with what's in our website, if you're gonna clean your driveway, use a leaf blower. If you're gonna wash your car, go to a car wash that recycles its water. Check your appliances, especially toilets and faucets for leaks. Sure, if you have a septic tank, that water that's running through your toilet, it's gonna go through your septic tank, get back in the aquifer, yeah, sometime, but it's better not that your water, that your, toilet doesn't leak. Try to limit your drip irrigation to three cycles a week and 20 minutes a cycle. That's for your plants if you have a drip irrigation system. And then avoid prolonged pumping of your well. So that's our recommendation at this point. We have a severe, the percentile analysis on that earlier graph leads us to, by our own rules, on our own policy, a severe drop declaration. If this situation continues, heads up, we may recommend more mandatory measures. And further, we recommend that the town use the available communication channels to message this out to the public in terms of notify me, social media, press release, and so forth. So to make sure that everybody understands what's going on, is aware of this, notwithstanding all the green grass, which is largely as a result of it being fairly cool so far. But it's important that people are aware. So that's my recommendation. Sorry, that's the committee's recommendation.

Thank you, Andrew. Questions from the board? I have a question for you, Thomas, to investigate. If we were to, if we go ahead and say we're going to ban sprinkler use from 10 to 4 PM, how do we do that and make it something that's enforceable? I'm looking at the other guidance and I don't think anything else, like the drip irrigation limiting to three cycles per week, 20 minutes. I think that would be very difficult for us to recommend. I toss that one to you to do a little research on us for the banning. Any other board questions before I open it up to the public?

You can still hand water during these times.

Yeah.

Yes.

And if you want your kids to play in the front yard and you want the cool off in the middle of the day, that's fine too. Because this is sprinkler use for irrigation. So we're trying to be flexible about this and understanding of how people live. And there's message value in this also.

Making people more aware of the state that we're currently in and that there's a lot of potential for it to get worse by the end of summer. So be aware that there may be more restrictions that need to get applied if we become a more- More deficient. Yeah.

So along those lines, is the part of the request that we put something on the website or set down?

Yes, yeah. Yeah, that we would set it up. Notify me. We'd put it on the website. We'd put it on social media. We'd put a letter on a paper.

That's somewhat of the easy part. And any questions from the public? I see Elise, you have your hand up.

Yes, thank you. So one of the comments I want to make, because the Water Committee does a great job in trying to determine what we should not do and limiting water usage, and that's fantastic. I think one of the other parts that we're missing is a lot of people are so fearful of losing plantings, grass, trees, whatever. And I can't speak to plants, but I can speak to, and Walter is there, so he can also attest to this, is that especially with field lawns, I think people are afraid for them to go brown. And I think that's the natural course of a lot of the lawns that we have on Shelter Island, And we've never not had our lawn come back. We've never irrigated it at all. And I think one of the other parts of getting the message out to the community people on Children's Island is that there's a lot of attributes to your lawn going that natural course. I think the tick population likes wet. They don't like a brown lawn. So, I mean, there's a lot of other extra pieces of information that could be disseminated out to everyone that also goes hand in hand with the obviously not wasting water. So I just kind of wanted to bring that up because it seems like everybody just goes crazy that their beautiful landscaping is going to go to kaput. So anyway, I just wanted to add that in. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Richard, I think this is a great time. I was going to bring this up with you.

is, as Andrew spoke so well, saying that the recharge doesn't reach during this period of time. I took a ride around during the rain yesterday, and I identified a lot of locations, specifically one huge one. I took a video of all the water that was coming down off of Goat Hill and directly going in, probably millions of gallons at the time, into Chase Creek. So that water, if it was captured, would affect the recharge for the aquifer, because if we go right down. I also drove around Silver Beach, just on the Peconic Avenue loop on the outside there, and I counted 45, 15 of them had their gutters piped into dry wells. So if you take that math and you think about if people had their gutters piped into dry wells, when you get a storm in the summertime, you're getting direct recharge of probably thousands if not millions of gallons of water back into the ground. I'll dovetail that in with the irrigation when I get I think our highway department also plays a huge role in this, in addition to you sitting here, because they're the boots on the ground that are seeing these problems. And I believe that the dry wells are certainly on a map somewhere. And I think that maintenance of those could be huge. I don't see the back truck out very much. And I think that if we know there's a storm coming, I have photos of tons of clogged dry wells. to help the 13th percentile and, you know, possibly even have a private, you know, movement towards this to getting more back into the atmosphere rather than worrying, you know, in addition to worrying about taking it out. I'm not saying that's not valid, but the recharge thing just popped into my head yesterday. It was raining and I drove around and I said, look at all these opportunities the town has to make this better that way. So thank you.

Anyone else? So, Thomas, you'll help us figure out the enforceability of the spam and then we will push out these recommendations if everyone agrees on social media, the town website, emails to various presidents of the homeowners associations.

Thank you.

Oh, sure.

Another topic you want to ask me about?

Oh, yes.

Yes. Well testing in the center. Yes, thank you. As you know, and you guys, the town board passed the ordinance to fund this, we're in the process of testing private wells in the center. Because 44% of the wells tested in 2023 showed nitrates at two to three times what you would normally expect as background levels. Septic influences suspected to be behind that. And so then the question is, what else is in that water? Where is it and in what concentration? So we're in the process of testing in the center. We've sent letters to 191 property owners to participate in a testing program that's administered by Suffolk County Department of Health. As of June 12, we had 47 positive responses. So 140 or so non-responders. The WAC knocked on 103 of those doors to try to get people to participate. And interestingly, of those 103 doors, 9 or 10 at least were rental properties. So we have situations where properties are rented. The land boards have not positively responded, so we don't know if people in those houses know anything about the quality of their water. I just wanted to bring this up because I wanted to urge whoever is listening here and the town board to support the invited property owners to participate in this program. The town will reimburse the $100 test fee. Only property owners will receive the results. of their particular wealth. The town gets this information by zone, so we can get a good understanding of what's going on quality-wise by zone. But I'd like to thank the town board for supporting the WAC's request in this. And we are out there banging on doors trying to make this happen. So thank you very much.

Next up on the agenda we have, we had done, we've held public hearings for tax assessment exemptions and we had missed the deadline for March to actually incorporate them into the tax rules that would come up on this in December. So if we want to adopt it for the following year, which would be 2027, we need to Work on this, we still have time, but before the public hearing stop to scale, I figure you might as well put these back on the agenda and see. I have recirculated to the town board the minutes from the public hearings.

I did that last Thursday.

So the first one was the tax exemption for seniors.

Okay, here we go.

Public hearing for the senior property tax exemption. There were no comments. Right? Yeah. So just to go back to what I think the cost would be The additional exemptions, and I had circulated my spreadsheets as well to everybody, so you can take a look at it. I had worked with Judith about what I thought that the additional property tax exemptions would be. And the town taxes would increase $10.52. That would be the tax that would be redistributed to the average homeowner with a home price assessed at $1.6 million. So it's a $42,000 worth of tax getting redistributed to non-seniors who qualify. So what does the board think?

I'm OK with that exemption.

Good with that. A buck. So we'll put that on for Monday night. The next one, both Liz and myself have to excuse ourselves because we are in charge of the fire district to oversee the fire department. So the board of ethics said that I should not participate in those discussions. So I will let you take over. Do you need the spreadsheets here if you want to look at it?

And you have my email about whatever was said at the public hearing. Yeah, so this essentially the burden of this would be 35 cents.

So it's about $1,000, $1,446 that's redistributed. So it amounts to about 35 cents for people who won't receive it.

Um, add it up to the tax, and it is to reduce the number of years that you have to work in the fire department before you can get the exemption. So it goes from 5 years to 2 years of service. There were no significant comments at the public hearing. There was, I didn't hear any concern regarding this exemption specifically. I know a lot of the reason why we want to do it is to encourage people to volunteer for the fire department and the EMS. And those volunteers do save the town's significant amount of money as opposed to having to hire people to do the job. So if people are in favor, you guys are in favor of this, we can put it on for Monday.

Absolutely. Yes.

That's fast. And it was also not contentious, so we didn't get any comments from the public about it.

Before we go into the next one, I just want to ask a question. Because this dealing with ADUs should make and lift recuse themselves from this discussion.

Or were you planning on before I didn't know I, yes, I did use myself because i'm building an ad you and I don't know what year my structure will be done, I don't know what year this action come into effect, so I don't want to have that conflict. of having an ad complete and may possibly be able to apply for this exemption so. Yes.

Why would I recuse myself? Explain it to Albert.

I'm just vocalizing.

I didn't know where you guys were. Why would I recuse myself? I don't financially benefit.

For appearance sakes, Liz, you've been instrumental in bringing ADUs to Shelter Island through. Dealing it to Bill.

Oh, sorry.

Are they finished? Yeah.

been dealing intimately with pleno shade cdli here on the forefront of adu development on shelter island and that aspect of it so in terms of integrity i don't know if you should that's all yeah interesting i'm posing it i mean i think that you know going for the board of ethics many times you know usually the only time you have to recuse yourself is if you're gonna financially or you know like i don't have there's no financial or personal benefit and you know Yeah, so I don't feel that I need to recuse myself.

There's no personal benefit to me.

it's not a traditional or an ethics issue it's just an optics issue and if you're comfortable with the optics that's one thing but yeah as albert said you know thank you for all your work in bringing any use to the island but you were the driver of this and yeah now you're i mean and i think that that is also part of like why i was elected you know

is to champion. And so this is an opportunity for me also to be a champion. So I feel like it wouldn't make any sense personally for me to be.

I mean, I guess as an argument to that or a concern is that you went to the Board of Ethics over Sylvester Manor, that you spoke at a ZBA meeting, that you were a proponent of Sylvester Manor and supporting them. And you have been supportive of the ADU development on Shelter Island. Don't you see that as a potential conflict?

I also went to the Board of Ethics just because I have an ongoing relationship with Sylvester Manor as part of the Farm Committee. So I don't, I don't, I... I hear what you're saying.

I'm leaving it to you and your integrity. I'm not going to make you do anything. I'm just saying.

I agree with that just because we all got elected on stances that we take different positions. And so I think that Liz was most likely elected because she has been such a strong advocate for housing and there's a segment of the community that supports her and she's sitting at the table with us. Yeah, I personally don't have a problem. Okay, so. the tax exemption for ADUs. So let me just go back to my emails to see what the comments were. Okay, so there was correspondence from Robert Fredericks in opposition to proposed legislation. Bill Maestro spoke in favor of the exemption and made several points in support of it. And that was it for public comment on it. On the number crunching front. I remember it's negligible. Yeah.

And it's not... What is it exactly?

So everybody could... Yeah, no, absolutely. It's 69 cents, but it's not 69 cents like this is where it gets a little bit complicated. And I remember Bill Maestro spoke to it and I thought he did a pretty good job of it. What it's doing is delaying the addition of that extra assessment created by the AUs of going onto the roles for a period of five years. And so at the max, when you've got, you know, you know, there's, you know, each year there's, you know, You have 1, and then that gets excluded next year. Another comes on to the roles and it gets excluded maximum ever tax distribution. I mean, unless for some reason, everybody starts and historically that has not been the case. So, 69 cents would not get put on the tax rolls.

So that's what for 5 years.

It's not a redistribution. It's that you're just not, you're not getting 69 cents of tax taken away from you. If that makes sense, the way I'm saying that.

Who's going, who's in charge of enforcing this or checking this or making sure that everything is as it should be as it's mandated in the legislation?

It would be the assessors. So just like they do with the senior tax exemptions, the fire tax exemption, they, you know, someone has to apply to the assessors to have that exemption put onto their property. And then they, each year they monitor them. So just like the seniors every year, a senior has to submit for, unless they opt to do it with the state having to check their tax return.

And the exemption is just for the increase assessment associated with adding the, yes, for 5 years and then it phases in for another 5 years.

Yeah. And Judith and I, again, we looked at all of the, you know, double checked, you know, what was an accessory, you know, apartment versus an accessory sleep in quarters, sleep in quarters would not be eligible. We put in there. Yeah, legislation. You know, you have to rent it year-round, so all of that for the period that you're going to need this exemption from.

And this 10-year window, is that designed to match up with the 10-year requirement to rent an 80-year-round if you take the grant?

No, actually. we as a town and a few other towns within the state have the money coming from the state but this is statewide so communities that are not participating in this ADU program are also subject to the same like they're the ones who put it out for 10 years and right now how many are we building again right now they're like three under construction or

about three to four already built. And then a couple, I don't know, like a handful more in various stages of design or permitting.

When Judith and I went through and kind of looked year to year and took into account the impact of the program, we expected that there'd be seven new ADUs per year built. And that would be ones in the program and ones that people build on their own. And the tax that gets redistributed, because the average exemption would be $200,000. So that would be exempting $1.4 million. So the tax redistribution or the tax that isn't getting put getting paid by those units for five years is $2,896.

And there's no correlation between this exemption and renting the ADUs at an affordable level?

I believe they have to be rented year-round. Just year-round?

Does it have to be rented for whatever?

I mean, at least my understanding of the state's intent was just to create more You know, incentive to create some housing because we've got such a crunch.

And some of the units that are already built and put in place, if they finish them this year, last year, they will not be eligible for this.

Just going forward. So it will be in 2027. Yeah.

It's not a huge impact, but it'd be so much better if it was somehow tied to affordability.

What did we put in for the public hearing? This is why I was like, we better quickly get this on before we all completely forget what was in the draft legislation.

I think that the affordable, you know, you kind of that kind of opens a can of worms, because you have to you do have to decide what are you going to tie it to? Right? And then what's the cost on enforcing that? Right? So is the did the assessor take on the extra work? Yeah, and then you know, and then at that point, is it worth this 69 cents? Or, you know, or are we just legislating this into I'm making sense.

So the restrictions that we did place on it were that it has to be registered with the building department as an accessory apartment. It has to be the owner's residence. The yearly rent charge to the tenant of the call must be at or below the New York HUD fair market rent. Oh, there you go.

So we did that.

And then the owner must qualify for the star exemption, which also means that they can't make it.

So it's qualified on both sides. Yeah, exactly. I know.

I was like, we talked about it. And Judith and I spent a couple of hours printing numbers and talking about things.

Yeah, adding the star exemption.

Yes.

So it's a billionaire.

Yeah, a billionaire can't build an ADU, rent it, and get the tax credit. And it does have to have. And so then that's why it needs to be registered as an accessory apartment. So that way there's a mechanism for obtaining a copy of the lease to check the rent.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's all going back to be there.

The funny thing is, I think there's so many restrictions on it. I don't think we'll actually ever use it. There could be a few, but I think my number of seven is high. Yeah. I was like, I think it's not useful, but I think we should do it. It's... nice message. But I think we've boxers anyway. Yeah, but yes, yeah.

Okay, me too.

Oh, I'm still on the fence.

We will put it on for Monday. It's like that. We can bring Meg, back in. Move on to board member reports. We stack up with when I go to meetings, I have quite a stack since I wasn't here. We didn't have it last week. So, yeah, seeing you see, I have that we met on June 2nd. And they were talking about the hot lens code revision update. So I think they're still taking a look at that routine.

What lens is being we're waiting for Rick to get back to us with the edits from our last discussion. So we can schedule another meeting to finish going over the code. We didn't make it through the end of the code. So if we take the edits, we had. Do them get it back to us and we need to get okay. Good.

All right. The is going to pick up looking at their mission statement. So that should be up for next month. That's it for this. Let's see, I've gone to the Suffolk County Supervisors Association meeting on June 3rd. And yeah, the state is starting to pick up again. years ago, pre-pandemic, I think when I first got on the town board, talking about shared services. I remember it was mostly at the county level, trying to do shared services. So the state is trying to pick something up and they have an $8 million grant opportunity out there. But I think the consensus of the Suffolk County towns was that $8 million statewide is not going to come down to a lot of money for local governments. And we are so isolated here that it's hard for us to do a lot of shared services. If we can think of something, there is this grant out there. I think that was a highlights from that. I mean, some of it doesn't apply to us. Like we, I doubt an IAEA data center will ever be held on children. So we don't need to put a moratorium that other towns are considering. They don't have the water.

Exactly. Or the space. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. Water quality improvement advisory board. Maybe that got covered. You might have covered that last meeting. Yeah. Well, I'm going to presume that that was covered.

Andrew just covered the WAC. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, options there wasn't. It was really just a discussion about edits to the RFP that's going to go out to install the solar panels at the recycling center. And which has to be online by the end of 2027 to get the credits that we need to pay for it. So was there anything else?

No, that was really the top of the conversation. For irrigation, I did finally get some notes back over the weekend from people. So I'm going to sit with Liz and pick out some times and days and then put them out to the group and see who's available to sit down and talk about those recommendations. And then hopefully we can bring it back to the board. So that's the next step on that.

On West Neck Water, we know that we've got the site plan review going underway for this expansion now with the filtering for PFAS. Delinquent accounts, we're trying to work on when someone is delinquent at West Neck Water System, like what mechanism is for collecting on those. you know, can we can we authorize the county water authority to shut off the water? So that's an ongoing discussion that I think legal counsel is getting pulled in on. Here's a new one. Taylor's Island. I made a note for around the table. So Taylor's Island is going to create a slip to put Whaler's Tailor in, and it's kind of close to the town landing. So it's a newly created slip. All the other slip holders pay a fee. Do we, the town board, want to charge ourselves a fee for Taylor's Island out of their budget to then put into our waterways.

Yeah, at our dock at Congdon Dock?

Yes, at Congdon Dock.

Okay. Isn't that slip that nobody uses because it's so awkward?

I think so.

I think, yeah.

Yeah, it's close to the landing. So it's like, they're going to go down and take a look at it. 1 to make sure. That it doesn't create an obstruction for people who use that. Landing, but once that's cleared, what do we want to do about building ourselves?

Well, where's the where's the boiler cabinet?

I think it's been kept in a slip that isn't used all the time. So I think it's in there, but then when the owner of that slip wants to use it, then they have to move it someplace else.

I mean, it seems like a lot of bookkeeping for I'm not sure if very much reason, but that, you know.

Well, if it's a slip that we don't rent it out to people and it's available, and it's not going to obstruct use of the launch or anything, then I think it's okay. Yeah, as long as there's a reason that we don't rent it to most people because it's not really a viable option for a boat. But if they can clear that.

Okay, so.

There is that issue of space?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's going to have to be decided.

But I just figured I toss it out there. So.

I have a question you brought up the irrigation committee is. Is Stella or someone from the heights going to be involved in that subcommittee notes?

I have their comments. So we're including their comments in the discussion.

OK. Just it is the biggest water district of Chopra Island. And I'm sure they have irrigation issues within that.

Yeah. And they've given a lot of feedback. Their request was that in the code, we write that you can't connect irrigation to a public water system. And we've incorporated that into the code. So we've taken their comments into consideration.

OK. All right.

But we're trying to keep an internal working group.

If this becomes a public working group, then there's a whole bunch of things to it. Public safety task force met last week and we'll be meeting again this week. Just going through section by section, look at the proposed law and what we have in police policy. I don't know how many of you saw over the weekend that Meloda came out strong with saying that future funds, and I want to make sure, how is future funds being defined? East Hampton Village and East Hampton Town both adopted public safety legislation. And so his stance is that they are not eligible for federal funding because they're not working with the federal government. we have the 1.25 million that is been awarded to be you know worked on when we go through the facilities master plan for septic on municipal septic wastewater so just curious whether or not if we adopt legislation if we put that at risk we also have a grant application in again under the Congressional designated spending awards for 1.25Million dollars just about for police vehicles, body worn cams. A number of requests that went in under that. That seems like if we adopt something that that could. Like, that's future could definitely be. yeah so we just yeah we just I want to put that out there because he's very vocal I have a call into their office I could not get a hold of the contact that's our east end contact um so I'm waiting for a call back from their office to just better understand what exactly like which funding is at risk just so we understand the consequences of our whatever you know actions that we take and What exactly are they objecting to in East Hampton villages and East Hampton towns?

I'd be interested to hear what East Hampton's response is, because I think, you know, when I looked at the legislation, it does say very clearly, you know, coordinating, you know what I mean? Like coordinating with the feds on, I don't know. I'm very curious to see what portion of it is problematic, just because we just went through it last week, you know. So I'm definitely like, that's kind of a head scratcher for me, but yeah.

Looking at the legislation, I think it's like, okay, that's, you know, The police, you know, make up a report it gets to you know the supervisor, because you know report to the supervisor supervisor reports to town for public you know it's available to the public under you know.

It just seems like so yeah it seems like that yeah I was like that part seems and there's no interference with. Exactly I mean it's also like. The police couldn't even do that. Like, how would that even work with the police are going to interfere with federal law enforcement? Like, I feel like the legislation is very, maybe section 5.

Where it just talks about access to public buildings, like, is that the.

Yeah, I would be, I would be, I would be curious. I would be very curious to understand what. What a piece of it is section.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, like, I don't think we're going to be harboring aliens in town hall. You can't come in. We've got them all, you know, hiding in the back.

But I mean, let's just say there is an ice presence on the island. We may be harboring people they might want to talk to, not necessarily in town hall, but at school and other places. So.

Yeah. Yeah. That's ironic. I have a comment to this office, so I'll keep you posted, but I just wanted to make you aware of that since we had a meeting last week and we have a meeting coming up this week. We have whenever Perez is going to come to it's tomorrow. Yeah. So, just to go over, you know. What what the legislation is trying to accomplish and. Well, we know it's trying to, yes, but I mean, specifically, it's, we tried to figure out, like, we've got police policy. It's what our police policy adequate or, you know, like, why legislation versus. Internal policies.

Okay. Where are we or what is the status of. An RFP for the environmental review of the complex.

I wanted to have a meeting later today or tomorrow with Thomas and Christina, and just to go through this, the steps for getting that out for RFP. So, yeah, I figured since you brought up comp plan. I just for the public, you all know I have meetings. I already had my meetings with Liz yesterday on edits that she has to the existing draft. I'm going to be meeting with each one of you. The plan that I have at the moment is taking all of the comments that I received from everybody and bubbling them into my working copy and then giving that back to our designer who can work within the software. I can't think of her last name. Oh, thank you. And give her that and then have it come back to all of us. I will incorporate all everyone's comments into my red line version since we can't red line in the software that we're using. This will be my marked up copy, which I will then With all of our changes distributed back to all of you, plus the clean copy highlight anything that I think we have to discuss because decisions need to be made. This is working on a couple of. Edits on a couple of different sections, so those will be highlighted and you'll see. You know, my old version that's bubbled in and then the clean copy, you know, okay, here's where those changes are. We will review make those changes. Once we agree that, okay. this is, you know, yes, Amber, those comments, you know, comments, those spacing edits, you know, Liz's rewrite, we tweak maybe something, we get all of that, then we'll, get it back to the designer so she gets a final draft, then that will be the copy that goes, that we set a public hearing on. I will keep track of all of my edits so that we'll have the, what's online now. We've got the first public hearing draft on there. We have the most recent draft that we're all working off of. Then we'll have my marked up edits so everyone can see between that draft from March to whatever comes out in July. You can see exactly what we may changes to and then the clean copy and that's running forward from there. So, we'll have, we'll have a few copies edits out there, but I'm not going to like, the 1st time that we all come back to after we have our meetings. It's not, I'm not going to post it just because we're still working off of the March draft, but it will be available for the public before we set the public hearing.

Are we going to put out an RFP? Yeah, that's environmental.

Yeah. So, since we're getting close to setting a public hearing, then we'll want to start the process for 1st, we have to do an. Part 1 to start off with, and then go from there. So there's steps that we'll start to do. So, since we're getting close to hopefully having a draft in July. I'll want to start, you know, the EAF RFPs that are needed. I'm going to have to go back to the county for their review while the public's in commission.

Right.

Yeah. yeah so i figure we're like we're we're moving again and that's why trying to do all of the edits in public was just was like watching me drive and also trying to you know like i have spent hours on this most recent draft correcting things and so once i get all of the hours that you've put in we'll bring it back So, I've got meetings with the 2 of you tomorrow, and I emailed you to see Thursday was okay. Okay.

And you may have to see if we could change it to Friday or Monday. Okay. We'll talk. Yeah.

Friday afternoon would be good.

Okay.

Because I've got. Yeah, that's not last week. Year to date calls as of June 17th for 450 calls in 2025. I had written down 383 and in 2024 there were 439. So busy busy to grow and I was sorry to be away and miss the. Mess dinner, but it was fun. It was a good event and really thanking all of the work with those volunteers. We're still looking for members for the Water Quality Improvement Advisory Board for green options. We're looking for a cook for the nutrition program and currently doing interviews for building department clerk. That's I think everything I have for board member reports.

Me too, yeah, that's it, okay.

All right, then we, oh. Oh, go. Oh, is that okay? Sorry. No, that's okay. So I just had like pep, The wetland service for Shelter Island is funded and getting started. Community Housing Board was the night of the EMS. I'm sorry I couldn't make the EMS, but we had a lot of work to do with housing. So they're working on the community housing needs assessment. So that's almost done. So that's going to be ready to roll out this summer. So we're in talks to about the kind of the financial modeling and we do have the lawyers working on contracts. So we have been meeting like a subsection of us weekly to kind of hash those things out. Brand and I are meeting back with Gwen on Monday. She was on vacation. We would get questions about some of the financial stuff, so we're going there. But we are doing so much work on that right now. see the task force we kind of talked about. That was really interesting. Like I said, Chief Reed just went through the policies and practices. And then tomorrow is going to be about thinking about, OK, given that, what do we want to do? So I'm very interested in that. And then just on a couple community notes, Just a reminder to everybody, we are having a 4th of July parade on the 4th of July. We've got a bunch of floats coming in. It's going to be really fun. It's going to be in the morning at 10 a.m. The other thing I just wanted to say is the buck season has started. There are nights, five days a week over at the field. So fun. The hazard mitigation plan. We've done our work here and we're just waiting on the county to get back to us with some edits. So we're kind of waiting on that. And then just a big congratulations. We had our high school, we had graduation last week. So 18 incredible young people all doing some really cool stuff. We've got people going to school, joining the workforce, joining the armed services. Just really wanted to like publicly congratulate them. And also, I don't know if everybody has been to the the scholarship awards, but it's always so breathtaking to see how generous our community is and how they make it possible for some of our young people to make sure that they get the education that they're working on. So those are my things.

I just remembered. cell tower, the survey is out there. It's going to be open for one more day. So we, as of last Thursday, we were up to 41 responses, but they're going to close it tomorrow and come to present the results next week with the work session. So, Christina, if we could get those, like do a final push out on social media and chop the website, things like that, just get this last few comments for people who are interested. With that, I'll make a motion to go into executive session to talk about contracts. Second.

Aye.

Aye. Thank you, everybody.