Town Board - Regular Meeting

We just.

United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I thought I would start off the. Meeting before public comments with Jennifer is here from the New York blood center and we have a blood drive coming up on Friday. on the 17th. Jennifer, do you want to unmute yourself and you can turn on your video if you'd like as well?

Good morning.

Good morning.

How are you? A slider on your site?

Yeah, on the left of the camera.

Am I on? Am I not? Oh, I'm not. I didn't put my camera on. Okay, there we go. Thank you. All this time, everybody would get this, but thank you for having me. I know that your meetings are very detailed. I just wanted to remind everybody that we do have the blood drive coming to your Beautiful island on this Friday, the 17th. It's from 12 to 6 at the Youth Center. We do a great job at the Youth Center hosting the blood drive. It's right in the heart of town. Currently, we are in a blood emergency. A blood emergency means that we have less than a two-day supply of blood on the hospital shelves. So any extra... Anything anybody could do, it's all about the personal ask. Out of 68% of people that can donate blood, only 2% do. And it's the number one reason why people say they don't donate blood is that nobody asks them. So if anybody can donate, please. And if you could just personally ask a neighbor or a friend to donate, that's how the donations come in. So does anybody have any questions?

No, your team always does a great job. Thank you. As you said, it's 12 to 6. We always, the variation in hours is always just a little, you know, changes sometimes to 11.30, 5.30. So it's 12 to 6.

Yes, yes.

Appointments are preferred, but walk-ins definitely. So we'll try and talk it up.

Okay, great. I saw it when I jumped on the meeting, you know, on the homepage of your page. Yes.

so that's awesome so appreciate it we really do so thank you so much have a good day thank you bye-bye all right now we'll turn ourselves to before we do that christina is the zoom link working oh yeah it is yeah yeah i was able to get in yeah okay all right yes yeah yes yeah yeah did you um

get a comment from a text from somebody who is it zoom or is it the facebook youtube live no no okay do you want to double check youtube live christy keep going and she's double checking that okay um all right um we uh public comments would be next if there's anyone who has anything it's not on the agenda or subject to public hearing anyone on zoom okay Next on the agenda then is Oyster Keepers Inc. and a request for new locations. And I see Errol English is here. Yes. Good to see you, person.

Yes, it's great to be here. So at the last meeting, we talked about the location that we had submitted being too close to where Back to the Bays had put in a reef that we'd actually worked with them to put in. We talked to the DEC and they said that as long as our location was more than 50 meters away, so about 160 feet from their location, that there'd be no conflict or an issue with anything they were doing. So I submitted a few different possibilities. Some of them are a little bit better than others just for like ease of access or maybe like substrate. And then I also noticed, I looked at the, I think June 2nd meeting that Kate from Back to the Base is at, and they're doing a planting near one of the locations that I'd suggested of just a blank shell. Just my location, I think it's just south.

Christina is going to bring up ramp by the town landing.

Yeah, so that peninsula, the kind of round one, so there's the Hager Road Peninsula and then, yeah, that one right there. I think they had talked about putting blank shell on the tip of that peninsula. But the proposed location that I had was just near the boat ramp. It was a little bit soggy in the bottom, but I think we could make it work. And then there were a bunch of potential locations 15 meters away, south of the dock at the kind of far right on the Hager Road Peninsula and up near the northern edge near the other dock.

And I know last time we spoke, where you were in, we were talking about, I know you coordinate with the DC. Awesome. Were you able to coordinate directly with Kate? Just because I would just want to make sure that you guys are synced up.

Yes. So I talked to Kim Carver, the director of Back to the Base, and she So she wasn't interested in coordinating with us.

I think it's the best way I can put it.

So that's when I reached out to the DEC and asked what their opinion was and what they thought we should do. And that's when they gave the 50 meter recommendation. But we're very open. I've made it very clear we'd love to work with back to the base and we've worked with them. We've given them a lot of money. We worked with them and paid for the initial reef and we'd love to work with them again if they ever change their mind.

I also understand that you're bringing in because the DEC has contacted us just to double check because you're going to be bringing in some oyster shells from Maine and you want to cure them on your property. So can you talk a little bit about that because that not opens the door, it just creates more things for us to consider.

Yeah, so we have a few different options. The easiest, not the easiest one, we're trying to build, because the goal is to put so many oysters in, we're trying to build relationships with organizations that have lots of shell. So there's a company in Maine that processes oysters And if we could work with them to bring in shell, we'd never run out. We don't have to do that, but we were working with the DEC to get a permit to be able to do that and then cure the shell here.

That involves testing for the two oyster pathogens, Dermo and MSX, I think it's called. They also obviously test themselves for those diseases. But if we can't get the permit or if there's any hesitance, we can also work with local oystermen. It'll just be a little bit smaller quantity. So I think, I keep forgetting the name of the organization. The oyster place that's up by the pizza place

But yeah, that was one of the potential options.

There are others.

So, if you were to get locally sourced shells for building the reef, would you still have to do the curing operation on your property?

No, not as long as the shell had been cured for at least 6 months. So, but we could also, if doing it on our property is a concern, we can find somewhere else.

i had um reached out to our thomas our town attorney to just look at it because to look at zoning and i hope you're in zone c so oystering is fine but then it did seem to be because you're doing this um it's a change in use and so we would have to look at site plan review so it does add to the complications of what you're trying to do because then your not-for-profit is you're not just saying or you're now running a not-for-profit

operation i guess okay would we still have to do that for uh putting in the oyster setting tank if i were to put that on my property um that um i defer to thomas and i have to talk to the building yeah i think the building inspector is the person to ask about that okay um yeah the key kind of the site plan code section is in discretion certain matters like this regarding like what is a change in

the so if we need if the location of the curing is the big concern if the dec approves uh bringing in shell from out of state and if it's okay with everyone at the town we'd be happy to find a more acceptable location to cure it and i think we'd probably be able to i think it'd be less complicated okay all right we'll do that um getting back to so then your request then is

Not to be doing the rest on your property then is just the location. So, you've given us a couple, but we would need to know. Which 1 we actually do want to use.

So, the 1st, I think best location would be just to the right of the doc that in the tip of Hager peninsula.

Christina, can you bring up the southern dock or the northern dock?

Let's see.

The southern dock, so just right there. That would be the easiest to access right now.

It's got a really great substrate, and there are also live oysters there already. I mean, there are kind of around the entire peninsula, but yeah.

Is that where Cornell has their cheating?

Yeah, right about where that hand is. And I'd say it's about the size of like a large diner.

You're doing that and you're proposing.

Just to the south of that dock. So in one of the photos that I submitted, I put a little over, sorry, a little over 160 foot, 175 foot rent to show the distance.

download it because i don't want to get kevin to fix my computer but i could share my awkward screen you can drop your share christina um hold on i'm trying to my computer just keeps doing a weird glitch

So when picking these potential locations, we tried to put like a buffer on a buffer on a buffer. So the 50 meters was, I know they talked to Mike Dole at Stony Brook University, and they put a buffer on what he had suggested, which I think I put a little bit of a buffer on, I think it's 165 feet for that circle, and then I put an extra buffer on that so that we're well outside that circle. Either of those locations would be fine, but if I have to pick one, I'd pick the one next to the dock, just because we can walk right down those stairs, it's right there, instead of bushwhacking to get to that one.

And whose property is that? You said you'd walk down the dock. Whose property is that?

That's Brad Goodman. He's also a board member.

And then at this other location, the one by the town landing, that one?

Yeah, that one would also work. It's a relatively easy access. Once I watched that meeting, I was just concerned that there might be a potential conflict.

Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly where they're going to put just the shell, like where on that peninsula. I wasn't sure. This third location is actually in a different water body. So this one's in Dickerson Creek. the inside. If you scroll down, Christina.

Yeah, in Dickerson Creek would probably be a great location because one of the criteria that we're looking at, and this was from what they've done in the Chesapeake Bay and also what Stony Brook has done in Shinnecock Bay, is placing the bivalves in a part of the creek where their spat, excuse me, not their spat, their larva will stay in that general area. So you end up with creating what they sort of recall spawning sanctuaries. So you end up with, because the broadcast spreaders, the oysters in this situation, they spread their seed in their sperm. They have to find each other in the water column. So you don't want them getting flushed out And then once they find each other, that larva has about a week to set on something. So again, you don't want them to get flushed out. So if you can get them in somewhere like here, they have a much, much higher chance of finding something to settle. So places like the head of community Creek, Dickerson Creek are really good candidates. And there are a bunch of other places around Shelter Island that would be good as well that we would love to expand into.

Are there other questions from the board?

I don't have any other questions.

Nope, not really.

Are you trying to figure out what that means?

Oh, yeah, it's right there.

So it's like the end of Waits Beach where the trees are, but on the inside.

So how do we want to purchase? If a location or.

Let the DEC say any one of the three is acceptable?

With the DEC permits, we have to be, I mean, we've been working with them.

It's an ongoing process, a lot of back and forth. So eventually we would settle on a location with them. They would determine if it's acceptable and then they would approve it or recommend somewhere else and approve that.

So the easiest thing for us would be to get just a letter from the town giving permission to place wasters in town-owned waters and the DEC would do everything they do to make sure that we're not going to interfere with anybody else that we're using, that we're not going to cause any harm and that we're going to And just as a question, I know this isn't for today, but one of the things that was really successful in Shinnecock Bay was the Stony Brook worked with the Baymen and the local municipality to get the place, their spawning sanctuaries protected from harvest, which is something that we've been concerned about. And it hasn't happened yet, but with the take limits,

sanctuaries that you know a family of five could come and take the entire uh reef in one day so i'd love to talk about if there's some possibility to kind of protect a spawning sanctuary area in the future once we have a spot approved that thought did cross my mind like now that everyone knows where the location is everyone knows where the location is so

How does that work in Shinnecock? How do you handle that?

Well, the enforcement, I'm not exactly sure, but they up near the geographically, there are parts of the bay that narrow, and so there would be the northern parts of the bay.

They've protected that area where they planted all of the clams, and the local clambers know not to, and that area produces an incredible amount of clam larva that then goes and settles everywhere else in the bay where local pavement have been able to harvest them.

It's a huge success. When their paper was written just a couple of years ago, their landings were up 18 times, and now they're up 40 times, and they continue to climb just from the spawner sanctuaries.

So it sounds like we need to pick preferred locations that can get submitted to the DC for review. Yes.

I think the one in Vickers and Greek has no conflict with what Cornell is doing.

So if the concern is conflict with Cornell, then that site would probably be a good choice. And then I think maybe the site to the south of the dock, the one that's pretty much on the property of the other board member. Yeah, would be like number two. Yeah. Because if Cornell might possibly just drop shell by the town landing on the lower peninsula, then we want to conflict with that. Right. And then it seems like there's really poor access to the spot on the north side of the peninsula. So just looking at it, those are my thoughts.

So we'll put that into our letter to the DEC. We'll do a resolution on Monday approving.

Great.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you. I forgot to ask, is there anyone in the public who has questions on this? Okay. All right. Next topic is the outdoor assembly application for the Lions Club Snapper Derby. I see we have someone here.

Pretty straightforward.

Yeah, I was going to say. So it's the Lions Club Annual Snapper Derby. I think it's year 26. Did I see that?

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's September 5th. The location is the town land next door to town hall and pd and set up the day before clean up that day there isn't a rain day and then additionally requesting a noise exemption and permission to install signs from august 8th to september 8th to be located volunteer park shelter and country club on west nick road town hall crescent beach presume those are the big snapper do the signs i love those i do too i think the kids do a great job with them every year does anyone have any questions i do not um where on crescent beach are you going to post the sign for the

Oh, it actually goes right by. It gets put on the right by the. Toilets. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And the busy though, it's going to be right. Okay. And I've done it for 3 or 4 years. Yeah. And then, right. And state your name for the record. Um, chairperson for the Sanford to be mine.

Um.

So I put the four by four plywood signs. The one for Goat Hill goes on the corner. There is a tree that they allow me to put it on. And then the one at Crescent Beach goes in between the gazebo and the toilets. And then the one at Volunteer Park goes actually right at the entrance of Volunteer Park in between the two entrances there. It's bridge street, so we, you know, we'd like to encourage kids to actually fish at the 1st bridge. So that's why it's there.

Any other questions, any questions from the public. We have sign offs from. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. And I want to thank the department. They really do help us out with this. They pick up the trash for us. to provide the electricity and the water for the fishing event um we do we do clean fish at the event and fry them for the kids so it is it's kind of an all it's easy but you would you catch it's a really good event that's why we need water and electricity so see the food part and if you're wearing the appropriate yeah thank you thank you

So we'll put that on for approval on Monday. I like that the fish have lemons. Next on the agenda is community housing board. Just a little bit about financials on our 10 unit project. Yeah, this is really the discussion.

So I had sent around to the board just some like a preliminary kind of funding staff. So, basically working with to kind of figure out where the money's going to come from to build all these things. So, we are looking at there's about 2Million. We think obviously all these are preliminary. All right. But we're just looking for funding sources preliminarily that we think we're going to be able to get from the States. We've had some initial discussion. So that's going to be a big chunk of it. There is going to be some developer financing and then it's also been. It's been kind of like evolving. We did think we were going to get a couple 100,000 dollars from the county. However, we had a very. fruitful conversation with Leah from the county, and it looks like there is a possibility that we could get more, right? Specifically, there's some money set aside for IA systems and infrastructure that it looks like might be available to us. So in the initial in the initial kind of funding stack that they had, it looked like we were short about 900,000. So if that kind of, we're working on it, but if that were to happen, then that would potentially close that gap. The other thing that's important to talk about is that funding is really tight, right? There's not a lot, there's less money available right now through this phase. and through the county than when we kind of started the project. So one of the things that looks likely to happen is that we might do lending from the Community Housing Fund. Basically, what we had hoped was, is that they would be able to secure that financing separately from us, but also interest rates, those kinds of things. So one of the options that's really important to kind of talk about is that we were looking, at first they came to us and they were like, you could just give it to us. Maybe we won't. But I understand that there's a gap. So that's kind of the other part of it is basically doing, because like the lending that they were looking at was like three and five year terms, which of course they couldn't pay that back. But we like how we're kind of thinking about it is that we could give them a longer term, right? Borrowing against it at a good rate. And then also, similarly, I know we're kind of just talking about the financial overview, but also at the same time, we are also working on the contracts. In fact, board members should have in your inbox a draft lease and management agreement that we're working on. We can talk in executive session. I encourage you to read that and please send back notes. um Bran had asked that we're doing this uh parallel community housing board is doing the same thing um and part of the reason for that is with the county funding that we uh like I said we had a very fruitful call last week with Leah um they would like to kind of have some preliminary not I don't I can't imagine everything's going to be signed but be a little bit further along than we are now To be able to look at that funding for September, which is when we'd have to put that in so that's why we are not Community housing board is asking for input from the town board so basically that we can bring all the notes back to our lawyer. So. What else Oh, so the other part of it so kind of speaking to potentially doing some lending um you know, one of the things that we get always talked about with. This whole agreement is you know we're obviously in negotiation was there being some mechanism for the town being able to buy it have first right of refusal to buy it back right so CD ally and. And those guys were like, after 10 years, they're like, oh, we can't manage it anymore, or we didn't want them to manage it, or who knows what's going to be going on, to kind of set up a mechanism like that so that we would basically kind of already have that. Whatever, I guess, would be unpaid in the loan, we could kind of use as like to, I don't know. So those are just generally how we're kind of thinking about it right now. As we all know, funding sources can appear and disappear. So we are also looking for, even though preliminarily as of last week, we have it all penciled out, we are still looking for additional sources in case one of those things disappears or, you know, becomes no longer available or doesn't work out, right? let's see my other update was thinking about potentially some of the county sources you know one of the things we knew that we would have to look at was we knew we might potentially have to look at the area median income that to be charged so there is uh just in general more funding available for the lower area median income right However, you know, so and then kind of thinking about what our goal was with the project was to kind of serve working folks, right? So this isn't low income housing. This is like, you know, we're kind of imagining in the middle. So when we initially thought about this, we wanted to think about like 80 to 130. CDLI has already come back to us and said, hey, I don't see a world in which we can go to 130. We're like, okay, that's fine. So somewhere in the 80 to 120 zone. So the lower we go, so we had been discussing with CDLI, there's a lot of funding sources around 80. So two things there, I think, is one for this board and Community Housing Board to think about, does that serve or is it accomplishing what we want to accomplish? We pulled some of the preliminary numbers of what 80% of area median income looks like. I apologize, I don't have them in front of me today. But actually, I think I can look them up but but basically for folks to know is a per at 80% of area median income for one person that ends up to it's like almost $95,000 a year, so I know. We met Community Housing Board this week and we were both like, Brandon and I both had a conversation. We had a conversation afterwards like, oh my gosh, that's high. So, you know, so I guess we're kind of thinking in Community Housing Board of just like with income because Suffolk's income is so high. Is that really kind of in the zone of who we want to serve. You know, I definitely was surprised by, I'm always, I'm always freshly surprised by what 80% of area median income is. And I was like, well, that could be it. So that's for us to kind of think about who we want to serve. I will circulate the area median income numbers I have from South Hampton. I think I have it in text. I'll send it over to you guys. And then the other piece of it on the CDLI side that they're working on as of our conversation last week is if we were open to it which i think they were just trying to get like vibes from us like is it was like a absolute no or was it like a maybe and so we kind of gave them a yeah maybe you know let's talk about it is thinking with their modeling is with doing if we were to do right like let's just say in a world um where we were to consider doing some or all of the units at 80 area median income would the rents that we would then be able to charge be able to carry the property and service the debt to us, right? So that's what they're working on right now. I feel like there's one other thing, but those are all my notes.

The only other thing, and maybe it was rolled into the carry of the property, but the long-term maintenance costs were a real concern. I mean, a new building doesn't need much, but five years down the line, you start getting into expensive recurring maintenance.

Yeah, and that was what was kind of implied in the carry of the property, meaning like all the upkeep and stuff like that. So that's one of the things that they are working on. So that's my little update there. Oh, oh, I know what the other thing I remember. It came to me. I was like, I was like, couldn't read my note. So part of looking at the area median income and, you know, one of the things obviously concerns for us and also CDLI is when we we want to make sure that when we're offering rentals at whatever area median income that is, that there are folks in the community who they will serve, because if we cannot lease them, what are we doing? Right. So I think, you know, we feel that there are but also uh just as a reminder we are doing with community housing board a housing needs assessment this summer where we are specifically asking these questions um so i we will be able to kind of at least get a we won't have probably the the final tied up results but we will have the preliminary information to know like yes our gut on this was correct by the results. So we should have some of those results of the survey in hand by the time we kind of have to make some of those final calls.

With the survey, are we going to be able to get an indication of income and need, is that what we're, okay, we're going to focus on, okay.

Income, need, there's, if anybody's interested, I'm happy to circulate a draft, but like, you know, the other thing, so the community housing board put it together with some help from the consultants, and then kind of following on from these discussions, CDLI kind of gave us a couple of different questions to ask, right? Like, so there's a lot of like veteran funding or folks with disabilities, right? So we incorporated some of those like things that we would need to kind of figure out funding sources in it. Yeah, exactly. So we have folded those in. So hopefully we'll have some feedback there that would be helpful to inform like what funding we're looking at. So, like I said, we won't and just just to be super clear, we will not have the final packaged up results in the report by the time we're probably doing this, but we will have the preliminary data on the kind of back end. So we probably won't be ready for. My expectation would be that report would be ready much later in the fall, near the beginning of the year, like as they're processing it and stuff like that. But that preliminary data to inform this, we will have earlier. So I think that by design.

And when is the New York State HCR grant application due?

I want to say this fall. I don't remember off the top of my head. Yeah, but Gwen and her grant person were already on it. Initially, you said September 6th, so that's for that's for the county. Oh, that's for the. So that was that's not for the state. That was for some additional funding that became available on the county side. So that's what that that deadline is referring to. Yeah, and so I'm also giving Leah from the county just a little bit of time to kind of think about it's like, okay, well, what. Hey, does it really work how we think it's going to work and be how far along would you need? Like, what would you where would you need us to be? And so just to kind of contextualize it, basically there was some federal money that was available for IA systems that was COVID money that they had been unable to find a home for. And I was like, Brandon and I were like, we have a home for it. We can help you with that. We have 10 homes for that. So basically just kind of figuring out how that would work. So she was doing some, we did kind of, it was great. So, you know, we've been doing calls just to kind of like touch base with other funding sources, just to like make sure there's like no stone unturned. So that was like a, You know the the numbers on this and the money on this has always been the hardest part and so. it's always nice when there's a nice surprise right so it's not guaranteed that's going to work on, but if you have enough good surprises you probably will you can fill that stack out so okay. So that's my.

update yeah. Any questions from the public.

I actually have a comment. Yeah. This just came across on one of my feeds, and I'm a realtor. I just, with the affordability part, which you're like 80,000, it seems like a lot, which is really 95. Yeah, 80%. Yeah. So just to give you frame of reference, a million dollar house on Chiltern, which is very hard to come by at this point, takes six, $5,000 for a homeowner to purchase per month. So that's the interest rate and they need to make $195,000 to qualify for that month. So just to give you that perspective on affordability. That's really helpful. Thank you. Yes. Wild. Any other comments?

Okay. All right. I'm going to next item on the agenda is site plan review application for Sylvester Manor. So Benjamin. I will do it myself. But Benjamin, will you be able to come back afterwards for board member reports?

Yes. Should I just turn off my camera?

Yes. He's going to put you in the waiting room. okay okay all right um we have caitlyn here and um you have some updates for us on the secret review yes good morning so um

With regards to the building inspectors report released last week, it's helpful in identifying that the roads don't currently need fire code. They'll need to be widened and won't need turnaround areas for fire trucks. It also raises questions about the water tank sizing for the sprinkler and suppression system. However, it's not appropriate to hold those changes over to the building permit stage as CEQA requires the whole action to be reviewed as proposed. So if we already know that there are deficiencies affecting the project footprint, layout, and disturbance, those impacts have to be evaluated now under CEQA and not deferred to that later stage. You know, this also matters even more here because of the site sensitivity, the property contains wetlands, it's within an archeologically sensitive area. So any new or expanded disturbance from road or turnaround work or from a larger water tank, if that requires additional excavation, needs to be evaluated against those sensitivities, which can't happen if the design isn't finalized until after Seeker is complete. And also the new disturbance and the revised site plan should be reviewed by SHPO. So it is this firm's recommendation that the applicant submit a revised site plan now reflecting the road turnaround changes and the water tank sizing. So the full scope of the action and its impacts can be properly evaluated under Seeker before the board moves forward.

are there any questions if you could get those to us in writing okay And then Thomas, you know, we had held this open for written correspondence. So, how do we deal with the back and forth of the additional information that's needed for secret?

Yeah, I mean, because I think, because Reid has requested this part of his memo and the applicants already provided a response saying that they would provide what he's requested. I think we can just. hold it open an additional, you know, however long they need in order to provide the revised site plan. So, you know, I think that's probably the proper course. It's just, you know, let them, obviously we're under, you know, holding it open under the narrow scope of them responding to Reed's memo of July 10th or whatever the date was. So I think that's probably the appropriate course.

I think that makes sense.

So when we get the memo from PW Grocer, we'll send that on to Sylvester Manor. They will give us an estimate as to when they can provide it. And when they provide it, then Reid can respond. Caitlin can respond and finish the secret. Then we can finish the secret. Yeah.

OK. Teresa Mason had some questions as well. Yes. I don't know if there's answers while we're going through that.

Yeah, we might as well. So it was providing the- Regarding the sewer line.

Yes. Septic line.

Yeah, whether it was to be trenched or directionally drilled, depth to groundwater. So that was her June 26th. That's all.

Yeah. All the answers. Okay, we'll pull the map for you and show you.

All right, so we will continue on with getting answers back and forth. Okay, Christina, you can let Benjamin back in. That was quick. Yes. So we can move on to board member reports.

I have a bunch. I don't. Momento. OK. We had CAC this week. So everybody should have in their inbox the Nature Preserves walkthrough report. So check it out. A subject that came up at CAC was their, I was going to say the word paving. That's not paving. Is it paving at Silver Beach? Millions down at Silver Beach. A lot of people have a lot of. Feelings about it, yes, and we got and so either way. It was a hot topic hot topic.

emails we've received.

Yes, exactly so. um. so okay so that was uh taylor's island we went over maintenance um having some quorum issues so we can talk about that separately um and let's see uh there's a chamber commerce meeting this week just as a heads up the trucks and trades is cancelled um if you haven't checked out the map that the chamber did this year Please do it's super cute there's all these local businesses on there, and it was designed by a local artist so be sure to there's a copies available at town hall also the duck races upcoming so you'll be seeing more information on that. Last Thursday we had Community housing board which I kind of gave our big update here around the 10 units behind the scenes, we are working. probably taking several calls, doing several meetings around both the contracts and working on the funding sources. Uh, brand is also really work. I've been kind of taking lead on the funding sources just because. I feel pretty comfortable, but Brandon and I talk all the time and he's also been working really hard. On the housing needs assessment, which it looks like they've got. Pretty much finalized and it's going to go into translation. So we'll offer it also in Spanish. And then there's like a whole plan to roll that out this summer. So I haven't been talking a lot about that, but it is also this huge endeavor that they are also working on. So they are doing a lot, as well as keeping up on the ADUs. We've got another couple, more people in design. So they've really done a great job at dividing and conquering. So they've got heaters. Peter and Mark and Bran are being in on the ADUs. Espen and Bill and myself are working on some of the contracts. Sometimes Nadine comes in to help. And then I forget who's working on the housing, but they're doing a ton of work in that committee. So it's amazing. So kudos to them. And then we had CPF. yesterday. So, oh my gosh, so I'm planning to tell you that we should have an acquisition plan for approval this week. Oh, that would be fabulous.

TAB, Just w there's a component to it justin I were talking about yesterday, we have to add the w Q I piece, because they have since they are responsible for 20% of the money. TAB, They did write it a couple of years ago, so we just have to unearth where that is because just wasn't yeah.

TAB, Well, I am so excited. TAB, To get it out of committee, which I think it's been in there for like five years so. Miracles are real. That's what I have to tell you. Miracles are real. Chewy and I are still friends. So that's also great. They're still friends and it happened. And then the other Update, which is like, I hesitate to even give, but everyone should now is that the cart, right? The much the much. Debated and considered cart, right? Property, right? And the house on it and we've gone through, like, a 1Million iterations of what shall we do with it? Shall we tear it down? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What are we going to do in the field? But, you know, all this stuff. So, 1 of the board members. Was going was over there right like at the property with a family member who restores. historic houses. and looked at it and thinks that it might be much older than we think it is. So, which potentially might make it historic and we're like great. Okay. What does that even mean? Over avenue to control. Exactly. I was like, too further complicated. So Chuck is going to have Chris Fokine go over and look at it with that. But it was just stuff around the joinery and stuff like that. And I was like, wait a minute. This is not what we originally thought. So we're going to check that out. Naturally, it would make an already complicated situation more complicated. But I just didn't want anyone to be surprised. So now you know.

But there is a component of the CPF law that deals with historic, which would give us more opportunity.

It would definitely give us more opportunity. So it's like the good news is if it were like, I mean, who knows what Chris is going to like? We don't know. Right. But if it were, we could potentially still use the fund to do something with it. What would we do with it? Back in our laps, back in our laps. But, you know, So anyway, but I just wanted to put that in everyone's mind because I was definitely, we were kind of like all like, what? And anyway, the, they were explaining the joinery and the, this like is, uh, I'm not a builder, so I won't even, I won't even try to explain, but we are, should have a report. Um, like I said, they're going to try to see if Chris can go out there and take a look at it and just like, let us know what's what. So anyway, yeah, so that's what I got friends.

You may see.

Was a good turnout at the WMAC meeting.

Yes.

This evening. The Fortunately, Bo Payne was there, the harbor master. There has been a lot of concern in the Merkle Basin of a oyster farmer giving up stake and pulley mooring near the town landing. and bo was very forthcoming that he has been down there repeatedly to see bert's operation and he's been compliant it's all compliant with the town warring code um the issues that the people came in some people came up um and they were all addressed I I think there's still some displeasure with this situation but Burt is not doing anything outside of our code the the final uh issue was I think we need to work on our mooring code I know the Bay constables would like that done um so the WMAC is starting the process so they'll be working on it the mooring code of revision um

then there were two applications one a riparian mooring and then a bulkhead application and both of them passed unanimously yeah uh only thing i would add is that um the wmac has agreed to just go down and have another look at the merkle basin situation and see if it can be tweaked at all um to you know, make the residents a little more happy and not really interfere with the legal operation that the oysterman is running there. So they're going to go down and take another look at it. And as Liz mentioned before, The whole Oak Tree Lane, Shell Beach resurfacing of the road came up. I'm not sure what it has to do with the waterways, but other than the fact that there are a lot of strong feelings around the island about it, and we should expect to hear more. Also, last week I had lunch with some of the Silver Beach residents, and they are very unhappy. So we're going to hear more about this. Just be ready.

Okay.

Yes. I had a health and wellness meeting on Friday. So the group is working on compiling all the information for the from the community needs assessment and interviews that they've been doing with different populations in the community and trying to put together kind of a comprehensive picture of what the island needs are. So, you know, we know that there are a lot of people who visit the food pantry. We know that there's a shortage of medical services. You know, we know some of the basic things, but this will help us get a better feel of exactly what people are struggling with through, you know, interviews and in some of the surveys that we've put out so they're working on finalizing that and sort of like getting that wrapped up there'll probably be a couple months before we see the final report that will come to us um and then they were talking about there's they've sort of broken down into subcommittees ones for working on one group's working on mental health one group's working on community engagement one's working on health wellness and fitness and nutrition things like that so they were just talking about different programs they're going to try to roll out in the upcoming year um discuss the bicycle safety presentation that Bill put on, and he's going to try to put together maybe a writing group on maybe Wednesday evenings or something like that. He's thinking a weeknight might be a good, calmer time to try to do something like that. The Vigil of Hope is coming up in, I believe it's typically August. but they're getting prepared for the Vigil of Hope. It's on August 27th at 630 at the basketball courts, so they're getting ready for that. The Green Expo is going to be happening the weekend prior, August 22nd, and that's the same time as the craft fair. health and wellness is going to have a table there along with church community housing will have a table and a lot of the other town committees will have tables at the expo they're also looking to put together some future programming around financial well-being as a senior and fraud prevention they know that the police department typically does a good fraud prevention and like scamming lunch in with the seniors. So they're going to talk to the PD about maybe doing that again, because there's a lot of new scams that keep popping up, especially with AI. They've gotten really sophisticated, and they roll out quickly. So they're going to try to revisit that in the upcoming fall. So that's pretty much where they're at. They've been busy. It's a big group. I'm excited to see that report. Me too.

Me too. I was, the other thing I was just thinking, I think the pharmacy, I, please forgive me if I've lost track of it. Did we decide what we were going to do with that MOU? It's an executive session.

Hopefully do something on the time.

um otherwise uh we're meeting again this afternoon to talk about irrigation code so hopefully we can move that forward um we were trying to do it last week but people weren't available so we had to bump to speak and that's all i've got for now yeah we're waiting for the wetlands draft back from the attorney

um yeah so so my fear is that we're going to have them all come together irrigation cyclone review wetlands and plan all land back so so I think I have all everybody's comments and so I'm just in the process of still synthesizing the comp plan ones and then the substated My handwritten 1 will be the red line copy that will get distributed to the town board as well as put on the website and then the cleaned up version after the. Consultant who's working in design makes all the changes and look at those and then I'll have a list of okay these, like, you can all look at them and see what changes are made and I'll have a list of anything that I thought was still controversial. needs to be discussed or just highlight some of the rewrites or anything.

Sounds good. Oh, I did have one more other thing that I forgot because it was yesterday and time is flat circle. I think I mentioned last week that I've been working with the building department on a fee review. So we had another two-hour session to go through everything. So actually, Thomas, I'll be looping you in because I think we actually are probably one meeting away from having a comprehensive review to bring back. But we basically need to figure out, does code need to change if we were to do some of this? Yeah. So anyway, we're just going to go through it. So I've highlighted all those things. So, I'm excited for that just like bringing it up to basically just making sure that we're getting paid for their time so separately I've done an analysis that I'm almost done with that I will share. But basically my thought was like how I started this which I think I mentioned was is like I how I was thinking about was like the fees when the building department should cover the building department. Right, and if you look at it flat if you just look at the budget you're like oh yeah it's fine, but it doesn't have like there's all the like retirement the health insurance employer tax like all those additional things weren't built in. So I worked with Barbara bloom and I built them in right and so preliminarily what I show is that. I just shy of about 200,000 from like property taxes subsidizes the building department. So what I've been trying to think about doing is not covered. Yes.

Did you, you're looking budget revenues or actual revenues?

I did pulled actual revenues from 25. And basically because those are the only actuals I had, obviously from the last year, but I was just like, what is real? Like, what did we really spend, right? So just to have like not budgeted, but actual actuals. So basically there's like a gap of about close to $200,000, which of course, as we head into budget season would be neat if we were not subsidizing that. And so just to be clear, like the goal is not to Have building department become a revenue Center, but my goal would be that the building fees should cover the work that the building department is doing. So that just I just want to be like really clear as we're like looking at is like so one of the like the talks and even having this was like going through and figuring out like about what they come like looking at the fees and being like hey guys. how long does it take you to do that right so if it takes you three hours and we're charging 50 maybe we should look at it maybe some of them should go down maybe we should think about different kinds of things so um anyway thank you to the building department for being so generous with their time but like i said i probably maybe not next week but in two weeks um i'll put on the agenda to probably bring in reed and like go through it all um but hopefully it will help us in budget season

I just mentioned three fundraising events happening this weekend. So we're kind of having a busy weekend. So on Friday night, St. Mary's is having their lobster dinner. It's their second annual fundraising event. That's from six to nine. Saturday, the History Museum is having their 250th gala. um that's at six o'clock and you can get more information on their website for that and then sunday is um the tot lot fundraiser um there's a pancake breakfast at the center firehouse and that's from 8 to 11 and all the proceeds for that is for the top lot and that's on sunday that's on sunday Yes, a busy week.

Anything for that.

I know that's why I was just like, I was like, wait, what? That's a new one. Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

All right. I'd like to make a motion to go into an executive session to deal with various contracts that we are working on. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.