Town Board - Regular Meeting

for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. The public that's here in the audience is here for later agenda items. Is there anyone on Zoom who has a comment that's not on today's agenda or subject to a public hearing?

Pam Demarest has a thumbs up.

Oh, okay. Pam? I'm sorry. I meant to raise my hand. Yeah. May I just ask, I know it's that kind of a morning, but it's a beautiful sunny day, so we should have a wonderful day of it. Yeah. May I just ask, I was looking back at my notes and I know that you were working on the edits for the comprehensive plan and you had mentioned that maybe you'd have an edited version posted by the end of July and now it's August. And I'm just curious to what the status is of that and the RFP that you were going to put out for the environmental consultant for it.

We are still working on the edits. I'm still working on the edit. So just as soon as I can devote the final hours that are needed, it will continue to move forward. As far as the RFP, same thing, just haven't looked at it. Thomas, I know you and I talked about it, but I haven't circled back to.

Yeah, I'll check on that today. to finalize that but mine i think the parameters are all set out so i think it's should be ready yeah yeah so yeah terrific thanks very much that's great thank you always something that comes out like cyber attacks and other things so um anyone else

Okay, we're going to switch up the agenda order because recycling center fee review, we have both Ken and Ron here to answer any questions that we have. So, just so we can get them in and out sooner, we're going to work on that next.

So I can take this one. So you should have in front of you two fee structures and then an analysis. So there is the existing, that is the existing fee structure, and then the proposed. I've highlighted the changes in orange on that so you can see them. And so basically, thanks to Ken and Ron and Amber, who spent time going through this and kind of like explaining the ins and the outs of basically what happens over there at the recycling and transfer station and how we might want to think about changing some of the pricing just to be more in line with with our costs and the amount of work that it takes. So let's see. I think the things that would be relevant, I don't know if you guys have had a chance to kind of look through this. We haven't raised prices in a while. And let me, I guess I do want to, some of the bigger things I guess I wanted to just kind of talk about is basically changing the topsoil. So it used to be that you would get like a deal for more and we're just like, just normalizing the pricing. So it's just like the same of like yard, $20 per yard for all of it. Trying to think of any other big, Changes, the one thing not on here, but I did want to raise that came up as like an issue is thinking about. And this came up with the building department too, like a common thread of figuring out the contractor sticker. We really got to kind of get that sorted out both for the guys at the recycling and transfer station and also for the building inspector. So I just want to highlight that that is really something we've got to get sorted. One of the other things that Ron brought up was we had kind of thought about maybe doing the contractor sticker as a way for folks to kind of tell if they were getting the, you know, the licensed rates. But Ron had brought up in other municipalities that there's also potentially like a transfer center sticker that goes on the front of the truck. So, you know, I think that there is, as we're kind of looking at the contractor licensing sticker that should be waterproof and bright and visible. It should be like a beach sticker. I think we also need to kind of think about how a transfer a station sticker would work? Is that given at the same time? How does that work for commercial versus residential? I don't necessarily have all the answers to that, but I think as we are considering stickering and I think especially as we're looking at both a new sticker and potentially a new process around the contractor sticker we should like include that in our conversation because it would make it much easier for the guys over there at the transportation. The other thing that you'll see on the first page is like a Revenue analysis of what the What the changes you know basically I based it on 2025 of just like okay if exactly the same thing happened in 2025 but we had the different pricing, what would the variable be one thing that I did want to point out is There, you might notice that there is a difference with the, if you back into the math for the construction debris, the numbers don't quite make sense. And that's because the ins and the outs are like netted. So basically I just took the number of the revenue that we collected back and like divided it by the fee to figure out how much weight we actually charged for and then base the new fees on that. I'm happy to, like, anyway, if you, like I said, if you back into the map, you'll just be like, wait a minute, that should be a three. Yeah. So anyway, Ken and Amber Wilson, like, sorted that out for me. But anyway, if you're just like, should be more, that's, it's, should be real. You will see that, you know, based on this, there is going to be an increase in revenue. My hope would be, and which kind of goes to the Q2 budget that we're kind of talking about, is that we do, we are seeing a big increase in fuel costs. It could go to offset that. And then, as we know, we needed extra money for snow removal this year. And so my hope is, is that it could basically the truing up these fees, getting them more in line with what they need to be, could help to cover our fuel overage that we have and give us a more reasonable amount for snow removal. You know what I mean? After this last season, we need more as a budget. We're already over. So that is kind of my, I don't know, my overview. Guys, did I miss anything?

I don't think so. I think I'll let Ron speak to the to the, you know, the transfer facility sticker because he had some more thoughts on it.

I do think it's an important piece of the puzzle for us because it is done in a lot of municipalities.

They can't see me on the camera. I can see me.

I think the stickers are important. I think it's a good way for us to be able to just see.

It also helps for the regular citizen that wants to come in and has to go over the scale. At least we'll know whether the people are You know, residents here, the idea would be to give them just like we give the beach permits. Right? I'm not and Ron, I think we concur with this. I'm not in the business of dealing with the contractor stickers. That's up to the building department or come out of the clerk's office. I understand that. We are a little bit of a way to police it in some ways. And it is helpful for us and for the guys that work at the scale house to be able to see that a contractor is licensed to be here because we also have a fee that gets applied to them if they're not. So without us having to go through the paperwork or ask them to pull something out of their glove compartment. At least we could see it when they come across and say, okay, well, now we don't have to crack it for, you know, $75 a little bit additionally for you to do it. Or we can say, hey, you don't have your sticker. Please go visit the building department or the town clerk. That they're going to come out of, but they need to be, it's got to be a durable sticker, obviously, and 1, that's highly visible for us to see it. So I totally agree on that end of it. I do think Ron knows these numbers even better than I do, because he's been there for a long time. But as we stated in the meeting that we had with all of us together, a lot of these numbers haven't been changed in quite a while. I mean. And even going back to this past year when I did the snow, the salt and sand increase, that hadn't been touched in a very long time. And you can see that's a much larger number than what we were charging for. And while, yes, we don't maybe sell a ton of that, but there are all the landscapers and contractors that do private projects. work out here you know they they purchased it from us this year because it was a busy season so um so i think from that standpoint i think these are i think these are good numbers i think they're fair numbers that we've you know we really talked a lot about them in our meeting and tried to come up with a you know without it being a tremendous jump for the contractor and for the homeowner but i think it's a necessary You guys can discuss it and we can tweak them some more if you feel that need. But I think they're, I think they're good, solid numbers for us. And since I have the podium, I'll just say we're getting in and since we're getting into budget season, I could not reiterate what Councilwoman Hanley has said about our snow budget and our fuel budget. I don't I'm not the guy that said I told you so, but it's just one of those things. I just feel like just even in my short time here, I think there's just certain areas that we can't mess with, because as much as there's a lot of unpredictability in this realm of what we do, you know, based on storms and overtime, you know, how things come up. Um, I think we have to, we have to hold on to that. You know, those, we have to hold those lines pretty tight and try to make sure because. You know, I'm knocking on wood. We don't have another winter like we had last year, but I also need to remind everybody that. Technically, we're going to still have 2 more months of winter. Oh, yeah, because that's not the, that's not the end of the year. So, anyway, that's all I had. Do you have anything that you want to add that you can think of?

Just let you want me to talk about my idea with the transportation.

Yeah, I think I think you're going to articulate it better than.

Yeah, other towns do a transfer station sticker for all residents. So I actually met with the building department this morning and talked to them. The idea I had was all residents get. Say, 2 transfer station stickers in that that means you can. Utilize the C&D pile, the brush pile, leaves, nothing to do with the recycling side because basically we're at two facilities, recycling center and transfer. So the residents get their stickers. If you need an additional, say you have three vehicles, most people only have two vehicles, but maybe one only is their dump vehicle. It'll be $5 or $10, whatever the cost of the sticker for additional. The contractors, and this goes above your registration or inspection sticker on your windshield, it's tiny. The contractors, when they get their contractor's license, they will get say two to three transfer station stickers. If they need additional, They have to bring in their additional vehicle registrations, build an apartment, then we'll issue additional stickers at the 5 or 10 dollars. That'll somewhat help us know and then know who's who's legal and not. Currently right now, I think the rate is. 50 dollars or 70 dollars a day if you don't have.

Yeah.

Contractors license. Thanks. I think it should be $75 or whatever each trip you come in.

Yeah. There was, yeah.

And that'll wean out the guy. You start paying two or three times that fee.

Yeah.

And then if that fee starts going on bills, homeowners might start, what is this extra fee for? And they'll start asking contractors for their, are you licensed and insured on Shelter Island? And that'll help us out, help them out. And they're on board with it.

That's great. I like your idea of just, like, potentially, you know, as we're kind of trying to get this together for, like, you know, a 27 rollout, like, if the transfer sticker for the contractors could be part of what we're doing with the sticker. And then maybe Shelby, it's a separate conversation where maybe it's, you could get it with your beach sticker or, you know what I mean?

Yearly sticker.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, even the residents would have to get it. I mean, obviously, you know, I know East Hampton is December. They start handing them out and it's like, wherever that I don't know if they go to. The highway department to get them over there or.

Or where, but yeah, that like, yeah, like, we have, we need to figure out, but I think it's.

doable, so I think it's just figuring out the... Yeah, it's even if the town goes and buys their own ticketing machine, if we're doing beach stickers, contractor and transfer, it'll pay for itself in a month.

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong.

Yeah. So that's my idea. I like it. I know Brian Sherman, when he was here with Jared, we tried pushing it and it went nowhere, so hopefully get some traction and we can start getting something done and, like, come November, have it set in stone so we can advertise that this is the route we're going. So it's not a surprise in January.

Yeah. I think the sticker maker idea is actually a very interesting idea because that seems like it jams us up a lot is like getting the stickers printed. And like one of the other things is what we talked about. We'll talk about that with buildings. But yeah, thank you. Thank you guys so much for all your input on this. This is really, really helpful. Does anybody on the board have questions about the changes we've proposed here?

So the idea is to implement these January 1? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. We just want to give everybody, the idea would just be to give everybody time to ask questions and know that they're coming. So.

That way we could also do like, we could email all the contractors and the people that we have, put it on the town website, you know, that kind of thing to give people plenty of notice. Catch people going.

no i think it makes sense and the fees that are increasing are the fees for the materials that cost us more to process right these are all the brush the stumps everything that uses the grinder and more machine time you know all of these things require us to do more work um you know managing the leaves so i this makes sense to me um there are a few things where i feel like we're going to be kind of double whammying new construction or renovations because we're going to be increasing the building department fees and then also increasing the CND and the, you know, just a lot of the site prep and stuff. I feel like it Building's going to get more expensive once we do this, because it is going to, we're going to double whammy where we're increasing fees. But I mean, I do think it's those fees in a sense, because this is what's costing us money. Processing these things is what's costing us money.

Yeah, it's a, you know, I mean, it's a hard one because we haven't moved. Bees in either place that just even truing them up and like, really. I feel like in our work and then the work that I did with building department, what we're trying to do is just like make them fair and like cover our costs. And so for me, it's like, we want to give folks a long runway to understand that this is coming, but also, you know, kind of putting back like kind of our fiscal, my fiscal responsibility hat. It's like, are property taxes going to subsidize it? Like that doesn't feel great either. So it's like, if that's the true cost, then it should be, then that should be the true cost.

I agree. Well, the other thing too is you want it, you got it. But no, I think also the reality is, you know, especially, you know, I think it's a valid point, Meg. And the reality is that I don't see, I keep saying to myself, one day I'm going to see a lot less material come into the construction to refile or, 1 day, there's going to be a lot less organic material being dropped off because I say, how many more lots are left to clear on shelter on how many more houses will have to build. But I have to tell you in my just my short tenure now, almost on 4 years. I'm not seeing it. I mean, you've seen the mountain of debris that we have over there right now and granted that's because, you know, we're down that trailer and stuff, which is. Coming supposedly in a week. So from Friday, so keep our fingers crossed. But anyway, but I think it's, it's a reality and I know it's, it's tough to have to do that. And because it has been a while since we've. Both departments have made changes like that, but I think they're necessary changes and I'd like to, I'd like to hope that I think the. The public and the contractors will understand. I mean, I think Ron could tell you that. you know you go to some of these other places i think people think they're getting a deal here anyway yeah so i think it's uh you know even with some of these increases it's still not what they're paying you know for the town of southampton or you know east hampton so i think we're trying to get things up to speed here and it's a good this is a good starting point And I appreciate you doing this list for brands to bring us all in. I think it's a good idea.

So, and I also just want to say, we didn't talk about specifically, but 1 of the things these guys really brought up is that we looked at was fees and other towns to just make sure, like, I hope it goes without saying, but, like, we didn't do it in the vacuum.

Yeah.

There were people that were large, like inbound fill. I think it was $10 and now it's going up to $25. Yep. Like, what was that?

That's just keeping up with the going rate of private businesses. I don't think we should be undercutting any private business. So, if you go, say, one place is charging $27 a yard to don't fill. And we were 10. even paying farage would be cheaper for them to come over here to dump. So I was like, we don't get a lot in, but we shouldn't be undercutting private businesses that much. We want them to be in business.

Yeah, I think that's the key to some of these, just like that as an example. Some of these things that we increased, we don't get a lot of this material. in but it's been sitting at that low level for so long that i think it's time to at least bring it up to what the rest of the market is bearing really so but but again we don't we don't get a ton of filler dropped off this you know what i mean most of the film material that we have there is things that what we've used from doing say catch basin work on the sides of the roads or something so yeah and then a couple of the for sale things like screen sand

Yeah, we really don't sell that on the list of because we had to have it at 1 point for. Product was doing talent work and that was part of their. Their bid when they want it was buying sand. So we. Right made a price so they bought it from us.

You guys don't scream. So, yeah, and that is market.

Yeah, there's this market.

Yeah.

Yeah, there was a couple that were in chunks that I used.

OK. And then, Thomas, to implement this, how does that? Is it just what we do it via resolution?

I believe so. I mean, these are probably set by resolution. And so it's just doing another resolution.

OK, cool. Awesome.

Yeah. All right, any questions from the public? Jan?

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, just state your name for the record.

Jan Sudow, resident of Sholto Island. So I have a question here because we're discussing increasing the fees and it looks like from the material, which was posted on the town website, the revenues of the recycling center is going to increase by 20%. So on average, it seems like the fees are going up 20%. I mean, the fees have been raised recently, not that long ago. I forgot what it was, 2025. Is that correct? Three years ago?

The fees weren't raised.

I haven't raised any of these fees since I've been here, aside from the salt and sand.

Yes, but I remember that the fees were raised substantially because there was a lot of grumbling from the local landscapers and contractors. It was not that long ago.

The last fees, I believe, were during COVID when we started to charge the landscapers for leaves. And then we did the fuel surcharge. So it's like seven years ago at least. Or six years ago.

I would suggest that the decision on how much the fees should be raised and so forth should be deferred until... Because we're only talking about the revenue side. What about cost side? There was no discussion about how the costs of the transfer recycling center have increased. So we should look... We're talking about that later today. You do? Yeah. Okay, so anyway, we should have a full picture of the situation, both the revenue and cost side. I mean, why should we be raising fees if we don't understand what's happening on the cost side? And also, I've heard one of the justification was that we spent so much on snow removal last year. Well, that is correct, but those, you know, we don't have winter like this every year. As a matter of fact, the previous winter that was so much snow or even remotely close was like years ago. And, you know, so there were, in the past, there was a situation, there were leftover money in a snow budget, but then got spent quickly on something that was not budgeted. If I remember, a new truck was... It was purchased for unspent money and this was in the newspaper. So that's how I know about it. And also there was a golf renovation. There was a certain amount of budget, but then far more money was spent that was budgeted. So that should be looked at it, not just the revenue side, but cost side. And lastly, my comment would be about the adoption of the new fees. Is there going to be a public hearing prior to this resolution so the public can weigh in on this as well?

Well, that's why we're bringing up in a work session of public hearing is not needed because it can be adopted via resolution. So today's discussion public can always come in and ask more questions. And then the day of the resolution being on the agenda, we always ask people at the beginning of that meeting if there's more questions on the resolution.

But even though if it's not required in a spirit of transparency and including public in those decisions, shouldn't be a public hearing called?

No, it's not required.

I know it's not required, we already established that, but shouldn't that be a part of good governance to include the public in those decisions?

We're very transparent. It's on the agenda today. People can always come in and talk to us. It'll be a resolution again. And it's also during budget season, it will get discussed during the work sessions for the budget to as we're going through line by line in the budget. like why certain lines are getting increased.

Okay, so is this, do I correctly interpret this that no new fees will be passed until the budget situation or the cost side of the department is discussed?

That was my thinking. I concluded our discussion on this for the day, so that was going to be my next question is holding off until we get through budget season and putting it on for November adoption. You beat me to that question.

Well, I think we have to figure out the whole process if we're going to do stickers and implement the whole contractor license piece of it. I know Ken and I have talked about this in the past, how to make it work. And we have to coordinate with the building department. What's the best time of year for them to issue all these stickers? Because we don't want them getting overwhelmed. So you have to put the entire process together before we can move forward on one piece. So I do think it's like a...

Yeah, which is why I want to start this now thinking with the eye that this wouldn't be till 27. Plenty of time. We can bake it into how we're thinking about the budget season. And then, like you said, there's like a process around the stickers that has to be figured out. But if it's August now, we have to figure it out by January. Yeah.

Yeah. God willing, that's enough time, you know, and I appreciate this schedule that you made up with where the increases are coming in because when Ken and I sit down to do the department head budgeting, we'll look at this. And then again, when I'm doing the supervisor's tentative budget, I'll be, yeah, I mean, and like I said, these are 25 and, you know, so, but it just gives you like a, a ballpark of what the impact would be. Was there anyone else in the public who had a question?

Okay, thank you guys. Thanks guys for coming in and thanks for all your help with this. I really appreciate it.

Go to financial statement review. All right. This is something that we have not done. Board members get the monthly financial report every month to take a look at. The first few months of the year are always hard to look at because as we're closing the year and processing accounts payable for year-end and getting new revenues that pertain to the prior year and getting all of those journal entries made, the focus is always on getting year-end closed and so we don't start to look at you know, the current year numbers until like halfway through the year. But Liz asked that we do this in public session instead of normally board members will just ask questions if they have something of, you know, the accounting clerk or myself or department heads.

I kind of, I was actually also wondering, I don't know if it's possible, but would it be possible to kind of print the, or post the Excel that I did with the over-unders on it?

We could, and then I'm going to direct people to you with questions. Okay. Just because, I mean, there's a lot of information in there and there's a lot of Like, I don't know if people will understand some of your notes in there. And also there's things- I'm happy to- I'm happy to- Corrected.

Okay. I just find, I mean, I know for myself as a person who spent my adult life reading financial statements, these are very difficult to work through. So I'm happy to, you know, adjust my notes in there, but I just, I think it might be easier for folks to understand. I also have some general notes I wanted to go through.

Through, but we can kind of come back to that. So you have that Shelby, so you can post it session.

Yeah, and I can, I'll just go in and take a look at some of my notes if you want me to.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, just because yeah, there were some things where it's like, well, that's already been corrected with her. things coming in for budget transfers, budget modifications that happened, corrections that happened in July that have already cleaned up some things, so. Okay, maybe I didn't get that. Oh, I'm happy to redo them if there's an updated financials. I just didn't have it. No, no, they're going to be reflected in July. I didn't want to have Ashley go back and correct anything. She's correcting things for July.

Okay, excellent. So maybe, I mean, I'm also happy. You can just answer some of your questions that are on the spreadsheet. You might just want the answers.

Yeah, and then we can just refer people to this work session if they...

Yeah, absolutely. That would be great. So I just I you know, obviously there's a lot in here. So I just had some high level things. Obviously, it's a super dense. So one of the things that kind of to this is great that we're doing this right after talking about highway is one of the things that I saw is fuel is over budget on almost every line. I know where fuel is mentioned. you know, we are almost at our full, the full amount that what we've budgeted and we still have the fall to go. And as, you know, as Ken and Ron mentioned, you know, we're going to be Obviously, we're going to be quite over budget with that. And so we just kind of need to be a thinking about where we're going to transfer that money from. And then also considering what is happening with fuel and in the world, you know, keeping this in our minds as we approach budget season. You're using the May spreadsheet that you sent us, right?

Uh, it is in June.

I did a June. Oh, okay. For some reason it sends it says in our emails it is. It says Q2 reporting with notes and comments. You responded to it on the 17th. Okay. And I just did basically there's notes in it. And then I basically typed out just like, if you don't open it and read all my notes, like, these are the, these are like the four things that I think we should just kept coming up with me every time.

I've been through this.

I looked at it. You're like, I did do it.

I did do it. Yeah. No worries. Make sure I have the right one in front of me.

So like the fuel, I was like, yeah,

And so the fuel, I mean, so there's building fuel to heat and air condition the building, which is separate from recycling transfer station, which uses, and highway, which uses fuel to run the

No, and what I'm saying is on almost every fuel item in across the multiple things, we're over budget on fuel, right? So I'm just saying in general, understood that it's part of highway, it's part of building, it's part of, and I've noted it on every single line item. But what I'm noticing is in general, you're seeing a huge overage and if we're already through Q2 and we're almost out with the amount that we have budgeted for many of these line items across multiple budgets, we're only halfway through the year,

I thought earlier you were saying you wanted to cover those fuel overages with highway and recycling.

And that's what I was like, just check for me. So I would say that there is some fuel overages in the highway department budget itself. And so my hope would be is that we could cover the stuff within that budget. You know what I mean? Understanding the segregated funds, but obviously more revenue and highway isn't going to help the town. You know what I mean? Like our general heating bill, like that's, those are separate things, but it would help to potentially offset their overages for getting fuel to run their machinery. Right? Like that's possible.

I'm going to ask a clarifying question. When you're saying we're over, you mean for the first six months. So if you take our budget, cut it in half, we've already spent over half of the current budget on fuel i just want to clarify that for the public so they don't think that we've already burnt the budget and now we're over what we was budgeted yeah we just mean we've spent more than half of what was allotted at this point in time exactly and so one of this like the thing that in my spreadsheet and i can put it up maybe i can do like a little

You know, notes in the front of it to make people make sure that they understand. So, like, I'm just, I'll use a example of how I kind of approached it. Now, knowing that a lot of this stuff is seasonal, but just as like a frame of reference, if we had a budget for fuel. For, let's say, heating for town hall, and it was 12,000 dollars for the year. i went in and said okay through july i would expect us to be six thousand dollars all the way through right now knowing that obviously some of that isn't spread but it at least helps me to identify hey are we you know if we're if we've spent ten thousand dollars in july we're not past our budget but we've certainly spent more than i would have expected us you know for me it's like flagging those items to just be like hey You know, we should keep an eye on this. And so as I reviewed the budget, I was looking for those big, those large deltas and over and unders to either look at them and say, oh, actually, this is seasonal. Not to worry about it or, huh, what's this? You know, like this is. not what either i you know it's not where i expected it to be or we need more information on it and so one of the things every time it said fuel you'll notice we were had spent more than i would have thought we should we would have spent so far this year and so i guess what i'm saying is flagging it that should we continue at this pace we will likely exceed how much we have budgeted

You know, I guess i'm saying i'm sliding that like we got to keep an eye on this and when I haven't had a chance to go back and look to see whether seasonally we do spend like two thirds of the budget by. June 30 because we've gone through the heavier winter months and then we don't spend this much and I just have not had a chance Ashley and I are going to try and sit down later today and tomorrow yeah. But I'm trying to also get the budget reports out to departments. We've been working on that for the past couple of days.

And again, if there's a seasonal explanation, cool. But I want to flag it because if there is not, And also just generally from existing in the world, I know that fuel prices are higher. So it would not surprise me that our fuel costs might be above budget. So I'm directing our attention to that. And then also it does seem like our fuel costs are going to be higher given the world. So I just want us to keep that top of mind as we approach that it does seem.

Yeah.

An area of attention is needed across almost every fuel line item. Snow removal, we've talked about that it is, you know, again, we had a hard winter. I think we're likely to break through this budget.

That we've given ourselves how I was going to propose probably pulling from contingency on those just because I was chatting with Ken to see, like, was there any possibility that we had any FEMA money, any state money, declarations of emergency funds that could cover some of that. And it doesn't look like there's any that's going to be. So, we just like, that's why we have contingency. We're taking a risk in the budgeting. so we're going to end up having to pull some money there's some higher sand and salt sales so we can do a budget modification to increase by that overage because we did more um right you know people in the public coming to us to buy so what is the let's see let me look in the be like d a rev

Or is it in A revs?

No, and I didn't put it in my spreadsheet yet.

Yeah, where would it be? I think the salt and sand is in the A. I'm looking here.

Yeah, 2655A. It's on page 16. $3,000 more in salt and sand. Yeah. So we can do a budget modification. I guess I didn't put it.

It's about the 40,000, the delta that I'm seeing. So that would solve. You know, yeah, let's call it 4,000. We're still.

36 shy, but and that's going to have to come out of contingency.

Some of this could also be the timing because we did have more snow and there was still removal. We spent more money on gas. Like, we had to use more fuel. So, Ken might have had to purchase his mid year fuel earlier. So it might be 2 purchases in the 6 months as opposed to spread out. More so some of it could be timing.

Yeah, I mean, yes, no level in total is over budget 37,000. Yeah. So 3000 will get covered by the additional revenues on the salt and Sam.

But I think the other things just to kind of keep in mind and the 26, like. like the 26 line item, that basically if you even out all the stuff that we're over under, you know what I mean? Like, that we're basically flat to where we think we're going to be, right? With all the, there's certain revenue items that were under budget that we, like, and so if you look at the total underneath A2680, like in my spreadsheet, at least I did it, is, you know, we If, I mean, again, we know that all things are not spread out evenly for the year, but again, it's a way to identify stuff. We are actually, you know, we're, I would have expected that we would have brought in $1,700 more through the whole department. So I think, I mean, I think the sand and fee is over, but like, if you look at like, You know, top soils under, you know, so it's just, it kind of, I don't know if there's going to be that money to play with based on. What I'm seeing here.

Yeah, that's why I mean, I like, there are some areas that are over, but I don't like to pull from anything, but that does have a direct correlation. Like.

No, I understand.

I'm comfortable doing the budget modification for, but anywhere else, the only things that I've been doing budget models for revenue wise are things for grants. Grant reimbursements. But, yeah, like, there are areas like, ooh, like, that's tending high, but it's going to be used to offset any of the tending low. And I generally will start to get into that really heavy duty analysis where I'm looking at all of the details in August. And then I usually have a lot of more journal entries and a lot more budget modifications. But we do need to keep an eye on.

Yeah, I still, I still think we should keep an eye on it. So. The other thing that I did, and this may be a logistical question is the goat hill maintenance and I just wanted to make sure I maybe thought this might be reflected. In the wrong year, I just thought maybe no, that has to do with the grant.

We put in grant requests for reimbursement, $64,000. Okay, great. Understood. I hadn't done, I hadn't been keeping up.

with those reimbursements because i was waiting for us to finish that project so there's going to be 64 000 there's going to be revenue okay you'll see i just didn't see the budget line item transferred and i just didn't have any contacts on it and i was like and i was like wait a minute i thought that was the year before what's going on with that okay it's all related to the ada elevator okay great yeah there was just no contact so yes um my other big question is insurance So I was a little, just on first blush looking at it, it does look like this is over budget. But so if I could continue, it's unclear whether it's an accrual issue or the increased costs are not reflected in the budget. So one of the things that I'm looking at is I would expect, I don't know how we're paying it, but it looks like payroll slightly under if you look at it and it looks like insurance is over. So I'm wondering, are we paying ahead for insurance? And then the payroll is lagging.

Are you talking general liability or you're talking health insurance? Health insurance. Okay, health insurance. We paid the July in the June. Okay. Always a month ahead. Okay. So that is, so it's an accrual. So it's a cruel. We don't do journal entries to set up prepaid and reverse. So, okay. It's just at your end when those. Okay.

So that's so okay. So that, that helps me to understand because usually I would have expected to see. An accrual and a prepaid to go back and forth. So it's so it's paid ahead. And so I think what you're saying is, is an extra month is reflected in through Q2. Yes. Okay. It's just obviously, there's no context for any of it and we do and I knew that. The insurance had increased, so it was just, it's hard to tell where we are with that. So, I wanted to, and then I did have some questions. Again, I'll say I have smaller ones. I did have larger questions on the balance sheet. Now, we know that this needs some edits, but I did want to understand the liabilities and I thought maybe that might be something that you might just know.

But not all just because this is a report that they generally have never generated before. No worries. I just like, I'm not even sure. Like, I, we have Ashley and I are talking to the contract accountants later this afternoon to go over some year end questions. So I'm going to include any questions that come out today. Yeah, perfect.

So service award assets, I just am wondering, I'm just like, not familiar with this language.

Like, what is what is so program for the ambulance?

Okay, great.

Okay.

I felt like there was probably, I was like, I was like, some of this is probably just vocabulary, but it's, you know, it's not necessarily easy to know. So liabilities, Taylor's Island.

Yeah. I have a question mark next to that one. I'm not sure if that has to do with any, Shelby, you may remember from your days over on the inside. If it has to do with with there is Taylor's Island over the years had gotten grant money in and had set aside for future Like, they had budgeted and spent some monies that got grant reimbursement. So that might be some leftover of 10 level grant money. So that when they do extra repairs and maintenance, like, right now, they are over budget and repairs and maintenance.

So it's like a restricted fund.

Potentially it's not because it would be down in the fund balance restricted asset. Okay. But it's kind of just been an internally designated. And I remember when I first got on board years ago, I had done the analysis because they were like, we have money in a sitting in fund balance, but it really was our money. And so I did a whole analysis and presented it to the board years ago to say, they'd like to move this into the Taylor's class account. So that when. They thought or savings when they do something. So this year, I think they're like, few thousand dollars over budget.

I brought that up just because I was thinking about for Taylor's Island. I was like, well, what is this? Fifty six thousand dollars. I was like, could this be helpful?

Yeah. Yeah. I want to double check and make sure that that's how they're reflecting it.

OK, great. So that was like a question that I had.

parkland deposits again this is just a vocabulary issue i was like i know what is that bridge street possibly what is it i don't understand on the bridge street account oh there's some money sitting in s i don't know it might have to do with that yeah but then i don't know where the escrow is sitting yeah whereas That might be down below.

So when the town took over Bridge Street and made it a park, because it used to be an eminent domain, buildings and restaurants, there's an escrow account that's been collecting interest.

Yeah, but that's from like way back. Yeah, I just, but I was like, way back. Right. But I was like, qu'est-ce que c'est?

I've never seen it labeled that before. And when the one, town-wide financial statements get pulled together there's like obviously so many numbers that flow into

Right and I mean that's like one of the things is like at least for me is like the budget season is so overwhelming I would just like at least for myself hopefully for other people it's just helpful to have a little bit instead of having to chew on everything at once like could we figure this out or maybe it's like I said maybe it's a vocabulary thing we could like label it so that it makes more sense so that we don't aren't faced with the same question in September when we're like, what is this? And we don't have time to dig into it, you know? Environmental fund? Any ideas? I think it has to do with landfill.

Yeah. Yeah, so I'm just saying, I definitely have a landfill class. We never get this level of detail of a balance sheet. They're usually rolled up into more things. So like some of these categories, I've never seen that one before.

Yeah, I'm like, I am curious. I mean, I clearly, I think you do have two is like, what is the due to other funds? I like, I would love to know more about that. I was like, please give me details on that. You know, solid waste, you know, it looks like some of these are semi, like, are they, basically, are they like internally restricted funds? If so, it would be good to know what they are because we could understand, like, do we need to keep them for stuff? Could we use them for offsets like the Taylor's Island as we approach budget season? Or are they in there for some, like, what are they, what are they internally restricted to? Right. Like, I mean, it's not a ton of money, but I was like, why is this hanging out on our balance sheet? Right. Like, not that we need to get it cleaned up like today or tomorrow, but like, it'd be cool to straighten it out by the end of the year. Um, So I generally just have questions on those maybe for the. The fund balance, so you enter this service program that's the ambulance. capital reserve so actually my so here's my question was if that if the service award program is the ambulance and there's also an ambulance reserve.

The ambulance reserve is the money that the foundation gives to us. Okay. And so that gets saved up and we invest that. And then when it's time to buy an ambulance, that's where the money comes from.

And then the service and then what is the difference between that like so that that's the foundation and then where's the service award program where's that money. 728 54 go back up to your asset. I know, but we're like literally where's that money coming from is that money that we've set aside for the budget.

it's money that gets paid to i'm trying to remember the name of the company that we use pamphlets pamphlets. So, every year we make a contribution for from the program that's in our budget and it goes to and then they invest it and hold that money for us. And when it's time for retirees to draw out of the program, they do all the actuarial tables and so.

So just just to like so the service award. So this is for retirees for the like that. OK, so it's just like I was like, is it for the actual ambulance? Is it for it's for the ambulance volunteers? OK, for the volunteers.

So similar to a few years ago, fire districts not few years ago at this point, probably 10, 15 years ago.

um New York State set up a program whereby volunteer EMS fire people could have they get credits for the number of years yeah no so basically so this is the this is this so it's how to understand it would be the accruals for ambulance retirement credits okay okay great

Cool. Thank you. Sorry.

I just was like, if you look at the service award assets, it's not immediately where we make our trophies. I was like, what are we doing? Who's getting awards? I want to know. Um, capital reserve. Is this like, I miss, is this the highway capital or this is equipment reserve fund.

And so we have money in there. I think if I remember correctly, 250 or 350 I have a spreadsheet uh-huh um where when we sold the cell tower um rights okay so we had gotten 2.1 million dollars at the time okay so we used um some of it at the time to buy to do some capital um asset things we also had set aside 1.1 million to because we were using half of the month the lease payments that we were getting at the time to offset taxes by $67,000 a year. So every year we pull $67,000 out of this. I think also in that, oh no, I'm thinking, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was like, I was like, okay, no worries. So this, but we put aside, so that was some, it's over. In the on the same phone bell. Okay.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

And the other half went into for capital expenditures. 1.1Million. We put, I think it's 350 aside. So that if we have a capital equipment expenditure or capital. a capital expenditure, we have money to outlay the money, but then we use that for matching grants where we have to spend and then we get reimbursed. Got it. So it allows us because we couldn't do projects at times because we had no money to pull from.

Yeah. No, I mean, that makes total sense. A question on that, just because we were talking about some of the Assets needed over at Highway. I noticed for some reason, and I haven't seen that spreadsheet in a while, but I thought we had more in the capital reserve for Highway than what's listed here.

Or do we just know I think I think it's all in there, this is all yeah that's I want to double check the general capital yeah I want yeah because we've got capital the highway equipment reserve fund which has.

yeah it was when I was thinking it was more than $82,000 or is that. Which is what they have listed is that am I reading that right fund da.

What are you looking at?

I'm looking at the fund balance, right? So like if you look in their fund balance and then it's capital reserve. And I was like, and I was thinking, I was like, okay, so the $634,000 is general funds. And then I was like, did we just keep it general? Because we didn't want to like allocate it. Or we actually did, I thought we allocate or did we keep it? Like, that was the part I didn't understand because then I was like, I was thinking about the highway reserve fund balance. And for some reason, I was thinking it was higher, but then I was like, oh, is that just like a. Informal designation and then if that's the case, then how much should you know what I mean? I was like, I was like, wait a minute. What is actually.

Yeah, we were going to end the year.

26 with 164,000 and then we're talking we say 164,000 we're talking about the just the equipment so the highway equipment reserve so then and so we have 80 two here is it but there may not there may have been payments made out but then we haven't pulled all the revenues in yeah no worries yeah i only saw this no no i'm not i'm not yes but i just want to understand i'm not necessarily i just want to make sure that i'm understanding how we're doing it understood that there's payments made and that maybe you know part of that's in the due to and from other funds but i guess i just wanted in general to understand so if like let's say that that's like ballpark right like okay so let's let's say that that's right and whatever maybe there's funds that we have to transfer in and we made payments right um so i just want to make sure that i'm understanding then potentially the 634 000 is a general capital reserve fund for the town in addition to the highway fund?

Am I like understanding that? I will ask for the details and also pull up my spreadsheet. Okay.

And then what would be the, what would be what we would use? Like, what are the uses that were imagined for the capital reserve fund? Is it equipment? Is it, you know, is there like limited, you know what I mean? Did like we limit, did we put limitations on it at some previous time?

Just for my clarification. It was to be used for the, um, Grant, you know, reimbursement funding.

Okay.

That was like 350. so it was like, not to be touched. I mean, it has once in a while. Yeah, we've spent it and then. When we've gotten the grant reimbursement, we put the money back in. There was also like, maybe 150,000. To be off on that number and just for around for round numbers. Yeah, I'm not done 50,000 to be used at some future date. But we have met, we have tried not to touch that. Yeah. So, since Gary birth was supervisor of 8 years ago, that's what was established and we had tried not to use it waiting. You know, like, if we have some big need, we have some grant where we need a 20% match or something like, that's what we would end up using it for. Okay. Cool, so go forward with some big money somewhere and have something.

Understood I just wanted to understand what. 600,000 dollars is a lot of money, so I want to understand what's in there. Those were the majority of my questions. I had smaller ones. I'm not going to go through them in public because I just, I mean, not because they're secret or anything like that, but just because I think that they actually just might be booking errors or a cruel question. You know what I mean? I think they're more administrative rather than an overview.

But I mean, if this is out there and it's going, like a couple of things, like longevity for different employees gets paid out when they hit their anniversary. So you'll see some employees have been paid out their longevity. So it's 100% of the expenditure and then others where it's zero. When that person, you know, like, Someone I'm thinking of was hired in November, so their longevity will get paid out in November.

That makes a lot of sense.

Normalizing the budget can't happen. I think I wrote not an issue next to those in my... Yes, but since it was a question. The audit haven't billed us anything until last month, so we'll start to see something there. There are some reimbursable fees like second review and then also wetlands and things like that. Where we're tracking the expenditure separately from the revenue lines, just so we can look at those. So, periodically, when Ashley and I are reviewing things, we will, like, I think I've got proposed for next week's meeting. Yeah, next week's meeting. We'll increase the revenues budget and the expenditure budget for the site plan review reimbursement. So that number where we're, you know, it looks like we're $8,800 over budget will only be $300 over budget. Just haven't collected from people yet.

Yeah, and I did, you know, I mean, I guess it's, you know, as if you guys had time, I did try to, you know, I don't know if you'd like, what's it like little spreadsheet, I did try to like tag, you know, obviously, it's, there's, like I said, there's over unders red and green. So you can kind of just like see, and then I put notes next to things like, you know, it's like the some things that were like, not an issue, it's a yearly thing. And then I did try to Flag in I highlighted, I don't know if you saw those in there things that I was just wanted to kind of raise to you and Ashley that I just think might be like I said, more like administrative questions.

Yeah, and there's a couple of things like, you know, when Ashley and I were going through where we noticed like. With some staff changes in the assessor's office.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think I had a question about that. We're still going posted to her old line and Michelle is going to. Ashley Laurel's new line.

So it's just like a journal entry needs, you know, and like I said, that's why I'm not even going. But just like those are like administrative and it's a massive budget. So I think that would be deeply weird if there wasn't some.

Yeah, you know, where, you know, like, postage in the tax receivers offices, you know, just don't be like, yeah, she's not over budget in all of her categories. So same with some PD category.

It's like, so it depends on the timing of her postings, like, the mailings that go out for her. No, I think it was just like this year.

I think it's just increased. Just getting me instead of doing some now and send at the end of the year. I'm sure she just like, did her whole budget, but then just okay. I always, I always purchase 500 dollars, 500 units of.

And so, yeah, and again, the, I just did this is just like a guide to just even start to understand things. Right. You know, because again, it's so dense that. How do we even start to track to keep an eye on fuel or how to keep an eye on some of these other line items before all of a sudden we're in budget season and it's like now we're here. And maybe, like I said, I would be shocked if fuel wasn't over just given what's happening in the world. Like that would just be pretty weird. Also, I want to know where we're getting fuel personally, if that's the case. But so those are kind of, Thank you very much for having that. Yeah. Yeah.

For putting this together and, you know, and like, preschool reimbursement, it's just a matter.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, that's why I ran, you know, was another 1 where I didn't even put that in my big overview because I assume that most of this is. The smaller items are administrative, but I am just, I did want to flag them just in case there were accruals that needs to be made or journal entries. I want to just my hope is, is that by looking at this, we can kind of keep our eye on. Then the small stuff is important and it should all be corrected by the end of the year, but just the larger issues I think is, is my hope not the minutia.

Yeah.

You know, at least at this level. Those were my comments and questions. I don't know if anybody else had other things that they wanted to talk about.

Other than Ashley and I have been working on pulling together the department's spreadsheets so that the department heads can start working on their budgets. We'll start scheduling meetings later this month in early September and Later this month, I'm going to be working hard on the budget and. Tearing apart numbers, because that's like, as I start to analyze, like, where are we over under that's where, like, some of the administrative things. It's like, oh, so once it's getting posted to the, yeah, Laurel and Michelle.

But, you know, I love this stuff, so come find me.

paper upon paper as I ask support everything all right all right any questions from the rest of the board no no public next is building department you need some amendments since less Yes.

Okay. So one moment. Okay. So I did do some updates. I also changed the hopefully, it was the updates to kind of reflect what we spoke about. And Hold on, sorry. Outlook is not my friend. Let me just see if I can switch. I also highlighted the sections in yellow that require... Oh, here it is. Sorry. I highlighted in yellow the items that require code changes rather than in green, teal, I don't know what you want to call that, the items that we could just do via resolution. Again, I don't have really anything new other than this is just a reflection of what we spoke about um i think the only thing that i see in general oh so two two follow-up items um a there's the figuring out the sticker situation i think half of it's logistical um and you know i think uh the building department Basically, one of the ideas that came from highway was to do it as a yearly, you know, to have, you know, I'm just, I'm going to make this up. Like, it's like pink for 2027. Right. And so there's like everybody, if you have a pink sticker, then you have your new thing. Logistically, one of the concerns from building department was how are they going to manage doing all those renewals at the same time? which I hear, I think also it's going to be confusing to be able to see at a distance or, you know what I mean? Like we do lose some of the visual cues by having a yearly sticker if you can't, you know what I mean? If you have a staggered, Renewal schedule. So I think that is something that we have to kind of figure. I don't have an answer to that. But I think that, like, it undoes some of the work of having you license. If everybody's staggered, then how do you figure out? No, I think it does have to be done at two months to renew. That's what I'm saying. So that was the first suggestion, but the building department is concerned that they will be able to manage doing those renewals all at once because they're staggered. And so that is their concern, which I hear like, that's a lot of renewals, the contractor license.

licenses are staggering at the moment. Yes, correct.

So we have to be on a site, everybody would have to be they have to move them on a cycle, which I get is a pain. And then making sure that they have the bandwidth to be able to do that in January would take a change. Now I get that that is a lot of moving pieces. However, I think, logistically, I kind of think that we probably just need to move it to a calendar year, yearly situation. I don't really see how it, I don't think it will have as much usefulness to continue to do it on a staggered system. You know what I mean? It's not, the juice isn't worth the squeeze if we're gonna continue to do it staggered.

Contractor license renewed, is it every two years?

You know what, that's a good question. I actually don't remember off the top of my head.

I'm not sure it's every year.

I think it's every two years. For some reason, I want to say it was every two years and we wanted to move it to yearly so that we could get, because we wanted to also get their proof of insurance. And so if we did them at the beginning of the year and kind of to like in a world where we could figure out how to do it on a yearly basis, which I think, like I said, logistically makes the most sense. Um, Maybe you could do the transfer. You could have them get their transfer sticker at the same time. You could just do the whole thing. It's going to be a lot of manpower or people power to manage it. So that would definitely be something to talk to the building department about how to actually do it. And also communication for folks that are on a staggered schedule. That's all stuff that would need to be worked out. But I think that being able to have for the I mean, the building department, I think it'd be important for them to be able to see that somebody has a license to be working here. That's really important. But I also think for homeowners, for our residents is actually the even bigger perk for me is just to be able to just be like, okay, like if you've got somebody working and they don't have a, I'm making this up, a pink octagon sticker, then like you need to ask questions. And we have so many seniors and I think it can be, you know, I just think it can be abused and just keeping, making sure that residents have recourse and that they know that these are licensed professionals, right? So just acknowledging that I know that that is an issue that needs to be sorted, but I'm hoping...

Oh, okay. Licenses shall be valid for a period of one year from the date of issuance, subsequent renewals for a period of one year. This is in the town code.

Okay. Great. Yeah, that's great.

But the issue is if we do it staggered, then we lose the visual for the notice for everybody, which was the point of doing this.

Okay, because it will be a sticker on the windshield.

Right, but here's the thing is how do you know if that's valid or not, right? You know, like for beach stickers.

You put a date on it just like your inspection sticker.

Right, but I guess what we were, the idea was, or the thinking behind this was to be able to, like, other municipalities have a green sticker for 1 year and then a blue sticker. So you can tell as you're driving up to a site. Are they current or are they not without having to get up to read it? That's exactly, so that was the thinking behind this, but acknowledging that.

We're left with doing it that way, annual and prorating the license fee. So if they get a license in June, they pay half the fee, but they're on the calendar year.

Yeah, so eventually what you need them to do is renew in January, February, or December, January, so that everybody has the same color for the year. So when they go into the scale house, it's easy to see. Because if it's staggered, they'll have different colors and it'll be confusing for everybody.

But it doesn't have to be January, February, or December.

We can pick the months, but whatever, you know.

Get a license in June and get a sticker in June. Being the right color, you just have to .

Until we get everybody on the same side. Then what I wonder is, and maybe this is something that I'm happy to go back to the building department, is what is their slowest month? I would want them to do annually, but truly it doesn't matter. Our contractor license, we can just make the rules and if we say that they're through i'm going to make something up march right because march were the slowest so that's the time they have the most time to like update the and process them then we could just be like it's always march to march or whatever that is um the only thing to think about with that um is you know we also want proof of insurance i'm pretty sure those are calendar year so we might end up just in january anyway um because i think and again this is my question I'll talk to the guys over there because we do need proof of insurance. And that was one of the issues with the staggering is not having proof of insurance for the whole time, which feels pretty important. If we're going to issue a license, we should make sure they're insured for the whole time, which I don't currently know how we can.

Yeah, that's difficult because this depends on when the business started and when they signed up for insurance. So they can get you a certificate of insurance, but it's going to be from July 17th, 2026 to July 17th, 2027.

So then we need a trigger to put a pass in genocity. So it's just a matter of using our systems.

Yeah. So probably contractor licenses.

The other, yeah, so the other issue, I actually have to go spend some more time with Mary Ellen, is I, so the fee, the revenue delta that I did for highway. Oh my gosh, doing this for the building department because of how they track everything. I literally want to poke my eyeballs out. It is Mary Ellen sent me the report from their system, which doesn't even include all the revenue. So then I had to back into that. So then I basically have that report to work from. And then I've got our budget report. Neither of them tell the whole story and neither of them tell what how many, you know, I don't know, I'm gonna just say like pergola ferments or whatever, right? So it's like, it's not that I'm not working on it, it's that I am struggling on it. And basically, I'm not open question as to how we will figure out what the budget impact is, because we don't have great source numbers. Also, PS, I think we need to clean up how we're doing some of the reporting because we can't see the impact on it. Basically, what we're going to potentially have to do is go through every permit to be able to give you a budget impact, which seems... Yeah, I've done that before.

It's painful. ...be bananas. That's how I did the housing report. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, we probably should realign, like, start with the inputs in municipality and then flow the budget numbers from there, even if it means, like, it looked like we had $500,000 in building permits last year. We, like, have a different breakdown.

Yeah, and so that was one of the things that, like, I mean, we're going to just, like, we're going to get as good as we can for, like, the budget impact. I will give you the best I can give you. But more largely, I think to your point, Amber, I think that one of the things that we should work on is work with ashley and mary ellen to to make sure that those things are aligning because it's impossible to see what the heck is going on as a town yeah i was going to say actually a town clerk's office before it gets to ashley because ashley just motions yeah that's that's fine i guess what i'm saying is like we need to my thought was and And I blame Highway for this because their stuff is so clean that I could go in and I could be like, oh, we're changing the batteries price. Oh, here's the battery line item. Here's the new price. Here's the Delta. This took me an hour or so to put together. I'm ten plus hours in. on this one, and I'm not even close. I got halfway through it, and I was like, these numbers aren't real. And I was like, I'm going to stop. I was like, these don't even align with the budget. I was like, what are we even doing? So yeah, so side note, and again, it's not like it has to happen today or tomorrow, but maybe you and I and Mary Ellen could try to What I would love is the fee structure should match whatever we're charging people for.

Oh, but that's just too clean.

I know. I know it's crazy. I know it's crazy. That should flow to the revenue line item on the budget because right now it is... We should function like a spreadsheet. Or just function. Yeah. Or just function. Or just function. Anyway, those are my thoughts and feelings on building. So I'm just, I just, so I think that there, so the other, so the, I feel pretty good about the fee structure so far. Open to notes, comments, feelings, vibes, anybody might have. I'm going to continue to work on this kind of sticker and license alignment. So I can come back to you guys with an update on that. And then the Municity, sorry, for some reason I, so Municity and then the budget, I would like to get those aligned. I was like, we've got six months, so potentially by 27, so that we can kind of start to get that. It will likely take that long.

We just have to standardize how things are getting entered so that it's easy to run a report and actually find all the information you needed. It might just be a matter of figuring out, because I know like if there is, let's say they're doing a renovation. instead of having a permit for the deck a permit for the windows a permit for the roof they'll have one and it'll list everything so you actually have to read through the entire oh yeah everything that's getting done so i wonder if there's a way to reformat it so you can like check boxes on all the things they're doing so you can have a better report that's cleaner but we'll have to talk to mary allen and see how it's being used and how it could be used in order to make the reporting easier to understand yeah and i was i mean what i would love to be able to do is like tie out

At least on the, on the building department side, be able to tie out, like. The budget fees so that we could see the impact when we make changes anyway. So we're all saying the same thing. I will take those 2 items as homework. And then I guess my question would be, you know. Does anybody have any more questions on it? And then I was thinking this would be obviously for 27. So are we okay with rolling this into our process and maybe doing the resolutions and code in the fall? Okay.

So you'd send an email. I'm giving some additional information to Thomas on the different code changes. Code section 79 for the home improvement license. small code change to say all sheds, fence requires code change to be able to fix fencing. And then the harder one is the year round rental. Like that's, yeah, you're gonna have to dive into that more carefully because we have got like the long-term rental stuff for year round accessory apartments. And then we've got short-term rentals, but we don't have something for seasonal rentals. So now we need to look at where that gets inserted. So that's gonna be the harder piece. So maybe you wanna work on the three easy ones first. And then dive into year-round rentals, which sorry slash thank you. All right. Any more questions from the board? No. Any more? Not more. Any questions from the public? OK. On to irrigation code.

since we were talking about these just a second ago um that's something that we have to put into the irrigation code is the feed structure that we want right um thinking about that because we just talked about it and i looked at it and i was like oh right irrigation piece that is a code change so while we're doing the coaching um we should look at that section a little bit and what i want to do with that is

But in that, or that we can do, you know, that we charge fees that the rates themselves are set by resolution.

Yeah, sorry left it if there's a bracket statement that says add amount multiplier slash set by resolution. So, I left that kind of that's.

8257.

Okay, yeah, this mirrors the building department section as far as penalties when someone does work without a permit.

Oh, I see there's the bracket effective date.

Yeah, a few lines above that.

we should select a date because we're going to try and put this on to set the public hearing on Monday night. We're setting this August 10th. We're not going to have the public hearing until the 29th. 31st, 31st. If we do another round, should we just put in effective January 1, 2020? I was going to say that. Let's just do it. We'll have it adopted sometime in the fall.

Other, so we had a wetlands code meeting last week, going over the revisions. And 1 of the questions that came up during that subcommittee meeting is people who either want to modify or install turf irrigation in the wetlands. The question was, are we going to require a wetlands permit for those installations or modifications? The thought is that with grandfathered systems, let's say in this new code, if the grandfather system fails two consecutive chloride tests or three chloride tests within five years, they can no longer use their well to run the irrigation system so should they choose to convert to a cistern um and all the work is outside the wetlands boundary then worse they wouldn't need a wetlands permit because they're just tying into the existing now if let's say they have a pre-existing um turf irrigation system and I'm specifying turf irrigation because that's where you would have to trench to lay the pipe and to get to the heads and sprinkler heads. Now if they're going to modify that, like dig up sections of it and abandon it or modify the configuration and it's within that 100 foot wetlands because that's the current proposed new wetlands boundary, do we want to require a wetlands permit? Now, in the current draft of the wetlands code, there is a process by which you can do an administrative wetlands permit, which essentially follows the process we've been using for the 100 square foot exemption. so it doesn't require a public hearing or like referral to a million and one boards so this is something where if it's a minor modification then it would code for an administrative review and we would just say if we needed to see um either silt fencing or plantings or something just any kind of modifications or if what they're proposing is fine If the thing with putting in turf irrigation is that it's like a one day, maybe two day max process. So I'm not overly concerned about tons of runoff or things like that. It's just for that intrusion into the wetlands, how do we want to handle that? And do we want to put a note in the irrigation code that if you are modifying or installing in the wetlands that you need that permit? So, do we want to put a clause in the turf irrigation section that refers you to a wetlands permit if you're in that designated zone?

Generally, yes, but your suggestion of using the short administrative process is good.

Yeah, that's what we currently put it in the draft wetlands code is under an administrative review. And then with the administrative review, if we determine that it's a very significant change, then we can always kick it to a full wetlands process. But we figure for something like this, where maybe it's a conversion of a system from a well to a cistern and there's minor intrusion into that hundred foot to put the cistern in it or something that it shouldn't be too arduous, but that you'd still want the checks and balances because you're in that space. So, yeah, it's a good idea. It seemed reasonable. So now before it goes to public hearing.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I think you should. So it's section 826. is, I think, where it belongs, because that's where we talk about grandfathered turf irrigation systems.

Right. It can go under both the grandfathered and the new turf systems, because you can have a new turf system that's run by a cistern installed in the wetlands. There's no prohibition against that. So, I think that it should be Info B26 and B27. Or maybe it goes in the permitting process section.

Okay, whatever process, right? So. Okay, so that would be B25D, prior to issuance of a turf irrigation permit. All systems must meet the following minimum standards.

If you're within the regulated wetness area.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So add a 7. I'd like it earlier.

Yeah, because I want them to know early on. Up in the turf irrigation permit, like maybe make it

Do you make a D1? Yeah, or you're fired up.

Yeah. Maybe in B. So all persons using a turf irrigation system, whether grandfathered or sister, must obtain a, oh wait, no, this is for the renewal, a permit that, okay, yeah, no, sorry.

Yeah, because I mean, if it's the initial turf irrigation system, you need to comply with wetlands. But also, I was looking at 82. 6 and 7, because that also spoke to replacing. Right. You know, there's a proposition.

We could just put it at the end where we're talking about modifying and replacing. Should you encroach in the wetland setback, the wetlands have been required.

Kind of like an 82.6 and an 82.7. Mm-hmm. Rather than in the front right area. Yeah.

To put just the same verbiage in both sections? Mm-hmm. OK. Yeah.

Where to plug it in. Make it 82.6 a new C. So it's rather.

I would put it between C and D. So with C, you're saying a grandfather turf irrigation system may be replaced partially or entirely within the existing irrigation area, so long as the replacement improves efficiency of the system. And then D says a grandfather turf irrigation system may not expand the area of irrigation, but it would probably be good to say in there, or even make it a C1, if expansion or if modification or replacement is within wetlands regulated area wetlands permit is required like sort of make it like a c1 for that because but it also it also applies to e yeah so i'll just make it an f we have a um yes because we have a one okay so an f

Okay. And then for 827, I think I'd like to make it a new B. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The first part is getting these bullets right when you edit these things. Because the whole thing just goes wacky. Yeah, exactly.

Did anyone have anything else?

I just want to clarify that in the wetlands code discussion, we only talked about the turf irrigation system, not drip line, because drip line does not cause you to really like Rinse or dig up or disturb the area. So this is only for that clarification. Yeah.

Speaking of drip irrigation, use drip irrigation for gardens and things like that.

Oh, right. That was the other thing.

Do we need to do something like if someone has a garden that only seasonally uses drip irrigation?

So the other question that came up, or I was asked the other day, just to clarify what you were talking about, is someone came up to me and they said, well, I only have a small flower garden in my front yard, like a patch of flowers, but I like to use the drip irrigation so that I don't have to worry about it and it's on a timer. So the question is, do people need to get a permit if they have like a small vegetable garden or flower garden that they're, you know, do we want to put a limit on the size? you know, if you're watering less than 400 square feet, you don't need a permit. I mean, I think the original intention of the irrigation code, and this is always something that's been hard to nail down, is for people who are doing extensive planting. Like when you're doing, you know, 300 feet of hedge around the perimeter of your property, or you're putting in a bunch of new trees and shrubs and you know it's extensive like post construction trying to rehabilitate and revegetate the property that takes a lot of water and a lot of drip hose and a lot of so i think that's always sort of been the intention of the legislation not necessarily to target people's vegetable gardens or like the small flower in the front yard so I'd kind of like to somehow figure out a way to carve that out as an exemption. If you have like a personal vegetable garden, I don't think that you should need a permit necessarily, but I don't know where to put the line.

Well, I think it's like, I think that that's, it's a good distinction. I think the other part, and maybe this is like a read question and just like how, because people be people, how do we like the, enforcement of it right right so like how do we delineate trigger for someone doing their own vegetable garden yeah you know what i mean like and it's like if somebody's like oh it's a vegetable garden then this is my flower garden and then all of a sudden you know what i mean like that would be the only part of just like balancing those two things of just like if you have a tiny vegetable garden like you don't need folks come out there and get a permit for it that seems crazy but at the same time how are we going to be able to tell that it's just that and not you know what i mean i have flowers between all of my right trees exactly there's like a tomato planted in between all these things and that's why i just support my tomatoes yeah yeah and so like that's the only thing that's that's where it started to do that crazy circle where you're like okay i can see how this could get wacky but the way it's currently written

you know, I understand that the intention is for those large-scale plantings, right?

Is there a way that we could like, reveal my ignorance here, but could you put like, could it not be buried?

Well, you want to cover it in mulch because that reduces the amount of evaporation.

No, I know. I'm just trying to think of like for being able to tell that it's just that area. Because once anything's underneath mulch, then it could be anything.

Yeah, I don't know that that was, I mean, that's always, I don't know. Like I said, I'm just trying to anyway, it's like, is it there? Is it not? It's under bolt. Who knows? So that's always the problem with the enforcement that I hear it.

I don't know how to, to, to, to square that circle. So square feet doesn't make any sense at all.

I think they should say, but I think then there's that same question. Okay. If you're going linear feet, because it's a, um, a perimeter hedge are you doing one square foot by 300 600 feet or are you how are you going to calculate that obviously if it's a bed of something it's easy it's you know like that's what but it's one of those things where uh if it's wrong you kind of know it when you see it but it's how do you delineate it in the language is what we're trying to sort out like that yeah i don't know i mean that's the that i i don't yeah and i i agree that there should

Intellectually, it feels like there should be a carve-out, but I don't know how you do it that is enforceable at all. What? That's the same pickle that we got into before, because proof, it's only $150. Yeah, that's the... You can't... Yeah, I mean, the whole point of this is to have it to be enforceable, so it's a tricky wicket.

Oh, we're not done. Because right now it would apply to the real point events to give people parameters that they can. Try to abide by it's enforcement.

We don't really have it's to give them best practices. Right? So, if you're going to set up a drip system, even if it is for your garden, you want to make sure that you're using the right type of drip line. You want to make sure that you have a timer. You want to make sure that it's programmed correctly based on what the code states. It's kind of giving people guidance to best practice.

And you get 200 feet of hose.

Right now, you're not limited.

Yeah, but 200 feet of hose, put it wherever you want.

But then that comes back to the problem that we're trying to get away from. Because in the original code, it said you got 1,500 feet, right? And that was... impossible to determine. Because you wrap it around trees. So that we determined was a standard that didn't work. So we kind of took it out of the code, and we just said, if you're doing it, get a permit. But it's the scale. The scale is the issue and the concern. But it seems silly to try to get people to permit a vegetable garden when. But then again, some people have excited. It's a valid question. And I was like, I will bring rabbit hole up and we'll see what we can do about it.

Yeah. I mean, I guess I would just, I would, to me, it would just be like enforcement. Like, how do you, Or maybe, maybe it's like, if you, it's under a certain amount and you can prove it, you don't have to pay or, you know, I don't know, maybe it's something like that. I just don't, I don't see how you get away from permitting because the minute you have, and once you kind of take away the permitting process, then it's like, what are we doing? Which is the whole, I mean, at least I don't see anything on its face to do that, but I'm open to other folks' ideas.

I mean, just to get something in to create the discussion. How about in 829A? We've got drip irrigation systems shall only be used for non-turp irrigation to establish new plantings. Drip irrigation system requirements will exclude seasonal flower and vegetable gardens no greater than 400 square feet. Say that again? Okay, so drip irrigation system requirements will exclude seasonal flower and vegetable gardens no greater than 400 square feet.

So are we going to put that in exemptions? I was putting it right in 829. We could probably stick it in exemptions where it's seasonal, so put it in 829. It's the next one, 8210. Okay.

Okay.

Yes, I find that too. Vegetable. 440.

that i think that'll yeah i mean at least you can get it it's a talking point to get public comment is there anything else those are the two things that yeah So we'll get that ended up, we'll get it to Shelby for insertion, except the public hearing on Monday.

Oh, there he is. Yes.

Because it's on my home computer.

Yeah, we had a little issue last week. I don't understand how that happened. Yeah. All of a sudden, things have disappeared.

Oh, no. Nothing about it made sense. Okay. Facilities Minister Plan update. We have Joe Finora here to just give us a little update.

Hello everyone. Hello. Last month, the consultants visited to do a walk through of all our facilities. We officially kicked off the facilities master plan project and the purpose of their visit was to make introductions to start the project more formally, but also to visit all of the facilities and begin their data collection and drawing tasks. So we walked each building and property that's included in this study and the consultants measured, visited the sites to see status is for them to collect all this data and form the basis for their analysis. So they're documenting sizes, and structural perspective of all of our facilities. And right now they are drafting floor plans of all of our spaces. And what I'm doing in the internment is putting together a comprehensive list of all of the services that we provide as a township and their respective special needs. So like the nutrition program, for instance, requires a commercial kitchen for And once I deliver that to them, they will align those needs and sort of create the dynamic jigsaw puzzle. We're trying to overlay services that we provide with the spaces that we have and use that to understand where we fall short and what additional spaces would need. Also overlaying things that we know already to be and boil them down to understand what our shortfalls are and what is the best possible solution for all of those needs. So I expect that the consultants will be reaching out about scheduling time directly with the department heads and perhaps in the next couple of weeks. And I think after that juncture is when we'd be probably best suited for that The project has come and start more precisely understanding from the public and the board what we hope to provide what the scale of our investment will be in the future. And I think hopefully right size expectations, both from them and from us.

Timeline as far as like, getting this completed. Like, my big, my big thing is trying to figure out what we're going to do with 2 school street. So, getting this done so that we have time for the town board to decide. Do we go for the bond anticipation note? While we figure out what we're going to use it for from this purposes, or do we use community housing money to. Make that purchase and turn it into that. So, for me, that's something that needs to happen in the fall. So it's like priority alpha. Yes. As far as keeping this project moving.

Yes, we visited to school street as part of our walk through. Um, but the. Private property has not been fully removed the belongings. I understand that's going to happen possibly next week. And so the consultants want to revisit the facility once that has happened. But we have had some initial discussion about the best use for that particular property. And I think the overall timeline of the project for all of our facilities is perhaps on. reasonable to have wrapped up by the fall, but we have had a conversation with the consultants already about prioritizing discussions on just that property. They have already indicated that, you know, unless we told them we had a specific idea for some grant plan for that, the property itself, its fundamentals already align with a narrow band of uses. So, some just basic, you know, some common sense approaches without a really ambitious goal towards overhauling the structure generally those are not good fits so unless the town come to them and say hey we don't care at any cost you know this has got to be our office building their initial reaction is you know generally residential is just Or 1 family, 2 family conversions, you know, those are more nuanced conversations that we can prioritize over the coming weeks. But if the board was looking for some initial feedback, that's the kind of overarching theme that they have given us. We should really be looking to use our existing structures as they were originally designed that minimizes the cost for renovating them. Um, and I think to to your point number, we can have a conclusion on to school street faster than we can have a conclusion to the whole study. So, if the fall has to happen for that, you know, we can prioritize that and make sure you have the answers that you need.

Thank you.

Any other questions the cost of the municipal, but if we had the. To school street, the transaction cost it 30,000 dollars.

Um, there was something like that and then I think the interest for the year, I think I have like 35, 40,000. So I'm, I was just writing, making myself pull that file to go back to. yeah what what the tasks are and not the costs associated in the timeline to getting it done by your end it doesn't really buy us time well it does but it's just super expensive yes however if we end up using community housing funds um we would probably need to in the future um borrow against future community housing funds in order to and we may be getting close with um cpf purchases as well that I need to start working on. You know, we've always been in a place where we can afford to purchase what we need to, but we're getting to the point where we may need to bond.

And the other important thing to think about, I have two comments with the Community Housing Board is some of those we we need to not just consider like i mean obviously all these things are interrelated um but some of the many of the dollars in the community housing funds might be are potentially going to be needed to borrow against to make this project that we've been working on for several years possible so we want to kind of think about those things in balance that you then you could end up having to delay the project further or bond to do that. So we just need to make sure that we're understanding all these things in relationship to each other and it's not just like one or the other. The other question that I did have for you was around two-schools rate was understood on the existing structure, but also I was curious if you guys had talked about you know, like the possibility of putting other structures on like the land, kind of like the land value or potential. Is that stuff that you guys had discussed?

Okay, cool. In fact, the most interesting part of the walkthrough to School Street was its location. So we have this proximity to our office buildings here, but it's not totally connected. For instance, there's no sidewalks. school and a parking facility there. And one thing that the consultants mentioned, which we hadn't discussed it internally, was that shared use of that parking facility might be really advantageous for the town by allowing us to preserve space on the school street property. So, for instance, if we put an accessory structure up there that house a fit center or a senior service or or even town offices, the fact that you could have bought the adjacent accessory structure to the parking facility, the existing parking facility, might perhaps be one of those unique shared municipal services that helps meet our needs, but also save a lot of space that we don't have to provide, you know, 25 parking spots on this half acre or quarter acre property. So that was something that came out of a very casual conversation, but I think precisely the type And with the public, and certainly with the school, but that was something that was a relationship. We hadn't really acknowledged. I think the school here and the parking, the playground, those things are all maybe part of this conversation about school street in the sense of the second structure.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that for me has always been the existing structure, you know, it's like figuring out what to do with that. But I've always thought about that, the land value, you know, it's not about the structure that's already existing. It's like, what's possible on the rest of it, that I think is, yeah, so initially, yeah, I'm very interested to see what their take is clear on the on the dwelling.

Yeah. likely this makes sense to keep the dwelling. How you divide that up, that's more detail. If you want to invest in making that a two family, one family, that's a secondary level conversation. But generally speaking, the dwelling should likely stay a dwelling and not become some other converted use like office space or something that's open to the public.

Thank you very much for the update. If there's any more board questions, any public questions? Okay. Capital planning recommendations. Thank you. Capital planning and grants committee met last week and we reviewed the rest of the capital requests that had come through. Let's see, different things that were originally Requested at one point have senior car on there, but that's being taken care of this year. We have a little bit of money out of the town budget. 5,020,000 from the lions club and 5,000 from the senior citizens foundation. Thank you to both of them for that donation. So it will be able to get that. Or transporting seniors to medical appointments and things like that. We talked about AI training in the building department. That is going to be part of the operating budget. So we'll consider that then. It's not big enough, nor does it really meet what I think is the requirements for a capital item. HR software, we didn't get a chance to meet with department head there, but again, software I think would fall under an operating budget. So that'll come up later. body worn cameras by PD, that's something that would stay in this group. We have We have grant applications out that would incorporate that. The cost was approximately 50,000, but I'll let Chief talk to that if the board is interested. It's 250,000 over five years. There's my note. So it'd be 50,000 per year. But we're going to, the decision from capital planning and grants, if the board decides to agree with that, is to hold off on that to see what happens with the grant application, and also just the idea of moving forward with that. Crescent Beach Cameras, that had a cost of $80,000, and that is being considered for this year, and we will bring Chief in to talk about that in a minute. Let me see. Congdon Road Boat Ramp. That's a cost that's going to be 150,000 and that is something that does need to be looked at sooner rather than later. So, but that the suggestion is for that to come out of the Water Waste Fund.

Yes.

And so I think that we can talk about that at a later time because we'll do a whole separate presentation on Water Waste Fund. So we put that on for like in a week or two. And the work boat was another item that was on the list presented to capital planning. And that's a $300,000 purchase. We have visited that before. There were, it was like $18,000 worth of repairs that were made to the existing work boat so that it was safe for the staff to use. for this year and hopefully into next year. So that's something that was suggested to push to 2028. But again, that would come out of waterways. But I think if we approve using the Congdon Road boat ramp, 150,000, that we need to build up the waterways fund. So we'll need a couple of years before we would have adequate funding there to use that. And then Yeah, that's it other discussions we have for future years. So the only thing that would come out of the operating budget for 2027 is we start to look towards what's going to go in there from this committee was the Crescent Beach cameras. And Chief, I don't know if you're listening and able to join in to just give us a little bit more detail about that.

Right, so thank you, Supervisor. In looking ahead, you know, as the community knows, we have some license plate reader and cameras at both ferry terminals to support the police mission. And as we look forward to the future, We're trying to enhance those in other spots in the community. Those cameras are great tools. I think the expectation from the public in today's world is that the police will have certain tools that they're at. you know, at their grasp where they can investigate crimes and not just crimes, missing persons and other things that happened in our community. So as we look at long range planning, and that's what a capital planning project is, we've had this on our radar for many years now. And this is the first time that it's come risen up to the top is that we would add license plate readers at Crescent Beach. It's probably our our busiest place in a community between Memorial Day and Labor Day and that would support our overall police mission.

Thank you. Last year in the coming out of the operating budget for Capitol planning projects was 50,000 to finish up the police radio upgrades that were necessary that took place over the course of a number of years. So the budget increase, if we pick up this would be 30,000 over last year. So we'd be going from pulling 50,000 out of operating, you know, from taxpayer money to 80,000. So wanted to put that out. Like, how do people feel about that? Obviously, I would put this into the department proposed budget consider when I'm looking at the supervisor tentative budget to come to the town board where we review everything. But I just wanted to get people's take on what was recommended from the committee.

I agree with Chief. It's an important tool for the park. I would say, okay.

Generally, yeah, I feel positive. I just kind of, it'll be important to understand how it fits in more broadly with the budget. But yeah, let's let's, you know.

And then with respect to the kind of boat rail, I'll bring an analysis of the waterways fund.

Yeah. It's so nice to just be able to have a sense of.

I just want to make sure that that's the correct number coming from the 1231.

Yeah, but just it's nice to even have a fall part potentially where we are.

Yes, I do have a spreadsheet. I just didn't get a chance to pull it. So we'll take a look at that in a later work session. Any questions from the public? Okay, that's everything that we had on today's agenda board member reports.

Nothing last week.

I have just a community reminder that we have our, I believe our last public safety task force meeting is scheduled this Friday at 2 p.m. You know, we're looking at figuring out a recommendation to this board of whether we should consider the legislation proposed by OLA or potentially looking at policy recommendations or anything else in between. So we'll be hopefully having a report back to you, so maybe for the agenda for the next week. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted. One complicating factor was that, just like as a note, Lolota has said that folks broadly understood adopting the resolution will not be able to receive funding. So, different communities have dealt with that in different ways. It's for this board to consider how we will deal with it, but just putting that on our radar for consideration. Community housing board, some big updates here. The surveys look like they're going to go, the community housing needs assessment surveys, looks like that they're going to be live. mid-August, so maybe like a week or so. So Brand's writing a letter in to announce that and the team is, the board is working to figure out how to roll that out and be at community events. So I'm sure everybody will see them. It's going to be translated as well and I expect to see them at Green Expo.

Are you going to have the possibility for people to fill them out? Hard copy? Yes.

No, it's all it's going to be online. There's hard copies. It's in Spanish. It's in English. It's like, they've really, they've done such a great job with it. And they will be, there's going to be hard copies. I believe he said. the library here and then kind of bringing them around to the public. So hoping to keep that open through October, but with some initial, so we kind of, I think he was thinking about, I think he's going to go back and kind of figure out what's like the aim for the amount of responses they want to get so they've just been like with all the stuff going on with community housing board like also they worked on this huge project in the background so it'll be i'm super interested to see what the results are um We're also working ongoing. We had another session last night where we went through the ground lease. I'm bringing notes to our lawyer. So my hope it will talk a little bit more about like the contract part of it. But that is like moving at a fast pace. We're doing several hours of meetings every week to move these along. So I'm sorry about your inboxes this summer, but everyone's going to be reading a lot of contracts, so many contracts, infinite contracts. Oh, the other thing I did want to raise, and just this is like a general community note, and I think I had texted with you, Amber, as I have had residents reach out to me about issues with the Heights post office, which I know is outside of our charge, but I just wanted to raise it in case anybody at this table is not aware of it. And also to let the public know that like, we know. So there's an issue with like, folks not being able to get their post office boxes that they've had some issues around renewal. The local postmaster has directed us to the district. I know I have called a few times and have not received a call back. I've directed them to try myself and also the supervisor. And anyway, just every morning I usually have another Update yeah, so I just.

Yes, I, I, too spoke to both postmasters. And I'm supposed to be getting the email chain that she has sent up to district. So what happened was. They were due for district audit came in, they said, what's with all these post office boxes, like, non paid post office boxes that don't have renewals and they need to close. And so that's when it broke loose. Yeah, and broke loose. And I, since I've been a renter for the past 13 years, I've always had to do a paid box because generally my landlords have had their own box. And so only 1 box is free per. Property location, so I've been paying and so when I get my notices, I read it, but I guess I don't remember from 13 years ago that. there was something that went out periodically that if you own, you have to renew and show address. So those did not get returned. And I'm sure there's people who haven't returned them. So the district said, these all have to be closed. So that's what created it. I did check in with the postmaster and center, and he has not had a district audit. Who knows when that one might be coming. if you get these from the center, take care of them because if the audit takes place there, we will end up having a similar issue. But I am trying to, right now you can't, according to the postmaster in the Heights, They can't just automatically reopen your box when you apply back so that's why we're trying to get a hold of the district to really explain to them why this is an issue for our Community that people have had their boxes for decades and now all of their mail is going to go into.

until they get yes some of them are even businesses which was just like yes very troubling yes well thank you so much for looking into that because i was just like i was just i just felt like i was in a and i and so many residents had just like in a just a circular phone tree of just like leaving messages and i can't talk and i was like well so kids that run around yeah that guy yeah exactly why is it only the heights and not the center yes it was just like anyway yeah so

Yeah, I mean, it's like, my next step will be reaching out to the Lotus office to say, we need you to intercede on this 1. if I can't get a hold of somebody at the district.

Yeah, this is cuckoo bananas.

Yeah, so I can't remember the last time I filled out an application for my box center.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So watch your watch your mail, I guess, for the heights who is now been tasked with making sure they're following this rule. She did say that the September, like, people like. they have an annual deadline in their system. She's just sent out the ones for September's renewals. And so I think that gives you to the end of September plus a 10-day grace period. So if you see those... Fill them out. Do it, do it, do it, do it. Yeah, they're getting inundated because people are also like, I think if the box was going to get closed, it was closed and now the renewals will be going out. So I know a lot of people are like, do I need to go to the, you know, to the highest post office and make sure about renewing? Some people are preemptively getting form and renewing just so that they can avoid it. if you haven't if you haven't seen something recently you're not likely to get close you should get the notice warning you that you'll be closed going forward so that's all that i know

Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Cause I was like, what the heck? Um, yeah. And then my only other update is, is I do have office hours this Saturday from 10 to noon. And I'll have like a little, I think like later this month, I'll have like a little sign that I'll put out just so that people say drive by can see like, Oh, doing office hours. So anyway, you have things to talk to me about. I'll be here drinking coffee this Saturday from 10 to 12. Come by.

Any other board reports? It was working on the agenda.

Yeah, it was kind of a light week, but we did have a wetlands code subcommittee meeting. Rick is doing the edits and they should be coming back to us because last time we had our meeting, we didn't get through the whole code. But this time we did get through the whole code and then we came up with a few of these glitches like the irrigation meeting to cross over. So hopefully once he finishes those edits, we should be good to move that forward. So we'll keep you posted on that. And when that comes back to us.

Any guesstimate as to when are we hitting the tail board? It depends on when Rick gets it to us.

That really is, but probably September.

We've got site plan back too, right?

I think he might have said that I have to look at it. They're all piling up in the fall.

Yes, exactly. Along with budget, along with CalPERS.

So that is moving forward for people who've been asking. It's essentially a rewrite of the wetlands code because there are now so many edits, it doesn't make sense to claim that it's the same legislation. So that will be coming. There's a cornhole tournament today, a fundraiser. And then, yeah, that's actually all I have for this week.

So, yeah, that's about it. Shelby?

I'm a little out of the loop this week. My parents have been here, and they're taking my kids, so I'm like, I've only been on social media to see what's going on.

All right, then I will make a motion to go into executive session to discuss contract negotiations and employment history of a particular employee. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you everybody.