Town Board - Regular Meeting

to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We always start off if anyone from the public has any comments that they wish to make that aren't already on the agenda or subject to public hearings. Anyone on Zoom? Okay, we're going to rejigger the agenda just a little bit because for the Shelter and Fire Department Country Fair outdoor assembly permit, Liz and I have to recuse ourselves because of relationships that we have with the fire district and department. So we're going to go to the film application.

But actually,

Yeah, Rory is here, but Chief is not. Hi, Rory. I was waiting for Chief of Police to join the meeting.

Oh, he's on now.

Okay. All right. I'll just give a second for him to get up to speed. Okay. All right. So this is for A filming permit, it looks like maximum people would be 11 people on September 15th, which is a Tuesday from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. The description was filming a vehicle driving over the causeway and some interiors via a hard mount. And I had hand, you have a separate piece of paper that I gave you last minute. It's a color printout because in color you could see more of the information. So Rory, I was going to turn it over to you to just describe what's going on and then we can go over concerns and questions that we have.

Yeah, yeah, happy to. And I have a colleague, Eamon, with me as well, who will be present on the filming day too. Do you want to describe your thoughts?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for talking to us today. Yeah, we are doing a shoot for our client, AT&T. And this is just one scene of the video. And what we are thinking of doing is shooting the car. Sorry, let me just talk loud so that you can hear me well on the audio. But we are thinking of just shooting the car on the Ram Island causeway. And what it would basically look like is we would have a car that we were shooting, and then we would have one other car that we were following with. and we would just drive over the causeway, stop in a pullout on the far side, reset, turn around, drive back over the causeway, stop in a pullout again. So this is something that we've done a lot before. And one of the things that we always make sure to do on this is that we are driving at the speed limit. We're not obstructing any traffic. We're not blocking the road. We're just pulling out of the pullout with the two vehicles. We're driving down the causeway. We're stopping in the next pullout. And then we're doing that a couple times.

Following all traffic laws.

Yep, yep. So that's basically the summary of the filming, I guess, as far as the cameras. We have a camera that's mounted securely to the two-inch receiver of the vehicle that's following. And then the other type of shot would just be a shot inside. The cameraman would be sitting in the back seat filming the people in the front seat. And then the final filming would be flying a drone, one of those little DJI drones over the ocean alongside the road, filming the car.

Okay. So then you won't have cameras set up along the road.

No, we weren't planning on having any cameras set up along.

OK. And in the sheet that you sent over, I brought up the GIS picture of that stretch of road. So you were going to be turning around, it looks like, somewhere in this vicinity. And then you also had showing a parking staging area over here.

Amber, if you let me share, I can put their application picture up.

Okay.

Okay.

Yep. And we, we actually did a scouting trip a few weeks ago. So we scouted out where those turnaround spots are and everything.

Are you able to share Jim?

No, it says, um. Oh, there it is. Okay. I know a 2nd, sorry about that.

That's okay. I have it too. So.

You're good, Amber?

Yes, yes. So my question was about this parking staging area on the bottom right hand of the screen.

That's not publicly owned. That's a privately owned person. Right.

And that was my question was, if you were going to do staging, have you gotten permission from the owner of the Rams Head Inn?

Well, and the other end, both ends are privately owned. So both parking and staging areas, I believe Chermontee owns the one to the west, I guess, and Rams Head owns the one to the east. Do I have my directions wrong? But both ends are privately owned property.

Yeah, that's what I was looking for, because I was like, that's Tower Shelter Island. 107 is Tremonti.

And that, I believe, is where the dot is, because it's right before the plantings and the turn.

Amber, can I just... I think, Meg, that area, if they're parking on the harbor side on the interior, that's owned by Cimanti. The piece that they have red-dotted is on the north side of the causeway, and it's just a sand turnaround. It's not even a turnaround. It's just a pull-off on the road, but that's town-owned. That's not Cimanti.

According to the GIS, that is also owned by Cimanti. Yeah.

Yeah, there's like three parcels that are town-owned in a line there, and then Yeah, so it's just a matter. Yeah, it's a little hard to tell because that little area.

Yeah, it's this one. There's one section that's sandwiched between town properties that's Charimonti's. Yes. 107 is Charimonti. On either side is Townhome. So, yeah.

So we just want to make sure you have permission for, you know, driving onto their properties and staging that's going to happen.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that information. And we would definitely get permission anywhere that we were turning around. We use the app Onyx to determine the land designation. So we would definitely make sure to confirm the land designation and turn around. you know, get proper permission for that. And then also I should add that if you have, you know, another turnaround recommended, we're not attached to those turnaround spots.

Is there a spot that's just, I mean, it's weird because it's like that one strip is privately owned, but then we own what's next to it. So it's just a matter of making sure around our property and not Tremonti's property. I'm not sure exactly how to define that because it's a beach.

Yeah. Yeah, we can look in ONIX because that, you know, I mean, I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with ONIX, but it's just a map that shows all of the land designation lines and just kind of makes it easy when you're there. You can see your little GPS dot on it. We could look there and confirm some turnarounds that are on town property.

And I can revise the permit app if you'd rather to make sure the turnaround staging points are all town property.

We just want to be respectful.

Yes, definitely.

So, yeah, and you can also coordinate with either Ken Lewis, our highway superintendent, or Chief Reed. Do either Ken or Chief have any questions or concerns?

Yeah, I have a few just trying to get a feel for. So it's a 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. shoot, so I'm presumptive that you are trying to minimize other vehicles in the shot, right? You don't want any other vehicles in the shot. Are you asking for any road closures during that time?

No road closures. Yeah, I think that we'll be able to just, you know, wait in our pull-off staging area for any vehicles to pass. And it'll be early in the morning, so we don't think that there'll be a lot of traffic. And then we can pull out, drive down, and then stop and do it again. And I think if we have like another vehicle in the background, that's not even a big deal.

So no request for police assistance to close roads. And our big thing always is that you don't obstruct any emergency traffic, you know, police, fire, ambulance. If there's an emergency on Ram Island, we want to make sure we can get out there without an issue.

Of course.

Yes, we definitely follow all the traffic laws.

Is most of the shots being taken by drone? I saw you put a drone pilot's license in the application.

Some of the shots, yes. Yes, I think we wanted to get just one shot following the vehicle down the causeway flying over the water.

Okay.

Thank you, Amber.

Okay. Ready? Any other questions from the board? No, I think as long as they make sure they're on town property and talk to the Rams head about using the .

Any questions from the public?

Oh, Pam? Yeah, I'm sorry, but could you just alert the Ram Island Association about this? because this obviously is going to affect the traffic on that road for three hours on a Tuesday, and you're not really aware of how many people are commuting back and forth on that day. And I'd also have you look into the area where the asphalt is on the south side of the... You're breaking up, Pam.

Just to follow up with Pam too, I really don't see, you know, from our experiences, very limited traffic between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. I think the impact to the Ram Island community is going to be minimal at best. And look, we're very clear that they're not going to inhibit or obstruct traffic in any way.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree, Chief. One thing I'll add as well is the 8 a.m. is including kind of breakdown time. We really like that kind of early morning light look. So I envision we will even be done driving back and forth by 7.30 a.m. I just like to give a little buffer just in case.

Okay, and I'm sorry, is this better? I just want to suggest there is a split rail fence in an asphalted area on the south side of the causeway at the base of the hill by the Rams Head Inn. That was put in as public parking for the town landing at Middle Harvey Road years ago. So they could certainly use that. I realize that the Rams Head Inn has put a chain there to block that off, but that is town-owned property, and I'd ask you to look into that as far as staging, and that could probably solve the problem there. Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you, Pam.

That's great information. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Pam. I actually remember when we were scouting, seeing that and then seeing the fence and thinking it was off-limits. So that's very helpful with the Onyx app.

Any other public? Yeah, if you would just touch back with the... Town Clerk, after you've had a chance to either, you know, chat with our highway superintendent or chief of police to figure out exactly where you're going to stage the parking or give letters of permission if you're using any private property. And then we can go ahead and put this on for August 31st to grant the permit.

Great. Do you, so the town council meeting on the 31st, then we'll, okay. So I'll make sure that's in my calendar as well.

wonderful thank you so much thank you for your time thank you thank you guys thanks all right so the next we'll go back to um we needed you here benjamin for forum oh okay for the outdoor assembly um application for the south island country fair fire department so yeah

Right, we needed 3, so this is an outdoor assembly application. for the Shelter Island Fire Department to host the Country Fair. This is something that historically had been happening every year with the craft fair and then there was a little break and they started up again last year. It's the same layout as last year, it looks like. It'll be on, I mean, August 22nd and the setup and breakdown the day before and a couple of days before and a couple of days after, but it's all on fire department property. So over by the firehouse and the side yard. They're looking for a noise exemption. And that's pretty much it. So it will be going from. 1130 to 4 on the 22nd so it coordinates with the craft fair and the green expo all happening at the same time so it's where everybody can go for lunch to play games um it's fundraiser for the fire department um there will be food prizes games beverages sorry um Do you guys have any questions for the fire department?

No.

No. All right. Do you have any concerns or issues with the application? Nope. Chief and Ken, do you guys have any comments regarding this?

We're good. It's a simple day for us. We've done it many years.

Yeah, I have no problem with it. They're self-contained on their own property over there too.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. So, if we have no issues, we'll put this on for approval. Probably before it will probably have to be at a special because. Yeah, we're doing it today, otherwise the next meeting is after the event. So, all right. Thank you. We can have Amber and the list come back in.

Thank you.

The next agenda was the irrigation code. Because as I was reviewing it on Friday, we thought we were going to set the public hearing. One of the things I noticed was we had one undecided item. Okay, so it was section 82-5C7, which is an application form with an application fee and the amount established from time to time by the time board. Then we went on to add penalty language and we need to decide what that penalty is going to be. Is it going to be a set amount that we wanted to put in there? A multiplier, like, you know, the application fee times 5, 2, whatever. Or do we want to say, set by resolution?

Like, sometimes I'm sorry, I was just going to say, sometimes it's easier to have a separate resolution.

Yeah, I would change. I think that's I mean, now, like. Dealing with, like, the building code thing is like, I think set by resolution is the move.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I sort of thought we still have to do it, but like, on Friday, I did like, Shelby and I did not want to be the deciders as we were trying to get the agenda. Yeah. So.

Absolutely, if not that 30 lashes.

Okay, no, we will walk in the fight too. We will fix that language and on the 31st, we will set the public hearing. Awesome. Okay, that was an easy 1 on wireless communication plan. We got the final draft and I circulated it to everybody. Did anyone have any comments to. make to it. I didn't see anything, so they would like to issue this final so that. Yeah, I didn't care with it. Yeah, that's fine. I proofed it against my other changes and didn't have anything, so I just wanted to make sure. I have another meeting with them on Friday, so we should be able to close out this master plan part and then talk about whether or not we want to implement things and how that would work.

More on that after they finalize this, I wish we had more survey response, but. Yeah, yeah, it was indicative of, I think the sentiment.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. Anyways. What was it? 72 response or 74 responses?

Yeah. Okay. Okay, moving right along.

Um, last night we had Sullivan application, but it was straightforward. It's. We're moving the place. My thinking was just our usual. You know, restrictions conditions that we put on any.

You know, I'll hit repair.

Yeah, Thomas, whatever is in our standard language, unless somebody has something else to add.

I didn't see anything else when I looked at it last night that I thought was easy to add.

No, it's straightforward. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just glad they're doing it because we have the bulk right next door and starting to fail in that corner is eroding our bulkhead. So they appreciate them making the corrections.

So we will put that on for August 31st. I think we have a new water 40. Let's start one application. I think the things here, like our public comments for the most part were about the driving on private property. So now we have a plan that shows utilizing the easement, which the town is entitled to use to gain access to that property instead of driving across the neighbors lawn. Um, there are a couple of varied utility lines that Thomas can independently work on, um, you know, proper easements and things like that that any normal, you know, public utilities would have. And site plan review is about the building that's taking place on there. So I think.

I think we're okay to approve them upgrading the filtration system while we work on clearing the easement and getting them access because that's kind of the town's issue. And that's an issue regardless of what we move forward with our project to resolve it. So I think that we can approve the site plan and they can get started on working on the upgrades while we work on the easement and getting the driveway moved. Yeah.

He then recommended going to the county for approval because the entrance is off of a county road. Is that something we take care of or has been taken care of in his report?

Who said that?

Reid. additionally it is worth noting that the according to state law the applicant must apply to suffolk county commission of public works and obtain a separate county 239-f approval for expansion of use on a property served by a county road i don't think it's an expansion of use isn't it isn't it the same it's yeah i know i know the three's take on it yeah

Disagreeing with Reed. It just, it seems like they're continuing to do their same use just with better quality water.

Is there anything we need to do to prepare to clear the easement? Along your bat considerations, et cetera, et cetera. Anything that we need to modify in public?

Sorry, just to answer Albert's question, I did talk to Rudy and Joe Fenora about this, and Joe's response was that the Water Authority will apply for this prior to beginning the work.

Okay.

So I think it happens outside of this site plan process.

So we can just put that in as a condition, subject to obtaining that. but yes i guess um ken since it's our easement over there um highway department would be responsible for clearing that easement i guess yeah i mean we've always maintained that area back there anyway

for the water i mean it's not much it's mowing mostly but if there was any if there's anything they need to remove in order to uh they'll they're they'll take down the trees etc if there's a tree that needs to be removed oh suffolk county water authority will yeah okay i mostly just we mostly just mow it they've done all the other When they've done work back there, when they did the generator work, et cetera, they took care of some of the tree trimming and had their own crews there to do it.

Okay, but for the easement, that would be on us, right? Because there's two trees in the easement that we'd have to take down in order to gain access.

I have a good relationship with them. I think they would take the trees down for us. If they don't, I can contract it. Okay.

I think what I'm, what I was trying to say is it's within your purview to make sure that that happens appropriately.

Is there any DC permitting involved or are we in the clear?

We might have to wait for the window.

Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah. That's coming up. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just acknowledging that. I mean, you've done it before.

Yeah, well, we have to do it anyway. Like, even if we don't, if we weren't to approve this project, we have to fix the fact that we're driving over. The neighbor's property.

Oh, so it's.

Yeah, I think Ken has to make it happen. So, I don't think it needs to be a condition of this that we can just move forward, but. He has to abide by the DEC law, not disturbing longer deaths.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, the window is for tree removals, November 1st through March 31st. So, yeah.

Yeah, so I think we just need to communicate with the neighborhood. We've been driving over that. We will rectify it as soon as possible.

Right. And they will give us the grace to continue to wait until the allows us access access our property. They complained.

They did at the public hearing. Yeah. The only thing then, I mean, if you really think we do need to put in something about the true clearing on the easement.

Just bring it up for discussion. Don't feel strongly either way.

That's up to you guys, but I don't think it's necessary. I'll coordinate with the water authority. I know when the window is. If we have to take the trees down, we'll take care of it. I don't think we have to overthink it.

Perfect. That was the only thing the Suffolk County right-of-way approval is all I have for a condition.

Yeah, that sounds fine. Okay. All right.

We'll go on for August 31st. What is it for agenda items? We can go around the table.

I can start with the my notes. I held office hours this Saturday. It was great to see everybody. I also have office hours Thursday morning, so 10 to 12. My other update was around the PoetsAC Task Force we met this week. And Chief and I are going to work on getting together to He already has a bulk of like a guidance document, and we're going to kind of partner together on a communication plan to kind of put in with that to bring to our next meeting, which the school is going to join us. We're still talking about the legislation. One of the big things that we're waiting on is like, as some of you may be aware, that our congressperson Lolota had said that he would remove federal funding for any folks. who passed it. And so I know, Amber, that you are having a meeting with him Wednesday. So hopefully we can get some a little bit more of an understanding as to what takes exception to and what the deal is with that so we have all the information before we come back to this board with a recommendation my guesses is like that's kind of been a obviously quite a big outstanding item yeah um so but my guess is the next meeting the task force would probably be our last one and it would be coming back with the recommendation um we had cpf on Monday, so a couple of, so we were, you know, the mud work containing debacle continues, but I think one of the, probably the most interesting piece of it is we had a preservationist, Robert Harper, out to see the Cartwright property and It basically was trying to determine, is it historic? How old is it? Try to answer some of those questions. So I actually went out there with Robert and Thuy and Chuck. Very interesting, crawled around in the attics. We pulled up carpet and looked at this like measured floorboards and anyway, very cool stuff. We're also able to get some information from the History Museum. You can watch that video to kind of get the full presentation from robert um very interesting the house is from the 1870s um so it definitely opens some questions of just like you know it was robert's Point of view that it was, in fact, historic. So what does that mean? Um, is something that CPF will. Take up, um, so to me, and I had Chuck and I had some great conversations. Um, and so they're going to be bringing someone over from South Hampton who uses a CPF. Um, with historic properties, uh, just to kind of give some guidance as to how they. Think about it and, you know, how they've employed, like, CPF funds and kind of how those things work together. Because obviously we haven't. So more to be revealed. Like, what are the uses of CPF funds? How do they use those properties? Let's see. The hazard plan looks like it's finalized and ready to be adopted. So that's cool. That came through. And then the other thing is, is continuing to kind of work with the building department on just some of those final items around building fees. So meeting about figuring out the contractor stickers and potentially like a shared sticker machine to kind of hopefully take care of with any luck by 27 like uh contractor stickers maybe some the transfer six and uh the beach um so kind of looking at sticker machines and all that the other thing that um Mary Ellen and um Reid and I had a great conversation about was standardizing the reporting coming out of the building department so that it matches the fee structure so that when we consider fee changes, we can actually understand what the budget impact is going to be. So we met for a while yesterday to just talk about what is actually needed in their system to actually implement that. So we'll be meeting again. But I think that it is plausible that we should have that at least set up as we go into 27. It won't help us for this round, which we'll have to do all manually. But my hope is that it will help for any... Future building department or boards to be able to kind of figure out. Oh, if you change the fence permit by 2 dollars, what, you know, to be actually able to figure out what the impact is going to be. So just some structural. Things that we're working on over there, so more to be revealed, but that's that's what I've got.

I just had WAC yesterday. Essentially the drop conditions remain the same. They're preparing for the Green Expo, which is August 22nd, along with a bunch of other town committees. So it's the same time as the craft fair. It's pretty much adjacent to the craft fair on the school property. So we highly recommend that everybody show up and talk to our different committees and boards and Interesting groups of people, and that's kind of all I have actually. So, let's see.

You're in check. Likewise, Bo asked the committee members for any asks for the upcoming budget season. The educational report, the, I guess it was quite an archery tournament. the youngsters i guess they came down to multiple sudden deaths to determine a winner pretty exciting anyway the classes went very well there is an adult archery tournament and the next adult class starts this thursday actually now that i'm looking at the dates um os is going to schedule a hunter's meeting in september And there was he he talked about, I guess it because of the article in the report of the North Haven in the four poster program, but we'll address that in the meeting. how difficult that hurdle would be to really cross, to bring back the four poster program, to get everybody to sign up for it. And really to have the efficacy that we would need, we would need all the four posters that we had previously over 30. to have them deployed really to have an impact it just it's a huge hurdle um obviously interest out of what came out of North Haven but they're a much smaller town and much uh geographically much smaller so the public to want to do it yeah that's kind of the thing you know the public needs to want to kill all the dicks one person yeah in a given area I don't know. It would be a heavy lift. The only other thing, I had a question. I don't know if it's for you, Thomas. The RFP for the comp plan, what's the status of that?

We're going to go over that in an executive session to make sure we're, like, it's recognized. Oh, okay.

All right.

Thanks. That's all I have. I just had a deer in check with Albert. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, we had CAC last week. They're still working on the mission statement. They did go over the nature, the different nature preserves. And so just because not everybody knows, and I always forget which properties, the properties that are actually in the Shelter Island Nature Preserve, which is not CPF required, is Sachem's Woods, Ice Pond, the Garcia property, Ram Island, Shell Beach, Wade's Beach, and Dickerson Park. So they went through and walked all of them to see what needs clean up and they'll coordinate with the highway department on anything like that. But it's good for them to do that. They're also working on getting ready for the Green Expo. So that was that. And then Meg and I had a meeting with people from Northwell. Peconic Bay Medical Center, just to kind of understand better what they do and their presence in the community and how they're trying to expand and bring their hospital up. And I actually had reason to be there to visit someone about a week and a half ago. It was the first time I'd been in that facility and was really impressed with the renovation work and things that they've done. So we're going to continue to just chat with them to just understand what resources they have within the community. And as we start to look at the initiative that Meg's been working on with Claire Medical, if there's any way that we can, you know, coordinate with them to partner on something. So it was a productive meeting and keep moving forward on that front.

They've made a lot of impressive improvements to the hospital right up in Riverhead. So it's kind of, it's nice to have another place, like if we have emergency situations where we can send people. So I think it's going to be helpful to have them pretty close by.

I forgot one thing that I just realized I saw in my email that Fran wanted me to mention. The housing needs assessment is live. I'll put it up on my social. I'm sending it to Shelby to put on the town social. But just as a note, there is one for individuals and we actually have a business one as well. So there's actually two surveys. So basically one is you experience housing needs as a person. And then, like I said, also for our businesses. So we'll be pushing that out to the chamber. And Brand has a whole plan, which we're going to talk about in the Community Housing Board this week of, you know, they're going to be out at events, getting people To fill it out will have paper copies, which will be here at town hall will also be at the library. So you'll start seeing you'll start seeing those out. It's also going to be translated. So it'll be available both English and Spanish. So anyway, they have been working so hard on this. So really excited to get out there.

Good.

So it's not live on our website yet. No, literally. I just got the link, but I know that Shelby's out and Christina's out. So, and yeah. Yeah. So once, once everybody's back from vacations, it will be up, but I think he has like a letter to the editor in this week and, and I have the links and I'll be putting up on my socials too. So you'll start to see it everywhere. Also at the green expo, lots of housing board members out there with footboards. So. Great. Thank you.

All right, we're going to adjourn the work session and go into a special meeting.

You've got to read again, I think.

Yes, okay. I'll let Benjamin read the resolution.

We're at Chief Max Pelletier on behalf of the Shelter Island Fire Department. 49 North Ferry Road has submitted an outdoor assembly application requesting permission to hold a county fair on August 22nd, 2026 from 1130 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the grounds of the center firehouse. And whereas, said has also requested an exemption from the noise ordinance and whereas said application has been reviewed and discussed by the police department highway department and town board at their august 11 2026 work session and all required documents have been submitted now therefore be it resolved the town board does hereby approve

the outdoor assembly application and noise exemption request for the shelter island fire department so move second do a roll call vote um brock williams abstain margaret larson hi benjamin diet hi albert dixon hi elizabeth hanley that's stan motion boris make a motion to close the special meeting Second. All in favor? Aye. We go back into the work session and then we'll make a motion to go into executive session to discuss contract negotiations.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. Thank you, everybody.

If you can zoom on, just so I can share on the big screen website. Once we kick everybody off.