Town Board Meeting – December 20, 2022
OFFICIALS PRESENT: Police Chief Rickard, BI J. Musial, Attorney D. Bavoso.
Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Supervisor Howell called the meeting to order at 7:30pm.
7:30pm SUPERVISOR HOWELL opened the public hearing for the RESTORE NY grant:
Public hearing is for the RESTORE NY grant application with CCE. Legal ad is on the table.
Lucy Joyce spoke. The grant application has evolved and we did not have everything in order to submit it for Oct. 11th. This one is due Jan. 7th. She gave some background: Feb. 2011 the town closed on the Bilinski farm including the arched roof dairy barn which is what we are talking about tonight. The town’s intentions were to lease the property to CCE for a 4H park. Sept. 2013, they secured an approved site plan from the planning board and the 100-year lease with the town board. At that time, the dairy barn and the area where the main entrance was not included in the original lease. The town was holding that for town purposes. Following that election, the new town board was uncomfortable with the long-term lease. This concluded with CCE purchasing the 54 acres including the barn and part of the walking path. The town still wanted control of the barn so part of the negotiations include din the deed that the town holds an irrevocable license & easement to both the barn and the walking path. As the holder of the license, “the town shall maintain the barn in at least as good condition as presently it exists.” It’s been known since 2014 when the wood siding was installed, it was clear that the roof was leaking & in need of repair. All these years later, the roof hasn’t been repaired and this jeopardizes the entire structure. The barn was built in the 1950’s and obsolete. Rehab is expensive however it’s beautiful iconic complements the town history and provides a sense of community. NYS revised the grant program – called Restore NY Communities – for which the barn is eligible. The grant is available for projects involving the demolition, construction rehabilitation which is what we’ll be doing or reconstruction of vacant, abandoned and surplus properties. A municipality must be the applicant. CCE proposes the town apply for the restored grant funding for the purpose of rehabilitating and repurposing the barn for CCE’s gleaning hub. She had copies of the proposal for anyone that anted to have one. She respectfully requested that the town contribute towards the match in kind. This would include work by the highway employees and town equipment.
Councilman Carey: who has the electric going to the building currently?
Lucy Joyce: there is no electric – there are no utilities. There is no water either.
Ed Fairweather: the gleaning program actually does about 10,000 pounds of product per week during the harvesting season. This is run by a few staff people but predominantly a volunteer program that has served the county well over the years. It has proven to be an excellent program. Most farmers really support it.
Brian Lattimer: Is this a privately run organization? What is the total cost you were looking for the town to contribute?
Lucy Joyce: We are going to submit the application for $1.2 million. CCE is sub-governmental, unincorporated, 501c3. We’re very complicated. I’m not asking for cash.
Julie Musial: where is the gleaning program out of now?
Lucy Joyce: right now, we operate outside our office.
No further comments.
MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC HEARING:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to close public hearing at 7:44pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT PRIOR MEETING MINUTES:
MOTION offered Councilwoman Davis 2nd Councilman Jennings that minutes of the December 5, 2022 meeting are accepted as submitted. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
CORRESPONDENCE:
1. Supervisor’s report for November 2022
2. Supervisor’s budget modifications
3. Corres from HV Water re: flushing mains on 12/20/2022
4. 2023 Holiday schedule for Orange County transfer stations
5. Letter from Ramapo Catskill Library System re: 2023 library services agreement
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COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Councilwoman Davis: Planning board meets tomorrow night at 7pm.
Councilman Carey: He thanked Otisville Fire for doing the Santa run. He asked for future HV notices to be forwarded to him so he can get them on FB.
Councilman Furman: ZBA will meet on Jan. 4th. Screens for the HV sewer should be here next week. The motors and parts are in. The boxes are almost complete.
Councilman Jennings: 142 library cards have been issued. Next village meeting will be Jan 6 at 7pm.
POLICE DEPARTMENT:
Chief Rickard: the CPR/AED/1st AID training was tonight. They are almost done. Councilman Carey: the thing we were talking about with the access cards – he is going to reverse everything. Jan. 5 is when that is supposed to happen. After that, hopefully our card issues are resolved.
VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE:
Trustee Lattimer: the Santa run was a success. Jan. 3 is the village workshop meeting. Jan 6 is the village board meeting. Merry Christmas.
MOTION TO APPROVE THE 2023 FUEL AGREEMENTS WITH VILLAGE OF OTISVILLE, HOWELLS FIRE DISTRICT AND CORNELL COOPERATIVE EXTENSION:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to approve the 2023 fuel agreements with the Village of Otisville, Howells fire district & Cornell Coop. Extension and authorize the town supervisor to sign said agreements. (copies will be available in the town clerk’s office)All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO SET THE DATE FOR THE 2023 RE-ORGANIZATION MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilwoman Davis 2nd Councilman Carey to set date for the 2023 reorganization meeting as January 3, 2023 in the town board meeting room located at 1706 Route 211 West, Otisville, NY at 7:30pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Jennings, Davis, Furman; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE SUPERVISOR’S MONTHLY REPORT:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Jennings to approve the November 2022 Supervisor’s report as presented. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Furman, Jennings, Davis; carried.
MOTION TO ACCEPT DOG SHELTER CONTRACTS WITH PET’S ALIVE, MIDDLETOWN HUMANE SOCIETY & PORT JERVIS HUMANE SOCIETY:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilwoman Davis to approve the contracts and authorize the Supervisor to sign the contracts with Pet’s Alive, Middletown Humane Society and the Port Jervis Humane Society. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO APPROVE SUPERVISOR’S BUDGET MODIFICATIONS:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to approve the following:
Decrease A7140.4 by $3,600.00 and Increase A7550.4 by $3,600.00
Decrease A9010.8 by $5,000.00, decrease A9030.8 by $13,500.00 and increase A9015.8 by $18,500.00
Increase B1560 by $62,000.00 and Increase B3620.4 by $62,000.00
Decrease B2550 by $7,500.00 and Increase B3620.4 by $7,500.00.
(these modifications are to balance individual fund lines for the closing of the 2022 fiscal year.)
All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO AUDIT THE CLAIMS:
MOTION offered Councilman Jennings 2nd Councilman Furman to audit the claims Abstracts #50 & #49:
ABSTRACT 49:
GENERAL A: #625-646 $ 77,802.82
GENERAL B: #114-118 $ 6,266.04
HIGHWAY: #198-210 $ 84,263.03
SEWER: #103-104 $ 1,468.94 AND
ABSTRACT 50:
GENERAL A: #647-662 $ 24,493.65
GENERAL B: #119 $ 145.00
HIGHWAY: #211-218 $ 2,096.47
SEWER: #105-106 $ 242.49
ARPA: #11 $ 2,082.30
All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings, Carey; carried.
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PUBLIC COMMENT:
Brian Lattimer: how is our progress or lack thereof – with the proposed baseball fields? Supervisor: the engineer reviewed the submission from the little league engineer (Fusco) – Our engineering firm (Fuller) has no reason why the field could not stay on the same side as the rest of the fields without having any formal testing. Based on drawings and layout of the property, they don’t see a reason without having the in-depth testing done to have it across the street. Lattimer: what did he say about across the street or is that off the table with all of you? Supervisor: the last time we all discussed it the town had felt that it would be best placed for the fact of having the children not crossing the road multiple times on the same side as the other existing fields. It seemed that your report had comments of drainage and lack of soil conditions to have it on the opposite side of the road. Lattimer: it’s safer across the street also. Supervisor: how is it safe for the kids to have to cross the street more. Lattimer: they don’t. They’re going to be parking so….Supervisor: so, they’re not going to go to the concession stand? They’re not going to the bathroom? Lattimer: probably. You probably increase traffic by putting it on the same side of the road. Because now, I don’t know if you thought of this, you have nowhere to park. You have to put another crosswalk in. You don’t have any of that there. I don’t know the last time any of you guys have been down that street. Supervisor: adding a 6th field makes it more dangerous? Lattimer: because now you’re going down a blank corner, it’s not level ground. You all know this. We know there’s an issue being wet. The original proposal was that the little league was gonna take care of building the field without a cost to the taxpayers. Putting it over there – do any of you move dirt for a living? Not to be that guy but I’m going to assume not. I don’t either. So I take engineering and people that do that – their opinion. That’s what matters to me. From what I understand, it was easier and cheaper to go across the street & safer because now you’re keeping everybody over there. There’s already a crosswalk there. You guys had mentioned you’re already going to be instituting something else to make it even safer yet. So, I don’t understand why you’d want to elongate and create another parking issue because there’s nothing there now. You’ll have to install another crosswalk. We wanted to alleviate the issue of foul balls. You put that field on the same side of the street where everything is now – you still have that issue. There’s no way to build the field otherwise because of the way the sun comes in. Putting it across the street also you’re not dealing with a foul ball. Now you’re dealing with a one in a million home run shot by a young child – it’s almost impossible. You alleviate almost 100% of a ball coming from that field into the street. And, you have everybody parking over there where they’re already parking now. Unless you have another agenda with that field that I am not privy to or anyone else – I really don’t see the logic of elongating the field down that road to increase more potential hazards, increase more work for everyone…. I fail to see it. Deanna: crossing the street, it doesn’t make any sense that being your only rationale for not putting git on the other side. Every spring. We’re all parking there. Supervisor: Brian, you mentioned parking as an issue. So if you put a baseball field in the middle of a parking lot, what’s that do for the parking? Lattimer: it’s not going to be in the middle of the parking lot. People park where they park – to the right of that entrance – some to the left. To the left is where we would like that field. Because you still have that gigantic parking lot and now you have a field further down, you’re still using that crosswalk, you still have the parking. There are 7 fields including T-ball. The community is growing. The increase in people joining and playing in the LL program. The way everything was built down there – there’s not enough parking on the same side of the street which was the intended purpose on each side of ‘A’ field and ‘B’ field, to have all the cars stay there. Its grown and people now flooded what was once referred to as a million-dollar parking lot across the street which creates the said traffic. If you put a field over there, you’re keeping everybody over there.
Julie Musial: I was a coach for a long time and I was also on the baseball board for many years. That field is super wet. When you do practices or whatever, the kids were hurting themselves. Lattimer: that was the whole rationale. You guys had mentioned yourselves that it was a messy field. I truly, truly fail to see why you think it is safer on the same side as opposed to across the street. You keep everything condensed. You don’t have to add a crosswalk. You already have it there. That road is our athletic complex. We have everything there.
Duane Martel: I said I would volunteer also to build the new field. I would volunteer my equipment. It’s much easier to do it on a flat, level field for me volunteering my time than to do it in that gully. I know the area very well and that is always wet. The drainage that would have to go in, elevation change of the land; it’s just not conducive. Lattimer: there would be a massive amount of earth moving over there to install a field.
Alison Miller: originally, the LL was going to take on the cost of doing this, correct? Because we have people who are about going to volunteer and do it so is that still the intention wherever it ends up being and moving forward if we have another field, what is the cost to the town? Lattimer: I brought that to their attention last time. We can do that with these gentlemen here and others across the street. On that side of the road, if we were to put it there, which we need another field but if that’s where they really deem appropriate, I asked them if they would be able to help do that with finances because that would just be astronomical. I think that’s in the report the amount of money it would cost. We are trying not to put the burden on anybody that lives in the town. Julie Musial: Matt, at one time we had a parks committee and Dean & I were on that & kind of headed it. We did originally propose 2 fields across the street in that parking area because at the time there were a lot of kids in baseball but then it died down. Now the numbers are back up which is awesome. He may even have those original things that we had gone over.
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Councilman Carey: just to add to this question, I realize that the LL has come to this board and asked each and every one of us how we feel about putting a field on the other side of the street. We voted. It was voted upon and the vote was nay it’s not gonna happen across the street. However, that works changing anyone’s mind, if anyone feels differently about it, how does it work now that we already voted on this? Lattimer: when did you guys actually vote on this? Because it was just kind of an opinion thrown out – what you guys thought. No vote was actually..at least when I was here. Carey: then I take back what I just said. We talked about how each one of us felt. No actual vote. You’re correct. I know we were waiting on an engineers report. I guess we got what we were looking for. Deanna: what did your engineer say? Lattimer: he said there were no findings for the same side of the street. But he didn’t say anything for across the street. Supervisor: without the report from Fusco mentioned not using the same side as the existing field because of poor drainage of the area. Fuller’s office said that would have to be supported by soil testing and perk testing. So, that is a theory but there’s no data to support it. At that point without having any of that testing done, there’s no reason to exclude that from that same side location from being used other than if it’s a matter of cost from without having actual technical data from those testing’s, it would appear that the flatter location across the street was used because it would be cheaper & faster to do. Lattimer: correct. Supervisor: so, not anything to do with parking or kids crossing the street or anything other than it was just dollars & cents. To put dollars/cents ahead of some kid walking across the street which we had brought to our attention from Mr. Cutler who’s here, I think you’re putting dollars/cents ahead of children which that’s my opinion. Lattimer: you’re out of your mind if you think that’s what I’m doing. I’m the one that put those barriers down there to prevent people from hitting the dugout. Supervisor: the point I’m getting at Brian is if I park across the street…Lattimer: You’re still gonna cross the street Matt. You’re still crossing. You’re gonna add to the parking lot issue putting git on the same side of the street. Cutler: is there another agenda with that side of the road? Supervisor: no, there’s not. I’m just saying, if I park there with my kids, I go across the street now, they play their game, they go to the concession stand, they use the bathrooms, they’re done. You cross the street; you get in the car and you go home. Well now you park the car, you play the game – oh I gotta go to the bathroom, okay, you go to the bathroom you come back to the gate. Now you want to go get your soda at the end, you go across the street, you come back in the car when I cross the street four times instead of 2. To me, that’s where I see personally – I am 1 of 5 people here. If I cross the street 4 times in a day, we’re prone to get run over by a car than if I cross it once in a day. Musial: what if they have a crossing guard type of a situation; part of your volunteer thing? Lattimer: almost every time I go down there, I throw cones out at those crosswalks all the time. I try to put cones in the middle of the street. It does work for the most part. The issue is the foul ball. It’s not just people stopping & looking both ways then crossing. It’s when a child goes after a foul ball which is what you are going to continue to do if you put that field on the same side of the street. It’s what I’m trying to avoid. Councilwoman Davis: why are the children running after a foul ball? Why aren’t adults running after a foul ball? Lattimer: does your child run after a foul ball? Deanna: do you have children? Davis: yes, I have 2. Deanna: they’re unsafe. They’re impulsive. Davis: the parents need to tell their children no. And, a parent should go get the foul ball. This is not a perfect world however we can darn well try and adults can step up. Lattimer: that’s why I even asked about guiderails. Discussion. Lattimer: we have a good relationship with FOTOS right now. We were building that field back up and we were helping rejuvenate that field to the point where we have teams going down there and practicing on it. That field is small enough right now to where it’s not really a game field. Hopefully, we can make it a game field. We’ve already made arrangements to bring porta potties down there. There’s no running water down there or electric. I can do the same thing in the meantime with a porta potty across the street. They’re not that expensive. I can find a solution to just about anything. I hate sitting on a problem & having people just sit on the problem. Find a solution. I can find you a solution. Councilman Furman: I can tell you for sure Brian that none of us are sitting on this. We’re trying to find the best option for both parties. So, when everybody says we’re sitting on something, they’re absolutely wrong. Carey: let’s backtrack, when you guys came to us, you were willing to do all of the work for the field. The big thing you were looking for in the future was doing a fence. Lattimer: we might not even need that because I might be able to have something with Gerald Ketcham to help us out with a donation. Carey: I’m speaking for myself. I’m 1 of 5. The issue with people barreling down the road pretty fast obviously needs to be addressed. You put cones out. I think that works. Other stuff can be done. Signage, whether it be a couple other ideas, I realize we can’t have a police officer sit there the entire time. Personally, I don’t have any issue where the field goes. As long as the part is addressed to slow people down which I know has been going on for years. I don’t have an issue with it going across the street. The fencing issue we can look at in the future. Furman: I’d like to look at those plans from the parks committee. How soon are you guys wanting to start. Lattimer: we were hoping to break ground before the snow falls. You guys are the ones helping us build it. Supervisor: with the new information, proposed by the parks committee at some point, we’ll see what that is.
MOTION TO ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to enter into executive session at 8:26pm to discuss a contractual matter with the attorney & the building department. All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings, Carey; carried.
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MOTION TO RECONVENE THE REGULAR MEETING FROM EXECUTIVE SESSION:
MOTION offered Councilwoman Davis 2nd Councilman Carey to reconvene the regular meeting from executive session at 8:56pm. THERE WAS NO ACTION TAKEN IN THIS EXECUTIVE SESSION. All in favor: Howell, Davis, Furman, Jennings, Carey; carried.
MOTION TO SET THE 2023 TOWN BOARD MEETING SCHEDULE:
MOTION offered Councilman Carey 2nd Councilman Furman to set the 2023 town board meeting dates as the 1st and 3rd Mondays each month with the following exceptions: Jan 3rd (due to New Year’s Day), Jan 17th (due to Martin Luther King Day), Feb 21st (due to President’s Day), Jun 20th (due to Juneteenth day) & SEPT 5 th (due to Labor Day). All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
MOTION TO AUTHORIZE UNPAID LEAVE FOR EMPLOYEE #15 FOR THE 1ST 2 WEEKS IN JANUARY:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to approve 2 weeks unpaid leave of absence for employee #15 from January 1 through January 14, 2023. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
BOARD COMMENTS:
Councilman Furman: Merry Christmas and happy new year.
Councilman Jennings: Happy holidays.
Councilman Carey: Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas.
Councilman Howell: no comments.
Supervisor Howell: I attended the Port Jervis public library board meeting this morning. We have not been presented a contract renewal for 2023. They are in the negotiations process. We are awaiting that from the library system. The library board did vote to extend the current contract & cards for library services through January 31, 2023. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas.
MOTION TO ADJOURN MEETING:
MOTION offered Councilman Furman 2nd Councilman Carey to adjourn the meeting at 9:00pm. All in favor: Howell, Carey, Davis, Furman, Jennings; carried.
The re-organization meeting is scheduled for January 3, 2023 at 7:30pm at Town Hall.
Respectfully submitted, Kathleen A. Myers, RMC, Town Clerk
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