HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-10-23 - TB TOWN OF ULYSSES
SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING
October 23 , 2006
Present : Supervisor Douglas Austic ; Town Council Roxanne Marino, Don Ellis, Rod
Ferrentino and Lucia Tyler; Town Clerk Marsha L . Georgia; Deputy Supervisor Richard
Coogan; and Town Attorney Bruce Wilson .
Mr. Austic called the meeting to order at 7 pm .
Ms . Marino moved, seconded by Mr. Ellis the following :
BE IT RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Ulysses adjourn to
executive session to interview applicants for the attorney position .
Mr. Austic aye
Mr. Ferrentino aye
Mr. Ellis aye
Ms . Tyler aye
Ms . Marino aye
Adopted
The meeting reconvened at 9pm .
Others Present : Tompkins County Legislator Jim Dennis , Tammy Morse, Kurt McMillen,
Stephen Wampler reporter WHCU, Village Trustees Rose Hilbert and David Filiberto,
Ithaca Journal Reporter Tiffany Edwards, Free Press Reporter Bill Chaisson, and Don
Schlather.
Mr. Austic asked if the Board wanted to make a decision about an attorney or wait until
another time.
Ms . Tyler said she would make a motion .
Mr. Ferrentino said before a motion is made wouldn ' t it be a benefit to the Board to have
a little bit more dialog as a Board and call clients for recommendations . Mr. Ferrentino
would like to do a little bit more homework before this important decision is made.
Mr. Austic would like to contact different references before making a decision .
A discussion took place about what questions would be asked and when could they be
discussed before the next Board meeting.
Mr. Wilson will be leaving shortly after the November Board meeting.
Ms . Tyler moved, seconded by Mr. Ellis to approve to hire Mariette Geldenhuys as the
town attorney.
Mr. Austic still thinks that references should be checked and also checks with the
municipalities that they have done work for.
Mr. Ferrentino agreed with Mr. Austic .
The other Board members felt the Board had enough information and references from the
2 applicants .
A vote was called .
Mr. Austic nay
Mr. Ferrentino nay
Ms . Tyler aye
Ms . Marino aye
Mr. Ellis aye
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Adopted .
Mr. Wilson will get together with Ms . Geldenhuys and work out a contract and go
through other files that he has .
Mr. Austic asked what else the Board wanted to discuss tonight.
Ms . Marino said she wanted to clarify what day they are meeting for the budget
workshop .
The budget workshop is now scheduled for Thursday October 26 , 2006 at 9 : 30 am .
MAP, PLAN AND REPORT
Mr. Austic introduced and moved, seconded by Mr. Ferrentino the following :
WHEREAS , The Town of Ulysses has contracted with Barton & Loguidice, LLP
to conduct a feasibility study for the proposed Water District # 5 and the study has
been completed and filed with the town board, and
WHEREAS , Said study indicates that the proposal is feasible both economically
and from an engineering standpoint, and
WHEREAS , If completed District 5 when combined with District 3 are
compatible with the moderate pressure engineering zone and other areas of the
town may not be included due to the pressure differential which exists, and
WHEREAS , A 30 year zero interest loan has been pre approved for funding from
EFC , and
WHEREAS , The office of Senator George C . Winner Jr. has awarded a grant to
fund the total amount of the district map , plan and report, now therefore be it
RESOLVED , that the Town Board of the Town of Ulysses contract with B &L to
complete the map , plan and report (MPR) for the proposed Water District # 5 as
per the scope of service agreement sent to the town board, and be it further
RESOLVED , the MPR when completed will be used as a basis for the formation
of the proposed water district and to determine the need for further studies to
investigate the needs of other areas of the town for municipal water service .
Mr. Austic called for discussions .
The following is Mr. Ellis ' statement transcribed verbatim :
I think the plan as it exists has way too many weaknesses to be approved at this time . It
needs to be reexamined a lot of good information here . The analysis that has been done
by numerous people in the community by all of us has added a lot to the matter of having
Water District #5 . My perspective at this point is that we could begin from where we are
and go ahead and in a short time, meaning a year or two, have a Water District #5 that
was really superior to this . Some of the substantial weaknesses in it are that it doesn ' t
serve the community as made up of primarily people who live here, have a home, and
live in a house or a dwelling of some type . If you look at the plan as proposed, while it is
very helpful in some very good ways to a number of institutions and commercial interests
in the community, all of which I would like to see supported, it does a very poor job of
serving the residential portion of the community. The numbers float around a little, but,
it ' s effectively about 190 single family dwellings and about 30 multiple family dwellings
that are directly served by this water district . 55 of those already have municipal water
from the village so when you subtract from the 220 those 55 we ' re only serving 145 - 165
residential entities and that would be really good if the economics of that made sense .
The economics , I think, are made up of two parts . One is simply the cost to persons in the
town, and that does not look good, because a quarter of the persons in the town are going
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to pay a lot more money then they now pay for their water if we go ahead with this
system . The other way is more condemning of the plan and the particular point in the
plan then even the business of inequity in paying for water and that is that in exchange
for getting water service for what amounts to 165 residential entities we are cashing in
every chip that we have. We have nothing left after that . I think that for all of the
compelling points the base points that this town has that can be used to secure loans and
loans at good rates and grants and so forth , we ' re just not getting enough . It ' s not a good
bargain that we ' re making with NYS here, that ' s basically where all this comes from,
NYS . So , we could do a lot better with the need base that we have if we go back to this
plan. Another major fault in this plan from my perspective is that it isn ' t clear enough .
The communication isn ' t what it should be with all the citizens of the town . I think this
plan could be improved so that it really addresses, I ' m going to use the term
neighborhood, it ' s purposely vague, but it could address the people along this part of this
road, the people along these two parts of that road and categorize their situation so that
they can have really clear information about why they are or are not included in this .
Better yet, how it is that they might become included in this if we just went that
additional distance . At this point it has such a take it or leave it aspect that I just don ' t
find it satisfactory public communication. I don ' t think we want to be saying to the
citizens of the town, take it or leave it, here ' s the only plan we have and we aren ' t really
saying very much about you ' re particular situation we ' re just talking about these other
two or three situations . I don ' t find that to be responsible and I think we need to take the
couple of lumps that we take a few bumps here and there and go back to planning. The
money appears to be available for inter-municipal planning and redesign . It looks like
those things can be funded ; we have some of the funding already. The point about the
0% interest loan that is available and pre- approved, who knows we may still be able to
hold on to that, no one has said to the State that we want to re-plan something. It ' s an
argument that I have heard and I have been involved in public affairs for 31 years in one
capacity or another, and all through those 31 years I have heard the same thing over and
over, there won ' t be any money next year. Well , 31 times there has been money next
year. I ' m bettin ' the folks in Albany will still need their jobs and will still pass out
money next year. Those are my comments .
Mr. Austic said you realize of course this does not mean we are approving the district; all
• it means is that we are going ahead with the map, plan and report . There are a lot of steps
that need to be done before a district is approved . This is just a report that furthers the
district formation.
Mr. Ellis responded that he understands that point can be made and thinks the problem
with that point is that the further we go with the narrow plan the more difficult it is to end
up with a broad plan . There ' s already a lot of pressure to say yes to this because of the
pre-funding. If we had had a better start at this and if everyone who is now expected to
vote on this had known about all aspects of it from the very beginning we might have
arrived at a place where we would have a broader plan . But, we had a very narrow
beginning of this, we had very little information out, applications were made that I
frankly didn ' t know about and it ' s nice that we got the money and the approval, but,
putting money into a bad plan doesn ' t make a good plan .
Mr. Austic stated that you realize that District 3 and District 5 if built the way they are
will basically eliminate our moderate pressure zone from this tank. If you are going to go
further up Iradell Road you are going to need a higher pressure zone if you go down 89
you need a lower pressure zone; so this is basically the end of the pressure zone we ' re in,
so to go somewhere else might not work .
Mr. Ellis said I ' ve spent a life in technical things, I appreciate the technical expertise that
Mr. Austic and Mr. Coogan and others have developed around understanding these water
districts , but it ' s not the technical things that are the big weaknesses here . We have two
other points that are very important and I don ' t think I ' ve addressed well enough . One is
that the largest threat to sources of water in this town, and when I say town I always
mean Village and Town. In this Town the biggest threat to sources of water is pollution.
It ' s true in the Village because it has a single source of water and if that source becomes
polluted that is a disaster. It ' s true through out the town because we only live a few feet
above bedrock that slopes down toward the lake . In some places we live very few feet
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above that bedrock and in other places you get 12 , 15 and even 20 feet of soil but there is
a lot of thin substrate out there in this town and we have an increasing number of houses .
It ' s not a housing boom but there ' s always one more house, every road seems to have one
more house at least every year. All of these situations are dependent on well water and all
have septic systems . The increasing threat of pollution to substantial numbers of wells in
this community increases every year and we really look at the geography your points Mr.
Austic about which areas are served and that the substantial areas served are true, but the
most threatened areas are three, the Dubois Road area, the lake edge, both of those
because they are down hill from everything else and the Village because they have the
single source . This plan does not take on Dubois Road directly and doesn ' t even say why
it ' s not taken on which is really kind of an oversight . This plan substantially shapes a lot
of things that come afterward and it does not address and we have not added to it
anything to address, something I ' ve requested beginning on Valentines Day that we
really look at some sort of overlay planning district that deals with the edges of the
Village and the edges of the Town which is kind of where this water district goes . It ' s a
donut, it goes around the village and it will change the economics of land ownership and
land value all through that zone and I think we need to take the time to consider carefully
what that means .
Mr. Austic asked if there were any other comments .
Ms . Tyler stated that she believes the approximately 5 million dollar project is financially
risky because of the low residential density along 14 . 1 miles of pipe . That can be pretty
risky when you go down the road and that pipe ages and needs to be repaired . Granted,
that' s years in the future, but it ' s a fairly low density of home owners who are going to be
paying for that . Also the Village Board voted 5 to 0 not to support this project because
those who bear large costs without much benefit are Village residents because they will
be receiving a minimal or inadequate second source of water in exchange for water rates
that will increase by at least a third . Residents of the trailer park, granted they are renters,
will also have increased water rates passed through to them because of increased hydrant
pressure. These people who are somewhat adversely affected by the proposed Water
District #5 have no vote in the project, and Ms . Tyler believes that this is a fairness issue .
Also , the proposed Water District #5 did not come out of the comprehensive planning
process and does not come out of any inclusive vision for growth of the Town of Ulysses .
That ' s not to deny that there are people with bad water and I am included among those in
Ulysses so I think we need to have a plan but I do not believe this one to be the one .
Ms . Marino read her statement as follows :
As a Town Board member, I am required to exercise careful consideration in making
important decisions which will affect the lives of Town residents and businesses .
I have studied the details of this project and thought long and hard about the issues raised
by other Board members and Town residents both in support of the proposed WD5 and in
opposition to it . I have read over much of the background material on the development of
WD5 as a second source for the Village prior to my taking office (Jan 2004) and all of the
material available to me since the Town contracted for the study of possible alternative
WD5 plans in Feb 2005 .
While it is clear that the proposed project is feasible from an engineering and DWSRF
financing standpoint, it is not at all clear to me that this water district is in the best
interest of Town of Ulysses as a whole, or the residents that it affects . The proposed
project has been 'divisive both within the Town and between the Town and Village .
The process for developing this plan has been flawed from the beginning, because Town
Board members and their constituents were not included in the discussion of alternatives .
The plan put forward to the State for financing was not reviewed or approved by the
Town Board before the application was made, nor was it presented to those potentially .
affected by it in public meetings until after financing was offered . Lack of clarity about
process for developing the project and about the costs and benefits of different
alternatives and a lack of inclusion of all necessary parties in discussions has been a
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serious problem . This is evidenced by the Village of Trumansburg resolution denying
their support of the project .
The financing offer from the State locks the project in pretty tightly to the current
configuration, with no room for any substantive change without resubmission as a new
project.
I have several concerns with the project, which appear to be un-resolvable within the
constraints of time and the current financing offer:
1 . There are two nodes where 40 % or so of the water use is concentrated and long
stretches of pipe in between with very low user densities . This goes against a large body
of information on smart growth and development of water infrastructure (including a
2006 EPA study and report) .
2 . The two large nodes of water use are single property owners (Aubles MHP and NY
State Parks) and this seems like a high risk situation with regard to long term stability of
costs to the district users .
3 . A primary reason for creating Water District #5 up until this plan was to provide a
connection to WD3 for a second source to the Village . The Village Trustees are strongly
against Water District #5 as currently proposed, and have voted not to support the project.
Also , the proposed district would use some of the current Village lines, and if the Town
goes forward without the Village, the project; may incur substantial additional costs if the
Village chooses not to sell or rent the lines to the Town.
4 . Several other areas of town over the years have raised needs for municipal water;
these should have been addressed by the Board and in public meetings before a decision
was made to put this plan forward for financing .
5 . We heard during recent discussions of the Town -Village joint committee on WD5 that
the additional volume of water for this proposed water district is likely to commit the
bulk of the supply possible to Ulysses from the Town of Ithaca and Bolton Point for the
next several years, until large expansions of pipe or plant capacity are implemented .
6. I believe the Town should have a 5 - 10 year plan for water infrastructure expansion
based on the revision of the comprehensive plan we are currently undertaking, and
developed with inter-municipal considerations and cooperation .
I understand that some Ulysses residents within the proposed district have a need for
clean potable water that this district would meet. I very much regret that I am compelled
by the concerns I listed to vote against moving forward with the currently proposed
WD5 .
Mr. Austic commented that if this doesn ' t happen, this district is gone . Believe it or not
the funding will probably not come again . This does not allow for the Village to have a
secondary source for emergencies, this does not eliminate the possibility that the Village
brought up of doubling their water rates for Alpha House , for Aubles Trailer Park which
we have nothing to do with . If this doesn ' t go forward any increases in the Village water
rates are not our problem, and they will happen, if that ' s what I understood from their
Board meeting. There are people who are on Village water who are in the Town who are
facing double water rates possibly to pay for something that the Village is thinking about
studying. Whether ifs good or not, whether it will work or not, whether the Village
comes back to us in years to come, there will be no choice, there will be no availability of
second source to the village unless we form the district .
Ms . Marino commented that she had done the calculations based on the numbers that Mr.
Austic had given . If the Village doubles the inside rate and makes it even across all
users, as was suggested as a possibility during the Village Board discussion, and you
calculate an annual water cost for an outside the Village user in WD5 using the rate
versus what the water cost would be for Water District #5 at the $ 570 . 00 targeted service
charge, with $ 330 . 00 per year estimated for operation and maintenance, the break even
point would be 65 , 000 gallons of water a year. If less than 65 , 000 gallons of water is
used, the user would pay slightly more with the WD5 rates than with the Village doubled
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rates. If they use more than 65 , 000 gallons , which we ' ve been told is not typical for
families even though 73 , 000 gallons is used for engineering estimates, they would pay
slightly more with Village rates doubled.
Mr. Ellis said that this is really a regrettable setback but it isn ' t the end of this process
and the folks who will suffer some, may not have to suffer very long if we can go ahead
and get into the planning . Funding is available and its not just the Village that will be
doing the planning I have here a resolution when we get to it that moves toward doing the
planning with the Village and with the Town of Ithaca. We need to get on with the
alternative .
Mr. Austic stated he knows Mr. Ellis is confident that money will be available and he is
confident it probably will not be available .
Mr. Ferrentino said that Mr. Austic is wasting his time talking he should just call for a
vote .
Mr. Austic called for the vote .
Mr. Austic aye
Mr. Ferrentino aye
Mr. Ellis nay
Ms . Marino nay
Ms . Tyler nay
Defeated .
Mr. Austic said Water District #5 is essentially dead at this point . Mr. Austic said he
would call George Winner ' s office and return the $ 35 ,000 . 00 that he promised us so that
someone else can use it. If we don ' t have another plan within the next 6 months ,
regardless of that, we will have to reapply for funding.
Mr. Ellis suggested that Mr. Austic ' s call to George Winner ' s office would be a request
that we use the money for advancing the plan.
Mr. Ellis made a motion, seconded by Ms . Marino that we discuss his resolution for
advancing Water District #5 .
Resolution for Advancing Water District 5 20061021
Whereas the Town has gained much by advancing Water District 5 , but,
Through several months of Board evaluation the Town has found the design to be less beneficial
than would be expected and unsatisfactory in some key aspects , some listed here, and
Whereas the current plan alters the development potential of key parts of the Town but does not
address zoning or administration issues obviously related thereto , and,
Whereas the current plan substantially shapes any water districts that might follow in
later years, yet does not address these at all , leaving critical neighborhood-by-neighborhood
water issues such as those for the Village, Dubois Road, and the lake edge unaddressed and,
Whereas, while this design consumes nearly all of the available basis for establishing need , if built
it would serve several "institutional and commercial" users quite well , but among residential users
it would serve only 190 single family dwellings and 30 multi-family dwellings , 55 of which are
already served by municipal water, and,
Whereas the need for stable fire-fighting water and affordable, pollution-resistant,
residential water throughout the Town must be addressed, and,
• Whereas funds and commitment for inter-municipal planning and re-design are apparently
available,
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Be it resolved the Town shall accept with gratitude the planning, design, and critical analyses
applied to date , and will not proceed with the currently proposed design but will instead organize
staff as necessary, engage professionals as needed, and enter forthwith into Inter Municipal
planning that addresses the water needs of all parts of the Town, concluding with a new Water
District 5 plan with clear public communication about the plan and any alternatives,
neighborhood-by-neighborhood, for the entire Town .
Mr. Austic moved, seconded by Mr. Ferrentino to table the resolution until the next
Regular Board meeting.
Mr. Austic aye
Mr. Ferrentino aye
Mr. Ellis nay
Ms . Marino aye
Ms . Tyler aye
Adopted.
Ms . Marino said she would like to know where the Board Members stand with regard to
the Comprehensive Plan Committee effort to write this survey and they should get input
from Board Members . I don ' t know what the best mechanism is for that. I ' ve asked at
the last couple meetings for people to send things , and I have heard from different Board
Members that they have concerns, so I ' d like to know what the Board thinks is a
reasonable plan for dealing with it . They have a meeting tomorrow night, I don ' t know
what ' s on the agenda or if it would be appropriate for Board Members who have
concerns about the draft survey that they sent out to go to the meeting and discuss their
concerns .
The general consensus is that the interested Board members will forward their responses
to the committee .
Ms . Marino said that the committee ' s current plan is to engage with the Survey Research
Institute at Cornell to review and analyze the survey. They need to get an estimate and
get Board approval for that expenditure .
The Board discussed the draft survey in general .
Hearing no further discussions Mr. Ferrentino moved to adjourn, seconded by Ms .
Marino .
Mr. Ellis nay
Ms . Marino nay
Ms . Tyler nay
Mr. Ferrentino aye
Mr. Austic aye
Defeated.
Ms . Tyler said she has a concern about the timeline for the Comprehensive Plan
Committee ' s survey which she knows that they would like to get out before the holidays .
Ms . Marino said that she thinks that the Committee would like to get it out but she also
thinks that the Town Board needs to react to the survey. It would be very useful, if at all
possible, for the Board to get their comments about the survey to the committees next
meeting tomorrow night.
Ms . Tyler moved to adjourn, seconded by Mr. Ferrentino . Unanimously approved, the
meeting adjourned at 9 : 50 pm .
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Respectfully submitted,
Marsha L. Georgia
Ulysses Town Clerk
MLG : mlg