Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes of the Regular Meeting February 19, 2008.pdf 1 Minutes of the Board of Trustees February 19, 2008 Village of Cayuga Heights Meeting of the Board of Trustees Held at the Cayuga Heights Fire Station Present: Mayor Lynn, Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley, Chief Boyce, Ass’t. Supt. Frisbie, Supt. Cross, Fire Supt. Tamborelle, Attorney Tyler, Absent: Trustees Collyer, Treasurer Silber Others: Chris Anagnost, David Donner, Ronald Bors, Linda Bors, Sarah Hatcher, Jim Gilmore, Anita Watkins Motion by Trustee Mount Seconded by Trustee Antil Motion to pass Agenda with additions discussed. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley voted YES. ************************************************************************* Motion by Trustee Bisogni Seconded by Trustee Kaplan Motion to pass Resolution 6315 approving the minutes of January 15 with corrections noted. Trustees Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley voted YES. Trustee Antil ABSTAINS. ************************************************************************* Privilege of the Floor – David Donner approached the Board to ask why the latest issue of The Courier (which was scheduled to be mailed later in the week) did not list the entire slate of candidates for the upcoming election. He commented that in past years, names of the candidates who were running for office were listed in The Courier sent out at this time of the year. Why was this not done this year? Was it because this election is a contested election? Isn’t The Courier a Village newsletter? Trustee Antil answered that because the newsletter is paid for by the Village, it should not take a political side. Mr. Donner said that listing names is not political, just fact. Sarah Hatcher also commented that she felt it was wrong not to mention the names of the candidates in the newsletter. Trustee Mount said that the newsletter does say that the election is contested and Attorney Tyler (Village Attorney) advised Trustee Mount not to print anything more than the fact the election was contested and the date and times. Mayor Lynn said that since Attorney Tyler was going to be a little late for the meeting, he would ask the Attorney to comment upon his arrival. *********************************************************************** Clerk Manning then gave a short presentation of the proposed new webpage under construction. There was discussion on how the page would be maintained and there was general agreement that the page was well laid out, attractive, and easily navigable. Work will be continued with the site up and running very soon. 2 Report of the Police Chief – Report was distributed and is on file. The past month was busy, but everything is running smoothly. Chief Boyce asked the Board to approve the hiring of two part time Police Officers to fill the two spots left vacant by two resignations discussed at last month’s meeting. Interviews were conducted throughout the week and final decisions were discussed with the Public Safety Committee. Motion by Trustee Mount Seconded by Trustee Kaplan At the recommendation of the Public Safety Committee, the Trustees herewith approve Resolution 6316 appointing Kyle Koskinen to the position of part time Patrolman which was left vacant due to the resignation of David Buck, at a salary level of Patrolman, part-time, according to the P.B.A. Contract. Officer Koskinen’s appointment will become effective February 20, 2008 upon Board approval. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley voted YES. Motion by Trustee Kaplan Seconded by Trustee Mount At the recommendation of the Public Safety Committee, the Trustees herewith approve Resolution 6317 appointing Ryan Mayo to the position of part time Patrolman which was left vacant due to the resignation of Tim Little, at a salary level of Patrolman, part-time, according to the P.B.A. Contract. Officer Mayo’s appointment will become effective February 20, 2008 upon Board approval. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES. Chief Boyce then asked the Board to sanction an expenditure of $2859 which was not presently in his budget so he could bring his records archiving up to date. This would be a one time expense of this amount, with a yearly maintenance of $200-$300 to keep the archiving current. The Board concurred with this expenditure. ************************************************************************* Report of the Fire Supt. – Report was distributed and is on file. Mr. Donner asked if the call that CHFD responded to on February 17 in Etna was mutual aid or a “fast call”. The Chief said that it was a “fast call”, and explained what a “fast call” was for those who didn’t know the term. The Chief reminded everyone that the date for this year’s banquet is April 26 at the Country Club. *********************************************************************** Report of the Ass’t. Supt. of Public Works – Report was distributed and is on file. Ass’t. Supt. Frisbie said that the crew has been cleaning up the department, both inside and out. He is looking forward to the next budget year and upcoming projects. Trustee Antil complimented the D.P.W. on the work they have done over the past year. Mrs. Wadach’s drain project is scheduled to be completed in the spring. *********************************************************************** 3 Report of the Mayor - Mayor Lynn commented that new assessments have now been mailed by the County Assessment Department. The Board will hold a special work session on March 8 at 10:00 am on the upcoming budget. Mr. Gilmore asked that since the sales tax revenues were up in the 4th quarter, will that give the residents relief with their taxes. Mayor Lynn explained the budget process and said that the sales tax increase will factor into the budget to be adopted. *********************************************************************** Supt. of Public Works – Supt. Cross informed the Board that a resolution needed to be passed for the SEQRA declaration for the revised WWTP Phosphorous Treatment Project declaring it as a Type II action due to the fact that we are using the existing infrastructure. Motion by Trustee Antil Seconded by Trustee Bisogni Move to pass Resolution 6318: SEQRA Declaration for the revised WWTP Phosphorous Treatment Project. Whereas, the Village of Cayuga Heights is planning to install a new phosphorous treatment filter within the existing intermediate settling tank structure, which will have little or no increase in building footprint, and Whereas, the project is planned to receive grant funds from the 1996 NYS Clean Water Bond Act as well as financing through public or private bonding sources, and Whereas, it has been determined that this project is considered a Type II Action as defined by NYCRR 617.5.c.2, and Now therefore, the Village of Cayuga Heights hereby declares that no further environmental review is required for the revised Phosphorous Treatment Project at the WWTP. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES. Mr. Gilmore asked if there have been any actions by citizens to try to cut down phosphorous in communities. Supt. Cross said that he is not aware of anything that may have been done nationally. Supt. Cross reminded the Board that last month he talked about the set of drawings he had received from Stearns and Wheler. The pre-bid construction was higher than expected. Stearns and Wheler has received verbal approval from the DEC on the plans. Treasurer Silber will be addressing the bonding of the project at the March 8 Special Meeting. Supt. Cross has a proposal from Yaws Environmental, the operator of the Village’s sewer plant, to accept trucked in drill water (i.e. water from wells being drilled for natural gas) as discussed at the January Board meeting. The process was submitted to D.E.C. for approval. The D.E.C. said that as long as waste goes into a digester, they have no problem with the project. Trustee Bisogni asked about arsenic and lead in the water. Jerry Smith of Yaws looked at the numbers of arsenic and lead and said that they are lower than other 4 numbers that he has. A contract should be prepared for Attorney Tyler to look at before the March meeting. The Village needs another ordinance pertaining to stormwater regulation…Illicit Discharge, Detection and Elimination (I.D.D.E.) addressing the illicit discharge from private property into stormwater drainage. By passing this law, the Village can seek out and enforce illicit discharges into the water system. New York State has a boilerplate law which will be adapted for our Village. The question was asked of how to seek out the violators and enforce the law. Supt. Cross explained that the Village is obligated to inspect our streams and water. If there seems to be discoloration or the water just doesn’t look right, it has to be tested. Trustee Staley asked how this will be detected and enforced. Supt. Cross said that he would have to find the time to do stream inspections. Attorney Tyler commented that this is another unfunded mandate by the State. Motion by Trustee Antil Seconded by Trustee Bisogni Move to schedule a public hearing for 7:00 P.M. on March 17, 2008 to hear public comments on the proposed Local Law #1 of 2008, Illicit Discharge, Detection and Elimination. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES. Supt. Cross will distribute the proposed law to the Board 10 days before the hearing. Update on the Water System. In the southern part of the Village, there have been new mains and hydrants. In the northern part of the Village, there are two items of necessity. There are 2 or 3 places in the water system with a 4” diameter pipe instead of a 6” diameter pipe. The Village needs to seek out the extent of obstruction in the 4” pipe. The computer modeling showed 6” pipe. Holes will have to be dug along Cayuga Heights Road and The Parkway to check the pipe size. The easiest way is to dig and explore the pipe size. The condition of the pipe has to be evaluated. A company has offered to force a plug through the pipes to remove the buildup that occurs in the pipe. The Village just contracted with T.G. Miller to work with our D.P.W. to oversee this “pigging” (pipe cleaning) operation. The company will perform a trial run to see how much of a problem we have. Trustee Staley asked about computer mapping the entire water system on a laptop. Ass’t. Supt. Frisbie is talking to Treasurer Silber about this. *********************************************************************** Report of the Treasurer – Treasurer Silber was absent from this meeting; however his report was distributed and is on file. There were no transfers to approve. Mayor Lynn presented the Abstract and asked for a resolution to approve. Motion by Trustee Bisogni Seconded by Trustee Antil Motion to pass Resolution 6319 approving the Abstract of Audited Vouchers dated 2/19/08 in the amount of $178,803.01, and instruct that the Treasurer make payments thereon. 5 Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES. *********************************************************************** Report of the Attorney – Attorney Tyler reported on the following: Attorney Tyler was asked to address Mr. Donner’s earlier concerns about why the Courier didn’t make any comment on the contested election in March. Atty. Tyler advised Trustee Mount not to make any mention other than the fact that the election was contested because Trustee Mount is the editor and also a trustee running in the election. Any information included should be neutral. Since budget time is upon us, Atty. Tyler asked the Board if they wanted to budget some training for both the Z.B.A. and the Planning Board. Mayor Lynn will look into purchasing some training CD’s offered by the New York State Municipal Insurance Reciprocal on the zoning and planning board. The conservation easement which was discussed at the last meeting has been completed and the final version has been sent to Attorney Marcus, who will send it back to Clerk Manning. A file should be maintained in the Clerk’s office entitled “Conversation Easement”. The recorded document should be kept in that file with a copy given to Ass’t. Supt. Cross. ************************************************************************ Report of the Clerk – There were 2 requests for refunds of overpayment of water bills. The first was a resident who overpaid his account by $319.98 due to misreading the bill. The second was an overpayment of $85.94 due to the sale of the resident’s property. The Board moved to approve the $319.98 but not the $85.94. Motion by Trustee Kaplan Seconded by Trustee Antil Motion to refund the amount of $319.98 for overpayment of water bill to John Babcock, Acct. #J2040. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES Clerk Manning asked the Board to change the number assigned to the Cornell Child Care Center on Pleasant Grove Road from 120 Pleasant Grove Road to 150 Pleasant Grove Road, Ithaca, NY 14850 because of some confusion in the original request. The Board agreed to this change. Clerk Manning will notify Cornell, as well as the Ithaca Postmaster and Department of Emergency Response. Motion by Trustee Staley Seconded by Trustee Kaplan Approve change in the address for the Cornell Child Care Center currently under construction from 120 Pleasant Grove Road to 150 Pleasant Grove Road, Ithaca, NY 14850. 6 Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES The Clerk wanted to comment that she has investigated an Optical Character Recognition program that she would like to purchase for records management. This would enable all records to be scanned into the program, and by typing a word or two into a search engine, the records that include those words would appear on the screen. Since there are now 15 2” binders in the Clerk’s office with minutes since 1923 filed in them, the natural goal is to be able to locate the information in those binders quickly. These minutes have already been microfilmed for permanent storage according to New York State Records Management regulations. With this OCR program, any other records which are not easily retrievable can also be scanned into this program making information retrieval fast and efficient. Clerk Manning has talked to other municipalities using this software and they are very impressed with the system. The cost of this will be requested through the budget process. There was a short discussion with Attorney Tyler on the distinction between Executive Session and Private Session with Counsel. The former is exempt under the Open Meeting Law. The latter is an exercise of Attorney Client privilege. ************************************************************************ Mayor Lynn wanted to call to the Board’s attention a memo, that was included in the packet from Andre Bensadoun, Cayuga Heights Forester regarding the opportunity to have an inventory done of all trees on Village property by a team of young qualified arborists sponsored by Cornell University and NYS Cooperative Extension. The estimated cost is between $2000 and $3000. The Board will discuss this at the March 8 meeting. At this time, Mayor Lynn urged the candidates running for office in the March 18 election to come to the Village Hall and ask questions if they want to learn how the Village runs. ********************* Motion by Trustee Antil Move to adjourn the meeting at 8:50 PM. Trustees Antil, Bisogni, Kaplan, Mount and Staley VOTED YES.