HomeMy WebLinkAboutReport of the Mayor 9/18/1972REPORT OF THE MAYOR
9/18/72
A busy month. The Village took part in a further stage of the condemnation
proceedings regarding the Liberman property and in the Bolton Point water hearings,
as well as in a number of meetings preliminary to the water hearings at which plans
were made concerning the tactics to be followed and the role each party was to play.
The two matters, condemnation and water, are now in the hands of commissioners.
We await their decisions.
Construction of the Sewer Plant is not yet in sight. The Army Corps of Engineers
appear for the moment to be the last hurdle. The commander of the Buffalo Division
advertised the request of the Village to lay an additional outfall pipe in our right
of way in Cayuga Lake and invited persons who wished to protest the laying of the
pipe to write to him. He received two letters, neighter'supported by engineering
evidence. He sent these letters to me and said he would not issue a permit until
the Village could prove that it had attempted to reach an amicable agreement with
the two protesters. We have invited them to join with us in discussion of their
grounds for protest. I will arrange for a representative of the State Environmental
Protection Agency or the County Board of Health to be on hand as a third party at
these discussions, so that he can testify that on our side the attempt to come to
an agreement was made in good faith.
If you had been up and about on Cayuga Heights Road on Saturday last at 9 a.m.
you would have seen the Engineer and me, sometimes on hands and knees, measuring
out the Village right of way as we tried to convince a Villager that a condemned
elm tree was on his property and not on the Village right of way. Twenty five
minutes of crawling and climbing and measuring, the Villager holding one end of
the tape, shoved that the tree was his to remove.
I and other Villagers were grateful for the opportunity to attend the
successful Fire Company picnic.
In mid summer the Zoning Board of Appeals heard two requests for a variance
in regard to that part of the ordinance that relates to fences. The requests
related to the north western part of the Village, and both sought.a variance from
that part of the ordinance which limited the height of fences to four feet. In one
instance the plea for a variance was granted on the ground that the cause of offense
the total ugliness of the Triphammer Shopping Plaza - was major and justified the
request. In the other the request was denied on the ground that the cause of
offense - a proposed parking space for the patients of a dentist - did less hurt to
the petitioner's privacy. The unsuccessful petitioner challenged the board's
action. His neighbors to the number of 26 or so sent me a petition in which they
ask that the Zoning Board reconsider its action. Mr. Fleming, chairman of that
Board wrote to the petitioner to give, in essence, what led the Board to reject
his petition. The petitioner replied to Mr. Fleming on Saturday saying he failed
to see the logic in the argument presented for the Board. He hoped that the
Zoning Board would consider his petition again.
Village Law, as I understand it, takes pains to assign separate turis'diction
to the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Village Board and in particular forbids a
member of the Village Board to sit on the Zoning Board of Appeals. In zoning the
initial decision is with the Zoning Officer, the right to hear appeals from -his
decision lies with the Board of Appeals. The Village Board of Trustees has only
the power to alter the general policies that constitute the zoning ordinance.