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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-04-01 Town Board Minutes Board Members Present:Joel Gagnon, Town Supervisor Leslie Connors Katharine Hunter Patricia Woodworth Paul Hansen Town Staff:Laura Shawley, Bookkeeper Mariah Dillon, Town Clerk Other Attendees:Ronda Roaring Garr y Huddle Ted Crane 1.Call to Order 6:02 2.Additions/Deletions to Agenda 2.1. More on Roles and Responsibilities 2.2. Businesses on Corner Lots 2.3.Adding the list of ARPA Projects from Highway Department 3.Privilege of the Floor Ronda Roaring has not been able to get the meeting agenda on Chrome, Edge or Firefox. Discussion ensued regarding possible remedies for Roaring. Ted Crane – “ Obviously, I was able to get the agenda from the website. There are so many different configurations of browsers and computers that the kind of problem that Ronda was seeing isn't at all impossible. I have three comments. The First one actually also relates to the website. It was brought to my attention that the meeting IDs and password codes for the Zoom meetings have been changing. I would like to encourage the town to make ever y effort to keep the meeting IDs for the meetings the same all the time as they have been for many years. It's just a lot more confusing for the public to keep track of what the current meeting ID is. Secondly, I was reading through the minutes of the previous meeting, and although it's not mentioned in the minutes, I recalled something that I did hear during passage of the previous meeting minutes that one of the board members commented that they were making a distinction between the minutes based on who produced them and that you would not approve the minutes that were apparently produced by the former clerk and you know something I think you should be looking at the contents and not who produces them. It's just it just left me with a taste of you know, a sort of suppressed hostility. And you don't need that. Continuing down the minutes I also heard part of the conversation about the park contract. I'd like to state so you'll have perspective: Tonight you have on your agenda approving a contract with the Danby Seniors which as you know is not an organized Mary Ann Barr 2021   T he Town of Danby  1830 Danby Road   Ithaca, NY 14850   danby.ny.gov  Town Board Meeting Minutes  Meeting Held Monday April 1, 2024 at 6:00PM organization. It has no legal status and you're willing well I don't know that you are but I assume you're going to be willing to make that without question. During the board discussion that I heard about the park contract a board member mentioned twice that it was an opinion that the park was operating illegally. Of course that board member is not a lawyer. The park is not operating illegally and never has been, As Joel mentioned later in the conversation, the law changed, not the park. The park is taking steps and has been dealing with that problem. Once again, there's this impression that an outside person might get some kind of hostility on the part of the board or at least members of the board and I think that that is ill becoming to our town. And of course, coming back to the fact that you're approving a contract with something that isn't really an organization, I hope I’m going to say this correctly- Joel, you had an opinion from the town lawyer that you could you could make a contract with a criminal as far as you're concerned, as long as the ser vices that are being paid for and the payments are clearly stated. So there's no reason to be criticizing a situation that was not of the park's creation and which it is working as hard as it can to get done.” Garry Huddle - Commented that he had no problem getting the agenda on Chrome from the website. 4.Correspondence - None 5.Announcements - None 6.Reports & Presentations 6.1.Town Clerk 6.2.Code Enforcement Officer 7.Meeting Minutes 7.1.Resolution 110 of 2024 to Accept the Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2024 Moved By Connors Seconded by Hansen Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 110 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.Business 8.1.Next moves in ARPA Decision-making The Town Board has a list of possible ARPA projects, and will be adding potential highway projects. Projects in the Process of evaluation: 2 Getting the Solar Array Looked at, assessing it’s condition and potential for maintenance issues going forward. The person who was recommended for this (Dave Tedeyan) is not currently available due to insurance issues, but he may be available later, or it’s possible the board may be looking for someone else. Hansen said he would ask Tedeyan, as well as JimHolohan, if they know of other qualified individuals. Resolution 111 of 2024 to Authorize Hansen to Check Out the Options, f ind and hire a qualif ied person to do the inspection and appraisal. Moved By Gagnon Seconded by Connors Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 111 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 Connors mentioned asking the Highway and Water District if they had projects they wanted to request. Gagnon answered that they had been asked. The Water District hydrant replacement was suggested by the Water Committee. Gagnon mentioned concern that some of the pipes might be fragile. If this could be identified as a need, we could potentially use ARPA money for a study. Peter McDonald is looking into what grant funds are available and what they might be used for. Supervisor Gagnon thought that ARPA money could be used for the trail easement acquisition. Connors asked about continual maintenance on the trail. It was agreed that the board may seek out grant money for repair of the trail, but that would have to wait until after the next meeting and public hearing on the matter. Hansen agreed to go to the town of Ithaca and discuss maintenance costs with their engineers. Gagnon mentioned that he has costs of trail maintenance from the Town of Ithaca DPW, because part of the MOU will be agreeing to have Ithaca’s DPW do the maintenance on the trail, using the same formula as for the easement acquisition. That formula consists of dividing half of the costs equally among the four partners and then having the other half of the cost shared in proportion to the length that's in each municipality. That leaves Dr yden and Ithaca shouldering more of the costs than they would based on how much of the trail is in their municipality. If we did it on the basis of length, it would not be a significant difference for us. Caroline would get a socked pretty hard if it were all based on length because they’ve got by far the longest section. The negotiating team is proposing to have the memorandum of understanding or maintenance be based on that same formula, with the split based half on the four towns equally and then the other half based on the trail length. This will be going before all four towns. 3 Connors: If we are on board with this, it will be at least $7,000 and we don’t know if we can afford the repairs. Supervisor Gagnon will provide an estimate of trail maintenance cost per mile. He also mentioned that there is NY State money available for trail development. It was decided to have acquiring the trail remain on the ARPA Possible Project List. Codification of Codes - Connors will get more information regarding costs of codifying the local codes. L. Shawley went over a couple items from the Highway Department list of potential projects. She will pass along the list. Dillon shared the List of Possible ARPA Projects with the group. Town Hall Modifications – Discussion ensued regarding modification for ADA parking and a ramp in front of the Town Hall. Hansen is looking at costs for some of these modifications. Supervisor Gagnon noted that acquiring land for a community center was not on the list. He mentioned that Zach Larkins was trying to get a hold of the owner of the vacant property next to the Town Hall. Hansen will also tr y to get a hold of him. Discussion ensued about bringing broadband to the West Danby Fire Station and other internet deprived areas. Supervisor Gagnon mentioned that what's going to go before the Committee on Wednesday is a proposal that they spend $100,000 to fund Point Broadband’s costing out of their proposal and then they're proposing that Point Broadband do it, because theirs is the lowest bid. That's going to be discussed in committee on Wednesday and presumably a recommendation to the legislature will come out of that. Discussion ensued regarding the possibly of utilizing Starlink for town employees in West Danby locations. This led to much conversation about where to house the WDWD clerk. 8.2.Danby Seniors Contract Signing Authorization There was some discussion about how much money the Seniors overspent last year. L. Shawley remembered that is was about 2 or 3 hundred dollars. This year they asked for a bit more money in the budget. This year's agreement is essentially the same as last year's, with a small increase in their budget. Resolution 112 of 2024 to Give Supervisor Gagnon the Authority to Sign the Danby Seniors Contract Moved By Woodworth Seconded by Hansen Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes 4 Resolution 112 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.3. Resolution 113 of 2024 to Create a Buildings and Grounds Committee of Larkins, Gagnon, Hansen and Dillon Moved By Gagnon Seconded by Woodworth Connors feels that one board member is enough. Roll Call: Connors No Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 113 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.4. Resolution 114 of 2024 That the Town Board is the Declared Lead Agency for SEQRA, in Amending the Local Law No. 1 of 2022, Pertaining to Signage and Related Lighting Moved By Connors Seconded by Woodworth Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 114 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.5. Resolution 115 of 2024 to Have Planner Hutnik Draft a Change to the Corner Lot Location Requirements for Businesses – Deleting Them. Moved By Hansen Seconded by Connors Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 115 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.6. Resolution 116 of 2024 For the Town Board to Approve to Send unused items to auction from the Highway Department Connors read over the list of excess property. L. Shawley confirmed the equipment is very old, but someone might want the items. Moved By Connors Seconded by Woodworth 5 Roll Call: Connors Yes Hansen Yes Hunter Yes Woodworth Yes Gagnon Yes Resolution 116 of 2024 passed on April 1, 2024 8.7. Roles and Responsibilities –Supervisor Gagnon spoke about a policy for responding in the name of the board. No one can speak as the board, only the board as a whole. Specifically problematic is using the word “we” that might refer to speaking as the Town Board. “T he reason I'm bringing this up now, is because in the name of statements that have been made in the Town News. Whenever “we”is used, it’s an - in the name of - statement. Who is “We”? The last issue of the Town News had an item, Notes f rom the Town Board, implying that it is in the name of the town board. But none of us is authorized to make statements in the name of the town board without the town board signing on to what's being said. I don't have any objection to what was said. I’m merely raising the question of how we do these things. When we're making statements "in the name of", particularly when something's addressed to the board or said on behalf of the board, the board should be on board with what's being said. Discussion ensued about the article in the Town News. Connors suggested having a couple of people meet, and develop a checklist for checking the validity of whats being said and giving the Board 24 to 48 hours to go over the Newsletter before it is published. Hunter mentioned that the “Thank You” in the recent Newsletter went over very well. Woodworth: I want to be sure that as a policy we always thank people for their work and welcome people in. It was agreed that more checking and verification will happen moving forward. 9.Discussion of Next Meeting Agenda Two public hearings Warrants 10.Adjourn 7:38 6