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Home My WebLink About2024-03 Town NewsletterMarch 2024 Town of Danby, New York Danby Town News 1 Scholarships for Youth A new year means a new round of funding for the Danby Youth Grants. The town's Danby Youth Commission offers grants of up to $100 per child per calendar year for youth to participate in recreational activities of their choosing. There are four deadlines throughout the year, with the next one being March 15th 2024. Grants are available on a first- come, first-serve basis. A link to the application and eligibility criteria can be found on the Town of Danby website. It only takes a few minutes to complete the online application. Danby Volunteer FIre Company Breakfast!! Our last breakfast of the season, celebrating the purchase of our new Jaws of Life. Drive-thru or stop in for a plate of Pancakes, French Toast, Sausage, Scrambled Eggs, and Homefries all for $12. Join us Sunday, March 10th, 2024, 8am-11am for breakfast! Cash, Card, Check, PayPal, Venmo, and Apple Pay payments are accepted. March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Notes from the Town Supervisor Joel Gagnon When you see this message, the coldest part of the winter will have passed. The days are already longer than in October and the sun is stronger. There are already signs of spring. My favorite time of year is when it is getting warmer but the black flies haven’t shown up yet! The Town Board unanimously passed the low-income senior and disabled tax exemption law that changed the range of qualifying income to increase the benefit. Incomes below $35,000 qualify the property owner(s) to a 50% exemption of the assessed value from the town property tax. The percentage exemption gradually reduces with increased income up to $43,400, above which there is no exemption. The Tompkins County Assessment Department handles the applications. This law will apply to 2025 taxes. The Board voted to pursue beautification grant funding for landscaping at the town hall and to repaint the gazebo. Leslie Connors is working with Planner Greg Hutnik to submit the application. We hope to create a beautification committee of volunteers to support this work and future projects of this nature. Contact Leslie (LConnors@danby.ny.gov) if you are willing to help. The Board is working with Planner Greg Hutnik to draft legislation to enable special event permitting. We would like to get something in place so that it can apply to events in 2024. There are a lot of components that could be a part of this law and coming to agreement on what to include will probably take longer than we would wish. In the meantime, commercial mass gathering events are not permitted in our current zoning law. The Board has instructed Planner Hutnik, who is also Zoning Officer, to prosecute last year’s violation. Notes from the Highway Keith Shipman Hello Danby Residents, We have had a good winter so far, and are proud to say that we are coming in under budget so far this year with overtime payroll, salt and sand. Not sure what the rest of this winter will bring, but we are prepared and always on guard. The Town Board approved the new contract for the loader program that we have set up in the town. Our loader is the most important piece of equipment that we have, and it is important to make certain that we always keep it as new as possible to keep the value of trade-in as cost effective for the town as we can. We have traded the loader each year over the last seven years because the value remains high, we can keep current with technology, and we can avoid the extra costs of warranties and service. We also put the loader in the auction to see if we can get more than trade in value and have been successful with this strategy as well. It is always a pleasure working with the Town Board when making these important financial decisions for the Town. I would like to thank you all for calling in and keeping us informed of road hazards throughout the year. We are always out there but cannot be in all places at all times. Your diligence in calling in when 2 March 2024 Town of Danby, New York you are aware of dangerous situations, road signs down, trees down and out of the ordinary icy situations has made the town a safer place for everyone. It also helps my scheduling efforts as I try to prioritize the work schedules and keep a good response time. Please feel free to call with any questions you have and always keep us informed of any concerns you are thinking of. The door is always open! Notes from the Planner's Desk Greg Hutnik Hello from the Planning Desk! The latest news here is that Thoma Development Consultants have been selected to manage the Town’s $153,900 CDBG Multifamily Housing Rehabilitation Grant, which will help upgrade and repair buildings with 2-4 residential units. More to follow soon about applying for funding. The Planning Board had a busy meeting on Tuesday, February 20 when three development applications were reviewed. All were sketch plan reviews and no actions were taken by the Board. The first was a minor subdivision proposal to split an approximately 50-acre property at 140 Updike Road into two equally sized lots. The Board was generally in favor of the plat as submitted, but did request the addition a 50-foot stream buffer where an intermittent stream runs east of Updike Road. A public hearing will be scheduled once the Final Plat is submitted. The second proposal was for the Rhize Up Community Farm on Hornbrook Road (tax parcel 6.-1-18.25) where a 12-bedroom duplex with a footprint of approximately 5,000 square feet is proposed. Typically duplexes are permitted by right in this area, however the site is encumbered by the Habitat Corridor Overlay Zone District, which requires any development to be reviewed by the Planning Board. There are major concerns about this proposal due to the environmental sensitivity of the site, which include mature mixed forest, un-buildable steep slopes, wetlands, a perennial stream, and overlay zone districts that restrict development. The applicants have been provided comments to address and no public hearing is set at this time. The third proposal was for a coffee shop and bakery at 1914 Danby Road, to be called Georgia’s. Before a “brick and mortar” restaurant is built, the applicant-owners would like to operate a coffee trailer on the property. Comments were provided by the Planning Board for their site plan to show parking layout, landscaping, lighting, signage, and existing features on the site. No public hearing is set at this time. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to schedule a time to meet, please call 607-592- 0417 or email planner@danby.ny.gov. 3 March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Notes from the Town Clerk Mariah Dillon Greetings Danby Residents! I am so honored to be serving as your Town Clerk! It has been a pleasure meeting many of you during tax season. I know, nobody likes paying taxes! And I never thought I would be collecting taxes - but here we are! I have been charged with collecting $4.4 million dollars in property taxes. Of that, $2.9 million goes to the town of Danby, and 1.4 million goes to the county. I have collected, so far, $4,054,500. or, 92%. Not Bad! The majority of this has been paid to the town as follows: General Fund: $1,014,611 Highway Fund: $1,369,665 Fire Districts: $589,000 Water District: $10,389 If you have yet to pay your property taxes, I would encourage you to send your payment soon. You can pay online, but there is a fee for the online service, at about 2.8%. (I have looked into other online payment services to bring down that fee, but so far I have only run into fees that are even higher than 2.8%!) The penalty for paying in March is not really too bad, 2% +$1. After March, all the collecting will be done by the County. Thankfully, the County will deal with any unpaid or delinquent bills. (If you made an installment payment, the second installment will be paid to Tompkins County.) We are migrating everyone who has a Danby email address to Office365! This is super exciting, as we will be able to use Word, Excel, Outlook for email, and Sharepoint for document storage. Part of the project includes developing an organizational structure for the town that we will apply to Office365. This is not as easy as it sounds, as Towns do not work like most hierarchical organizations. Elected officials work for the residents! It's generally understood that we all work together for the benefit of Danby. Having a better understanding of our roles within Danby town government will also help us to better communicate and be more efficient and effective in running the town. If that's not enough for a new Town Clerk, we are also planning to revamp the website! We have heard your frustrations about finding things on Danby.ny.gov. We will be taking what we learn from developing our organizational structure, and applying it to the web. I'm excited to be working with a great team on this project. If you have any nice pictures of Danby, that you wouldn't mind being used on our website, feel free to forward them to me at townclerk@danby.ny.gov. No guarantees they will get used - but at this point I have very little to work with in terms of images. It's been a steep learning curve for me, but I am enjoying every minute of it! 4 March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Tompkins County Legislature News Dan Klein The Tompkins County Office for the Aging (COFA) provides many services to residents of Tompkins County. I only have room to include a brief list of what they do. Much more info can be found on their website (search for COFA Tompkins). I will also list a few programs that are seeking volunteers to help older adults in our community. COFA provides information and assistance on long term care, personal care services, home delivered meals, caregiver services, respite, personal emergency response systems, health insurance counseling, the Home Energy Assistance Program, home safety assessments, senior farmer’s market coupons, and Gadabout transportation financial assistance. COFA is providing these and more services to the older residents of Tompkins County. Do you want to magnify the good work they do? Consider volunteering with older adults: The Tompkins County Office for the Aging has a friendly visiting program called Project CARE. This program is comprised of volunteers who live within the community and provide in-home contacts and friendly visits to older adults. Volunteers with Project CARE are asked to give 1-2 hours a week of their time to visiting an older adult. The Long Term Care Ombudsman Program trains volunteers to regularly visit a nursing home or adult home and help residents and their families understand and exercise their rights to quality care and quality of life. Volunteers are asked to dedicate about 2 hours per week for visits and necessary follow- up, documentation of activities, and a monthly meeting or in-service training. COFA maintains a listing of people who are willing to do yard work and/or snow shoveling for older adults on either a paid or volunteer basis. COFA also has volunteers working in their office to provide assistance and research support. Interested in volunteering? Contact the Tompkins County Office for the Ageing at cofa@tompkins- co.org or 607- 274-5482 . 7 Town News Reminder: If you would like to receive the Danby Town News ONLY on the website , please send an email with your request (including name and address) to townnews@danby.ny.gov. If you would like to assist with the newsletter in anyway, please send and email to townnews@danby.ny.gov to let us know. If you know of a Danby resident who is not receiving a printed newsletter and would like to , please send their name and address to townnews@danby.ny.gov March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Conservation Advisory Committee Margaret Corbit The Danby Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) met on Tuesday, February 12 at 7 pm. Here are the highlights of the meeting . Thanks to Betsy Keokosky, we were visited by Crystal Buck, Farmland Protection & Ag Marketing Educator with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. Crystal is also a Danby resident and provided support for Comprehensive Plan implementation years ago as a County Planning Department "circuit rider”, among other her contributions to the community. We had a very informative conversation about how she is working with the Town of Caroline to develop a longterm plan for farmland protection. It was interesting to learn that, on paper, the land use patterns for Danby and Caroline are very similar. Of course, the two towns differ in soils and topography, but both are seeing a surge in small scale niche farming. We also talked about the relationship between forest and farmlands, and when forests actually are included in agricultural districts. You can learn more at https://agriculture.ny.gov/land-and-water/agricultural-districts. Katharine Hunter reported that she has reached out to and is working with Dan Klein on resolving our concerns about what Easements will be eligible for Town tax relief. And we worked on our first steps to organize the Conservation Easement digital resources. Moving from paper to scanned digital resources to a real database of documents is a challenging effort. Don Schaufler had a valuable exchange with Buck and will be following up with her as he works with the Timber Harvest committee to fine tune the proposed draft of the regulation. It will focus on protecting Town roads from damage caused by heavy loads. Our next meeting is on March 12 at 7 pm in the Town Hall. Community members are welcome to attend in hybrid fashion or in person and a link for Zoom will be posted on the Calendar. . 8 Danby Seniors Margie VanDeMark The Danby Seniors meet on the first Thursday of each month. Join us at Noon for a dish to share at the Danby Community Church, 1859 Danby Road. The next two meetings are on March 7 and April 4. Bring your own table service and a utensil to serve your dish. Everyone over age 55 is invited. Annual membership dues are $10 and can be sent to: Cindy Ceracche, 338 Gunderman Rd.,Spencer, NY 14883; 607-339-9269. Lifetime members (80 years and older) no longer need to pay dues, but can donate if they wish. Stay tuned … the travel committee is busy scheduling trips for the coming months. Join our Facebook page (Danby Seniors) to keep up to date. March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Youth Programs Heidi Doggett hd289@cornell.edu) Danby’s next round of youth programs is open for registration! There is one more program for 4-5 graders coming down the pipeline for Tuesdays, so stay tuned. Register at bit.ly/41jUwDO Contact program educator Heidi Doggett at 925-240-3572 or hd289@cornell.edu with questions. Cooking and Baking (6-8 grade) Mondays 3:30 pm-6:00 pm March-April, Boynton Middle School In this program youth will plan weekly dishes as a group and create shopping lists on a budget. They could choose to make pasta, candy, tacos... come with ideas! Dungeons & Dragons/Magic: the Gathering (6-8 grade) Wednesdays 3:30 pm-6:00 pm March-June, Boynton Middle School The adventure continuous with lots of games to choose from every week. D&D and Magic are just two of the options youth can choose from. Dominion, Cards Against Humanity Family Edition, Poetry for Neanderthals, and of course Gaga Ball when the weather allows. Youth who registered for this program in January do not need to sign up again, since it continues through the end of the school year. Note that the program time has been extended from 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm. Even though Danby’s program slots are all filled, youth may still register for this program through Beth Bannister, the JYC’s Youth Educator. Email her at bab47@cornell.edu for a registration link. Sneaky Crafts and Surprises (4-5 grades) Thursdays 2:00 pm- 5:30 pm March-April. South Hill Elementary School This craft program will focus on little surprises that youth can hide in plain sight for lucky passers-to find. 'Art Abandonment' is a trend where artists leave kind notes with a small craft (for example a button, polymer clay or resin miniature, or painted rock) in public places to spread good vibes and cheer. We could also try recording short puppet skits and leaving QR codes where people can scan them with their phones to watch the video. We have permission to leave crafts at the school. We'll also be taking trips to nearby trails and other places to leave our surprises. Of course, youth can also make crafts for themselves. 7 Making yummy soup and biscuits (Cozy Winter Cooking program) Sliding in the snow - Dotson Park (Fort Building Program) March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Danby Community Library Contact: Cindy Parlett library@danby.ny.gov Open Tue 1-3pm, Thur & Sat 10am-12pm Danby Food Pantry Danby Community Church Contact: Joan Barber Open: 3rd Thur 4-6 pm Danby Food Scraps Pickup every Sat 9am – noon behind Town Hall Danby Community Parks Association (DCPA) Website: dotsonpark.org dotsonpark@gmail.com Danby Rural Cemetery Contact: Sharon Boda Sharonboda@gmail.com Danby Seniors Contact: Pat Phelps patriciaphelps2.0@ gmail,com Luncheons: 1st Thur at noon Danby Community Council President: Pamela Goddard Website: danbycc.org Meeting: 1st Thur 7pm Danby Tosspots (Open Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting) Wed 7pm virtual West Danby Community Association (WDCA) Contact: Pat Curran pc21@cornell.edu Danby Library News Cindy Parlett We had a donation of some very nice children's books this month. Once Upon a Magic Book-L. Murray The Lost Tree-E.Haworth-Booth The Bad See-J.John Strictly No Elephant-L.Mantchev Love Z-J.Sima Young Frank Architect-F.Viva Edward the Emu-S. Knowles Are you a Cat?-C. Muir The Dot-P.Reynolds A Plan for Pops-H.Smith I Know You Could-C.Dorfman The Glorious Flight Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot-A.Provensen Biggie vol 1 and Biggie vol 4-M.Willems 11 March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Monthly Meeting Schedule At-A-Glance Group Day Date Time Call-in by Phone Meeting ID Town Board* Mon 3/4 6:00pm 1-929-205-6099 882 2697 6101 905098 WDWD Wed 3/6 5:00pm In person West Danby fire station CAC* Tue 3/12 7:00pm 1-929-205-6099 835 4940 5296 879507 FD Tue 3/12 7:00pm I n person at the Danby Fire Station DYC Thurs 3/14 7:00pm Online - contact jsorrentino@danby.ny.gov PB*Tue 3/19 7:00pm 1-646-876-9923 893 3897 1114 956288 Town Board* Mon 3/18 6:00pm 1-929-205-6099 847 9505 5187 308958 BZA* Tue 3/26 7:00pm TBD 817 1432 4705 398041 FD Tue 3/26 7:00pm In person at the Danby Fire Station See the Danby calendar for the final, most up-to-date details. (Acronyms in the above schedule are identified below.) *These meetings are hybrid (i.e. both online and in-person at the Town Hall) Boards & Committees Planning Board (PB) Chair: Jody Scriber planningboard@danby.ny.gov Meets: 3rd Tuesday at 7pm Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) Chair: Earl Hicks bza@danby.ny.gov Meets: 4th Tuesday, as needed Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) Chair: Margaret Corbit cac@danby.ny.gov Meets: 2nd Tuesday at 7pm Danby Youth Commission (DYC) Chair: Jamie Sorrentino jsorrentino@danby.ny.gov Meets: 2nd Thursday at 7pm Fire District (FD) Secretary: Sharon Gaden, secretary@danbyfiredistrict.org danby.ny.gov/depts/danby-fire-district Meets: 2nd & 4th Tuesdays at 7pm Danby Volunteer Fire Company (DVFC) Chief: John Gaden, jgaden@danbyfiredistrict.org danbyfiredept.org West Danby Fire Department (WDFD) Chief: Robert McCray rmccray@danbyfiredistrict.org westdanbyfire.com West Danby Water DIstrict (WDWD) Contact: Scott Wendt, swendt@danby.ny.gov Meets: 1st Wednesday at 5pm 13 March 2024 Town of Danby, New York Town Officials Main Phone: +1-607-277-4788 Town Supervisor Joel Gagnon, x1010 supervisor@danby.ny.gov Town Board Meets 1st Tue and 3rd Wed Leslie Connors Paul Hansen H Katharine Hunter Pat Woodworth townboard@danby.ny.gov Town Clerk Deputy Town Clerk Hours: Mon–Fri 11am–6pm Mariah Dillon Cindy Katz clerkoffice@danby.ny.gov x8001 Highway Superintendent Deputy Highway Superintendent Hours: Mon–Thu 6am–4:30pm Keith Shipman, x8009 highway@danby.ny.gov Jack Shawley, x1012 jshawley@danby.ny.gov Town Justices Court Clerk Hours: Mon-Wed 8am-11am Garry Huddle Theresa Klinger Diane Gair dgair@nycourts.gov Town Planner Hours: Mon–Fri by appointment Greg Hutnik, x1007 planner@danby.ny.gov Code Enforcement Hours: Mon-Fri by appointment Steve Cortright, x1006 code@danby.ny.gov Documents / Historian Mary Ann Barr, x1008 mbarr@danby.ny.gov Bookkeeper Laura Shawley, x1011 lshawley@danby.ny.gov 14 Danby, New York From: 1830 Danby Road Ithaca, NY 14850 PRST STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit No.428 Ithaca, NY 14850 Phone: +1-607-277-4788 https://danby.ny.gov Welcome to the Danby Town News! Questions? Email us at townnews@danby.ny.gov