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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-04-27 Town Board Special Meeting MinutesDRAFT-PENDING BOARD APPROVAL  Danby Town Board  Minutes of Special Meeting via Zoom Video Conferencing  April 27, 2020 5pm  Present: Councilpersons:Leslie Connors, Joel Gagnon(Supervisor), Jim Holahan, Sarah Schnabel, Matt Ulinski Others Present: Town Clerk Alexandra Pfeifer Justices Garry Huddle and Theresa Klinger Bookkeeper Laura Shawley Planner Jason Haremza Public Ronda Roaring, Bruce Richards, Margaret Corbit, Tina and Phil Berler, Rick Lazarus, Carrie Lamontagne, Shawn and Nina Waterman Meeting Opened at 5:04pm Correspondence Clerk Pfeifer read an email from Ronda Roaring that was received via email and addressed to the Town Board, the Town Clerk, and Margaret Corbit. The email was dated 4/24/2020 at 6:07pm. The email reads, as follows: Town Board: I consider the Planning Board Resolution #10 to be excellent. I support it 110%. -Ronda Additions and deletions to the Agenda Gagnon asked if the Howland Hemp farm Resolution was added to the agenda. Members of the TB answered in the affirmative. Gagnon replied that he had an older version of the agenda. Citing email messages earlier in the day, Gagnon also wished to add a discussion/decision on town hall access to Dawn Parks, the library volunteer coordinator. He asked that it be resolved before the document discussions so that it was done earlier in the meeting. Privilege of the Floor Rick Lazarus said that he is the spokesmodel for the Howland Rd. neighborhood, and that he will report back to the neighborhood. He thanked the Town Board for taking this issue up. Garry Huddle reported that he received the new chairs, and was unsure what to do with the old ones. He asked if he should sell them. He was told to put them in the meeting room for now until it was decided what to do with them (give to another town department, give to the Ithaca ReUse, etc). Planning Board Resolution No. 10 Planner Haremza talked to the Town Attorney, who okayed the approach that the PB was taking. Haremza explained Resolution No.10, which came about in part because the Howland Hemp Operation is in violation of the Zoning Ordinance. Ulinski was concerned about the resolution as written, because he wanted to make sure to convey the facts and have the background details that came to this conclusion. Bruce Richards replied that the TB found a list of growers and Margaret Corbit found information from FOIL requests. Ulinski wondered if Haremza could make up a longer letter with more information re: the violations (the noise and smell complaints), which would be more substantial than the PB resolution, in order to show why the PB pursued this action of citing the hemp operation as being in violation of the zoning ordinance. Haremza said that he would put together a document showing violations before it is approved. Haremza also pointed out that this resolution didn’t necessarily have to be brought up to the TB, but it is helpful because then it is on record that the Howland Hemp operation actions are inconsistent with the zoning Town Board_Minutes_Special Meeting 2020_0427 ​• ​ Monday, April 27, 2020 1 DRAFT-PENDING BOARD APPROVAL  ordinance. Haremza also voiced his concern that this could stir up other issues, but it would also be on record that the TB supports zoning enforcement. Before the resolution was brought to a vote, the TB decided to modify the PB resolution to include the last paragraph and replace the Planning Board with the Town Board. Ronda Roaring wished there to be a slight modification to the wording, from “several” to “many.” The TB said that they could not do that because they were only including the wording from the last paragraph from the PB resolution, and that the PB resolution passed as worded. Resolution No. 49 of 2020: Consider Enforcement Action: Howland Hemp operation (PB Resolution #10 of 2020) Resolved, ​that the Town Board pursues enforcement of the Zoning Ordinance in finding that, as currently operating, the hemp processing facility is an industrial activity not permitted in a Low Density Residential zone. Moved by Gagnon, Second by Connors. The motion passed. In Favor: Connors, Holahan, Schnabel, Ulinski, Gagnon Library Access to Town Hall Gagnon recalled his conversation to the TB with Dawn Parks, the DCL Library Coordinator. He told the rest of the TB that she was disappointed that she couldn’t get in the building. Parks is not asking that the library be opened, but just that access was allowed for one person at a time to come and do computer work. Connors mentioned that Parks told her about the library database that another volunteer was working on, and wondered if the computer in question could be moved. She added that there is no reason that anyone should be in there. Ulinksi added that libraries were not essential and that it would be a bad idea for liability reasons if someone happened to get sick. Gagnon said that he sensed from the TB that there should be no library volunteers accessing the library at this time. Email Policy Discussion The Town email policy has gone through rounds of review and comments re: its wording and content. This is the final review before it is adopted as an updated Town policy. This final review consisted of Schnabel screen sharing the document with the latest edits and comments included in the document, and highlighted so that the particular item could be discussed. For roughly an hour, members of the TB went through each section and bullet point. The discussion started with the Ownership of emails, which brought up the issue of the Justices having Town emails vs their nycourts emails. It was decided that all members of staff, as well as those appointed and elected, should have town issued emails, except the justices. The Justices also asked that they have their town emails discontinued, because they do not check them and only use their nycourt email. The discussion then moved on to the sections of Training, and how there hasn’t been any training on the email system. Such training would be helpful to learn how to make groups, and would be helpful if it was in a technical video format where the screen would be shared. While discussing when to review the email policy (which was changed to yearly), the issue was to decide when--would it be done during the organizational meeting? The suggestion came up of having an annual calendar, so that it would be easy to see when the major decisions of the year came up, such as the budget (July-August) and appointing members to boards and committees (October). The discussion then turned to the Departure section, where, after 30 days, a former employee would be locked out of their town email. Section 7.3 was deleted because of redundancy and current employees are required to change their password once a year. The TB decided that the document had been reviewed enough that, after updating the edits, the policy would be up for a vote during the May 11th regular meeting. Due to time constraints, the Appointment Procedure and the Rules of Procedure for the TB were not able to get reviewed this meeting. There was discussion of possibly having additional special meetings in order to give them further review. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 7:57 pm. ______________________________________ Town Board_Minutes_Special Meeting 2020_0427 ​• ​ Monday, April 27, 2020 2 DRAFT-PENDING BOARD APPROVAL  Alexandra Pfeifer, Town Clerk Town Board_Minutes_Special Meeting 2020_0427 ​• ​ Monday, April 27, 2020 3