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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-02-26TB 2 -26 -04 TOWN OF DRYDEN SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING February 26, 2004 Joint meeting with the Village of Dryden for the purpose of Discussing the Cortland Road Sewer District Present in order of introduction: Larry Carpenter, Town of Dryden DPW, Ron Moore, Assistant Superintendent, Village of Dryden Tom Basanti, Eagle Broadcasting Elle Grant, The Ithaca Journal Jack Bush, Town of Dryden Highway Supt & DPW Jon Bradley, Village of Dryden DPW Paul Sheneman, PLS Engineering Mary Ellen Bossack, Dryden Village Trustee Steve Stelick, Dryden Town Councilman Steve Trumbull, Dryden Town Supervisor Mahlon Perkins, Town of Dryden Attorney Bambi Hollenbeck, Dryden Town Clerk Chris Michaels, Dryden Town Councilman Tony Hall, Dryden Courier Mark Strom, Dryden Village Trustee Mike Hattery, Dryden Town Councilmani Marty Christofferson, Dryden Town Councilman Bob Witty, Dryden Village Trustee Dan Wakeman, Dryden Village Trustee Abby Homer, Deputy Dryden Village Clerk Deb Marrotte, Clerk /Treasurer, Village of Dryden David Dubow, Dryden Village Attorney Reba Tavlor, Dryden Village Mayor Mayor Taylor said the reason she had asked for the meeting was because there seems to have been a lot of mixed thoughts and comments regarding the Cortland Road Sewer District and who is responsible; for what, what the cost might be and what may or may not need to be repaired. Jon Bradley and Paul Sheneman be doing most of the presentation because they are most familiar with what the Village needs and P Sheneman has been working on the wastewater facility upgrade for the Village. Jon Bradley gave a brief history. A few years ago they started having problems with the sewer main coming in to the Village along North Street, nicluding one incident where the baptist parsonage (on Library Street) was flooded with sewage in the basement. Sewage from the Cortland Road Sewer District all comes through this sewer main. The main was built in the mid - sixties, prior to the time TC3 was built, and is not as big as it Should be. Because of more buildings and dorms there has been an added burden to the sewer line. Renovations to the wastewater treatment plant itself are also necessary. The wastewater treatment plant serves approximately 2,000 people in the Village of Dryden and approximately 5,000 people outside the Village (including the part and full-time students at ' TC3, the students in the dorms, the high school complex, and the trailer parks in the Cortland Road Sewer District) and was built in the early sixties. The expected lifetime of the concrete Page 1 of 10 i Q TB 2 -2G -04 tanks is about 40 to 50 years. There is a problem with infiltration in both the Town and Village systems, and currently the system is overloaded. A few years ago the Village initiated a study as to the hydraulic capacity of the wastewater collection system to get it from the Town to the wastewater plant and also look at how they could upgrade the wastewater plant. The result is a report: from PGS engineering and that makes recommendations about what needs to be done. They need to put together a package to fund the improvements. J Bradley said previous discussions with the Town led to the Town saying it wasn't interested in participating anymore and would build its own wastewater system. He said the Village of Dryden and its 2000 residents doesn't need to be paying for wastewater collection for the Town. The contracts that: the Village had with TC3 and Dryden High School were turned over to the Town's Cortland Road Sewer District. Those contracts are now running out., along with the agreement with the Town. The Town and Village now need to decide how to proceed. There was some discussion about the contract between the Village and Town for the Cortland Road Sewer District. It was signed in October of 1982 and was supposed to be for no less than 20 years and no more than 40 years, with additional language about the term of the contract coinciding with the term of bonding. Atty Perkins explained that the Town did not bond for the construction, and so the term of the contract was 20 years, expiring in October 2002. Mayor Taylor said the Village had tried to negotiate with the previous Town Supervisor and were gold the Town would do something on its own. They will need to determine which areas need work, who is responsible for the work, what percentage of the charges belong to which municipalii:y, and where certain structures need to be located. J Bradley said it is unclear to him who owns the piping from TC3 to the Village, from FarView to the Village and from the High School to the Village and that needs to be clarified. He said the line from TC3 to the Village is in need of repair. There is a pipe of clear water coming into the Village system from TC3, and it is obviously not waste, but groundwater. That water goes into the plant. and has to be pumped, and he said they have enough problems in the Village with infiltration because of the depth of the sewer and the water table level. Atty Perkins said that none of those lines were installed as part of the original sewer district improvement and to his knowledge neither the high school nor TC3 have ever turned over those lines to the sewer district. 'Those lines were in place before the sewer district was formed and he doesn't think there has ever been a dedication of the lines to the district. Paul Schenemen said he understands that some people are familiar with the earlier study they did. It was a 20 year planning study and they tried to project for the next 20 years what kind of growth there might be inside the Village and what growth there might be in the Cortland Road Sewer District. They compared with the calculated flows the expected to occur over the next 20 years with the capacity of the sewers .and identified which sections would not be adequate. In the earlier report they took the view that those sections would require replacement with larger pipes. That report established the background, what the current flows are, what to expect over the next 20 years and a pretty good idea of which pipes were too small. More recently the Village asked Mr Schenemen to follow up on that: earlier report and take a specific look and come up with a design to do sewer improvements that would accommodate the flows expected to be tributary to the treatment plant over the next 20 years. The report was distributed to those present. More recently the Village asked him to look at what it would cost to establish flow monitoring for the wastewater that comes from the O Cortland (load Sewer District. There appears to be an infiltration problem in some of the sewers that are tributary to the Village system from outside the Village. Page 2 of IQ 'TB 2 -26 -U4 • The Village's current billing method for collecting and treating wastewater is based on potable water usage, and he said there may not be a very good relationship between the amount of water t ;hat is purchased from the Village and the amount of wastewater that comes back into the Village. The report does not address how you might solve that problem, but does address what it would cost to set up permanent flow monitoring. That would give the Village and Town a basis for an agreement for charges for wastewater collection and treatment on the basis of actual wastewater flows. The original report identified which pipes were too small and assumed that those pipes would be made bigger. Among the pipes that needed to be made bigger according to the original report was just about all of North Street, Routes 13 and 38. P Shenemen said that would be very expensive because there are so many utilities in the ground. It is a State road and the permits that are necessary drive up the construction costs. They found an alternative that allows them to avoid most of the work that would have to take place on the main street running north out of town. They will still have to bore under Routes 13 and 38 (on a diagonal across near Lee Road) to establish a by -pass sewer. It would then travel down Freeville Road and that allows them to bypass a lot of the wastewater that is now travelling down the main street. It would then go down Lewis Street to Elm Street to the treatment plant. The second report evaluates the cost of those sewer improvements which would be sufficient to handle wastewater flows from the Cortland Road Sewer District that are projected to occur over the next 20 years. There would also be a few sewer improvements necessary on Lee Road near the intersection of Routes 13 and 38 because some of those; pipes are too small to handle projected flows. P Shenemen said there have been some significant increases in the cost of materials including the materials used for backiill, pipe, diesel fuel, etc. between the time of the original ® report and the second report. Those increases are reflected in the estimated costs of sewer replacements and construction. Because they have worked with the Village for the last year and a half, P Shenemen said they have gained more information on the heroics that were taken to control groundwater during the construction of the original sewer system. They understand there was a complete system of dewat:ering wells set up, including 12" headers that ran full for the entire time the construction took place to control the groundwater. C Michaels asked how much the improvements would cost, assuming they followed the recommended plan, and what the time frame would be. P Shenemen said the costs breakdowns are detailed in the end of the report. The sanitary sewer improvements that are needed to handle the anticipated flows from the Cortland Road Sewer District total just: over one million dollars. This cost only reflects the work to be done within the Village itself.. An assumption was made in the original report and carried through to the recent report, that the percentage of inflow infiltration in the sewer would remain about the sarne over the 20 year period. P Shenemen said the existing wastewater treatment plant is presently overloaded and it is periodically necessary to bypass one or more processes at the plant to handle the flows. The peak flows the plant sees are a factor of six higher than the average flows. The discrepancy between the average: flow that they have to design the plant for and the peak flown that has to hydraulically pass through the plant have narrowed the selection of wastewater treatment processes they can use to effectively handle it without building an enormous plant. They have settled on a process called sequencing batch reactors and the advantage of that type of treatment system is that it: is controlled by electronics that allow the system to know how much flown it is seeing, how fast it is corning in, and it will actually change its own process to accommodate flows during the peak. During highest peak flows the plant reverts to primary ® settling. This is the most cost effective way to handle a situation such as this where the peak flows are so many times greater than the average flows. Pave 3 of 10 TB 2 -26 -04 P Shenemen said they have been authorized to proceed with the design of the facility and have applied to DEC for the necessary permit modifications to increase the SPEDES permit limit from 400,000 to 500,000 gallons per day on the average. They anticipate that within the next few months they will be in a position to submit the pim-is for the upgrade to New York State. The cost will be approxiunately $3,000,000. it is a combination of renovating and rebuilding the existing plant. R Taylor said a tour of the present facilities will be conducted in the next few weeks and runyone interested in attending should let the Village Clerk's Office know. C Michaels noted that the Town is nearing completion of its master plan which projects quite a bit of dense growth surrounding the Village, the recommendation being to encourage residential development near the Village. 1' Shenemen said the information he used in his report came from a response to a letter he wrote the Town in Spring of 2003 asking for the Town's projection of growth in the, area served by sewers. Cl Michaels suggested that response be compared with the draft master plan. P Shenemen said they really don't know anything about the sewer system outside the Village. They have not inspected it in any detail and so don't know what condition it is in. They did look at an alternate route in hopes of saving money for the improvements that are necessary in order to handle the Cortland Road Sewer District. There is an existing easement north of the Village line through which a new sewer could be built taking the flows from the `l'C3 directly to Rouges 13 & 3$, eliminating some of the piping that they suspect is responsible for the high infiltration. That alternative did not prove cost effective for the Village, but the Town may be interested in investigating this route. Jon Bradley noted that TC3's current plans for expansion including more dorms and an athletic complex would add even more stress on the Lee Road line. He also added the groundwater from TC3's lines will need to be eliminated. Atty Perkins said this is the first time he has heard of the infiltration problem. 'There are regulations in the Cortland Road Sewer District that require watertight: joints and for them to fix problems like that. The Town Board will need to discuss how to approach that, but it is something that should be addressed soon. Cortland Road Sewer District customers are invoiced according to water consumption. For those not receiving municipal water, meters are placed on their well. There was discussion about changing how the Village bills the Town for collecting and treating wastewater. The Village has no authority to require replacement: of sewer pipes in the Cortland Road Sewer District that would help maintain control over the amount of inflow and infiltration coming back into the Village from the Cortland Road Sewer District. The Village's concern is that unchecked that amount of inflow and infiltration will make the new plant go bust. The Town's customers are billed in units, with different criteria determining the number of units a customer is charged. The bill is figured by the number of units, times the amount of water used, times rate and a. quarter for outside the Village. With the increase in the Village sewer rates, it has put a burden on some people, like the trailer parks who have ten units. They pay 10 base rates plus the amount over. The Village is suggesting that the Town's billing be converted to exactly what the Village is doing (billing according to amount of gallons used). Mayor Taylor said they were hoping to change the billing formula prior to the next billing in April. The Town Board would need to amend its local law to provide that its customers would be billed according to the actual usage, abandoning the unit measure. There would also need to be an agreement with the Village that changed the way the Village and Town have the billing set up. The timing is important as the next bills go out in April. C Michaels asked that a spreadsheet be prepared showing what each customer would be billed using both methods so they could be compared. Each customer would potentially see a. decrease in their bill, particularly those customers billed for more than one unit. Atty Perkins said the Town Board rage 4 of I0 01*13 2 -26-04 would need to introduce .an amendment to the local law, schedule a public hearing, and then pass the law. Jon Bradley said the Village normally does a flow test in April for all the lines in the Village and the lines coming into the Village. They will monitor the flow for 24 or 48 or 72 hours and graph it. They can detect infiltration in this way. The Village does have a small camera they can use. Mayor Taylor said they will have to determine ownership of the lines from the High School and TC3 and who is going to be responsible for those. C Michaels asked how the Village intended to fund the plant upgrades. Mayor Taylor said they had a contract with Thoma Development and they were looking into finding grant money and other funding for the project. They would probably bond the balance. They have looked into a loan from USDA. The Village had been waiting to find out: if the Town wanted to participate and w =hat the figure would actually be and whether it would be shared. Supv Trumbull asked how the percentage would be figured. Mayor Taylor said that would have to be determined. Cl Michaels asked what the relative usage in the Cortland Road Sewer District versus the Village was. J Bradley said that. was in the original report and there was a suggested breakdown by projected growth and usage. Information provided by the previous Towri Supervisor projected the Town would double its flow in the next 20 years. TC3 predicted also doubling its flow. Cl Michaels asked what percentage of the total usage at the sewer plant is attributable to the Town. it is estimated somewhere between 30 %, and 44 %, The Town is waiting for final engineering reports regarding the Cortland Road Sewer Is District. Preliminary copies were provided to the Village by the previous Town Supervisor. The conclusion in those is that it is more economically feasible to cooperate with the Village than to establish its own plants. C Michaels said his strong desire is to have one system that both municipalities can use rather than two. He had been under the impression that the Village was not interested in selling the Town water and was looking to discontinue cooperation with the sewer. He is hearing something different tonight and is very interested in seeing the two municipalities cooperating, rather than have two plants operating in close proximity to each other. C Michaels asked what the Village's position would be regarding water, and bringing it to the Cortland Road Sewer District. Mayor "Taylor said that the Village had always been interested in doing water based on annexation. The main reason for that is that they feel water will bring a lot of development. She said that will result in increased cost for police protection and if the property is not annexed it will be an increased cost to Village taxpayers, and the police may not be available to handle a matter in the Village if they are outside. She said maybe the Town would be interested in contracting with the Village for police services. That has been a main issue stopping a water district from the Village's perspective; that taxpayer dollars are being used in other areas that: are not funded. Supv Trumbull suggested the Town could help with an expanded special police district. Mayor Taylor said the Village would then look more favorably on a water district. She noted that formation of a water district would require a permissive: referendum. if the property is annexed, the Village is obligated to give them water. C Michaels said a large number of property owners in the Cortland Road Sewer District have spoken to the board at one time or another and some don't want water and others say the want water but are not willing to pay Village taxes. Others say they will pay what they have to because they can't deal with water themselves anymore. He said he does know if there are over 50% who would be interested in annexation and he doesn't know if there are 50% who would want water. Page 5 of 10 T13 2 -26-04 isMayor Taylor said she knows that Mott Road really wants water. A more driving force now than before is the new water law for employers with more than a certain number of employees. C Michaels said that the Town now pays a premium over the standard rage for sewer. A large part of the rational behind that is to help cover additional expenses. A report is available that shows the amount of money that can be saved if the Town can reach an agreement with the Village. There seems to be an increase in the number of people wanting water- in the area. That area is zoned for development but no one wants to build there without adequate public services. M Hattery said that more discussion needs to be had about the master plans that are presently being developed by the Town and the Village. C Michaels said that the Town had held three public hearings on its master plan and agreed that consideration needs to be given to that when discussing things such as infrastructure for water and sewer. Mayor Taylor said she had been approached by someone who wants to develop an area in the Village and that: will require water and sewer extensions. There are areas that will developed within the next: year and half or so. She said that: according to the Board of Health Director there is enough water in the Village to supply other areas. J Bradley said the Village system is currently perfectly adequate for the Village. There is water available to supply other areas outside the Village, but there will need to be some upgrades to the Village system as far as detention time for larger quantities. He said it is currently not financially feasible to run Bolton Point water out here. lie said that some point in time if the Town and Village can cooperate it would be very advantageous to both parties to ® consider linking Bolton Point with the Village. Iron and manganese are a big problem in the groundwater, and there is potential for contamination with all the chemical used these days. Consolidation could be advantageous to all the taxpayers. M Christofferson said this all makes sense and asked how we could get: some agreement wii:h respect to water and sewer and develop a fair and equitable for all the citizens. J Bradley said that until some improvements are made, development of any size in the Cortland Road Sewer District is almost impossible. That is why the Village placed a moratorium on any additional flow coming from there. He said if you can't get rid of the water there's no sense in putting more water out there. Mayor Taylor said they were ready to go to bid on this project next month, but have now slowed down pending some resolution of the present situation. M Hattery said it seems reasonable to set a deadline for saying whether the Town has a good faith interest in continuing with the Cortland Road Sewer District. D Dubow said it is critical from the Village's perspective so that they know how to plan. M Perkins said there seems to be three immediate things to be addressed. One is t:he infiltration coming from TC3 and said the Town Board would probably want to discuss how to handle ghat, and it. needs to be addressed. The second thing is the rate issue and the Town Board can change that by local law. The third thing is when there can be some kind of good faith indication to the Village. He said that because of the money that has been put into the engineering reports it commissioned, the board needs to get those and review them. C Michaels said they need to discuss how the Cortland Road District: customers will be billed for their usage and how the capital costs are going to be distributed. M Hatt:ery said first the Town has to decide whether they are ready to move forward, and then those things will be negotiated in the contract. He suggested that within one month the Town should have its ® reports and be able to get back to the Village within a few months. M Perkins said it shouldn't take more than a month. C Michaels suggested the Town might express its desire to move forward at its next meeting, and said a big issue for the Town is expansion. He said when Page 6 of 10 TB 2 -2C -04 • water and sewer is provided to a specific area development is almost certain to follow, and M Hattery is right that conversations should be going on about what the Town and Village mutually want to see in this area. He noted there is a lot more growth in West Dryden than anticipated and that will continue to get worse because of the housing shortage in the City of thaca. Issues to be resolved include: who owns the lines from the high school and TC3, the infiltration problems, obtaining the final reports from Hunt Engineers. A subcommittee can then be formed. The DPW and Planning Committees in the Village will be involved. Mayor Taylor said there is a DPW meeting the second Thursday of every month at 7:15 a.m., except: next month because J Bradley will be out of Town. Mayor Taylor said if the Town Board wanted a meeting prior to that, she would be willing to do that. M Hattery said he and C Michaels are i:he Public Works Committee for the Town and will be meeting in March and can then hopefully attend the Village Public Works Committee Meeting in April. The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m., and the Town Board reconvened at 9:00 p.m. at; the Town Hall, Atty Perkins has prepared draft Findings with respect to the annexation matter and presented it to the Board. The boundaries of the parcel to be annexed were reviewed. Supv Trumbull said even though they keep saying this is just about annexation, it seems the DOT will be automatic. Atty Perkins said if the board votes to approve annexation, they will be giving approval to the site for the DOT. All other statements to the contrary notwithstanding, this is project specific and there is a plan in place. It is obvious from the Petition. Cl Christofferson asked about #4 in the determinations where it says it will not correct ® the existing illegal water connections which presently exist in this area and asked what those were. The response was all water connections outside the Village, including the high school and TC3. The only exception is the head start building. Cl Hattery said it is not accurate to say, they are all illegal. The agreement to provide water to the head start building goes back to when it: was a farmhouse, and the Village has an agreement from the early days of the Village water system to provide water to that facility based on it being a source of water for the Village system. He said he doesn't know what the benefit is of calling them illegal because he believes both boards were supportive of getting water to the high school even though there wasn't a district formed at the time. Cl Michaels said it is not a criticism, but a statement of fact. Cl Hattery said that it predated any district or talk of a district and he is not sure that: calling them illegal is accurate. Atty Perkins said it is clear from stage law that it is unlawful for the Village to contract to sell water outside of the Village other than to a water district. it has been done, but that does not give it the legitimacy of making it lawful, The State and County Health Department are aware of it and are not doing anything about it. They would rather see a wager district: that would be responsible for the water lines. Alternative language was discussed. Cl Michaels pointed out that if the whole area was to be annexed, one of the benefits would be that the Village would supply water to the area. That problem is not solved by this annexation and he said it is important to identify it as something that is not being solved. Cl Stelick said with respect to number b of the determinations, he and Supv Trumbull had met with l.3ob Baxter of Dryden Mutual Insurance and the board of Dryden Mutual has voted to stay at its present location. They are interested in purchasing the property behind them, but have made the determination to stay. Bob Baxter indicated he is not against the DOT, and their biggest concern is being able to expand at their current location. Cl Stelick said one of his biggest concerns was whether Dryden Mutual would leave the area. Cl do Stelick said the proposed findings indicate a vote against annexation, and if someone wanted to vote yes, the findings would have to be changed and things added. Atty Perkins said when this is finally approved by a majority vote, the board will make fmdings and a Page 7 of 10 TB 2 -26 -04 • determination and then order that those findings and determinations be filed. The draft is a starting point:. Cl Michaels said he would vote for these findings or something substantially like this. He would not vote for any statement that said that: a public benefit outside of this particular parcel was presented. He asked a lot of questions related to that to try to glean some benefit, but he did not hear any benefit articulated. He does not think they met the minimum burdens that they have to meet to propose annexation. He said even if he was for the DOT facility going there, and he is not sure he is against it, he doesn't think they have met what they need to cover. He said he is 100 times more supportive of annexation of the whole Cortland Road Sewer District than this one parcel. There is public benefit to that and it would solve a lot of issues. During the first hearing people said they wanted water, but not Village taxes. The Town could start: a water district and negotiate with the Village to provide water there. Cl Stelick said a possible benefit is the savings in the cost to provide water to the area. The study indicates approximately S million dollars to provide water and sewer. By allowing the annexation to occur and the DOT to go there, they are paying for piping to go out to that sii:e. That is a part of a three million dollar investment by the County and State rand gets us closer to Mott Road without any cost to the Town. He said that is a benefit and will be paid for through this project. Then if the Town works on a district or annexation of the whole thing, a portion has already been paid for and is a substantial savings to the Town. Atty Perkins said that: would be the same if there were a water district and the County was going there. Cl Hattery said that is a public benefit because it reduces the cost of a future wager supply in the area and finally gets a water supply in to that area. Fie said things often happen on a piece -meal basis and you have to do it in consistency with what you think is a good plan. If getting a public water supply to the area is consistent with the overall plans, which it is, then there is a public benefit because it is consistent with the plans already in place. It is consistent with the zoning in the area and with the proposed changes to the comprehensive plan. Cl Michaels said he has considered the issue fully and requested many times to hear that benefit, and he is totally unconvinced. If something was presented that demonstrates a public benefit as explained by Cl Hattery he would be hard - pressed to deny this, as much as he disagrees with doing it a parcel at a time. He sees an overall detriment to the overall goals of the Town's plan. He said he can not: vote for anything that deviates substantially from what was proposed by Atty Perkins. Atty Perkins said he is looking for some direction and it seems Cl Hattery has suggested as a finding that the annexation would produce a benefit because it would partially reduce the cost of extending water to the area north of the Village of Dryden. Cl Hattery said that is correct, and Atty Perkins asked the board if they wanted to see that as a finding. Cl Hattery and Cl Stelick said yes. Possible routes for providing wager to the area were discussed. Cl Michaels said he could agree that there might be a benefit in reducing the cost of future water extension. Cl Hattery said that many people involved in Village government would say the best way to manage growth and development is that: as growth is adjacent to the Village it becomes armexed to the Village and linked to water and sewer. He said many of the issues discussed tonight have happened because we have two entities trying to manage a common system. Some of the inflow problems are because the Village doesn't have authority to go out there. He said it doesn't make sense to create a district directly adjacent to a built: community. ® Cl Christofferson said it was just silly not to try and figure out the problem with infiltration. He asked if contracts couldn't: be written that would give management authority Page 8 of 10 14B 2 -26-04 and the ability to deal with that. Cl Hattery said contracts could be written, but you would need to consider if that was the most effective way to proceed. When it abuts the Village like this it makes sense in a variety of ways to make it part of the community. Atty Perkins asked for some direction in preparing the findings and if there was consensus for including what Cl Hattery had suggested as a finding. He also asked for direction about whether to include the minutes of the first hearing. Cl Hattery made a motion that item #6 be changed to include the minutes from the first hearing. He said that doesn't mean they are included in the findings, but that the board can draw from both hearings in the findings statement. The board was in unanimous agreement. Atty Perkins asked if the board wanted to include a finding that the annexation potentially reduces the partial cost of extending water from the Village to the area north of the Village. Cl Christofferson said he didn't understand how it was going to do it. Cl Hattery said there is a public benefit to reducing the cost of water to adjacent: parcels. Cl Christofferson said he was considering the larger area north of the Village. Cl Michaels said he agrees that the possibility or potential for saving money is a public benefit. That is the only standard they have to meet, but he won't agree that we have proven that there will be reduction in cost. He asked that the findings say there is a potential public benefit. Cl Michaels asked about the conclusion and says the document has to look a lot different, though he is not sure how each board member is going to vote. Cl Christofferson asked Atty Perkins how much time he would need to redraft: the findings and determination. He said he would like to know by the March 3rd and he is leaving town on March 9. He asked the board to send him some direction. Cl Michaels asked what the other board members' thoughts were and whether they were considering changing the conclusion. He asked if they were considering changing the ultimate conclusion, that there is no public benefit and not supporting annexation. He said perhaps there should be another hearing, that board members getting together and discussing it is effectively a town board meeting and notice would be required. On motion of Cl Christofferson, seconded by Cl Michaels and unanimously carried, the board moved into executive session at 9:50 p.m. to discuss the proposed acquisition of a particular parcel of property. No action was taken and the board moved back into regular session at 10:05 p.m. Cl Michaels asked board members to give Atty Perkins an indication of where they are with the Petition at this point. Cl Christofferson said he was happy with what was in it. Cl Hattery said he was not, and wanted the recommendation to go in favor of annexation. Supv Trumbull said he needed some inure time to think about it. Cl Stelick said he was not happy with the way it was written. He doesn't believe all the findings are necessary and said he does not necessarily agree with the determination. He said he is afraid that without annexation we will be back where we started from, an empty lot: with nothing happening. He wants something to happen there, and said this may not be the best way to do it, but it is a beginning. He supports annexation. Cl Michaels asked for feedback on his proposed language for the fire contracts. Atty Perkins said it was a good idea and language similar to that was discussed last year. What hasn't been set forth or addressed is what: happens to the town taxpayer money, fire protection district money, that goes into this account if the fire company goes out of business or stops contracting with the Town or is unable to answer calls because; of lack of volunteers. Neptune and Wl3 Strong are Village fire departments and as a matter of law if they go out of business the Village takes over_ So Town money that was an asset of the company would become Village Pane 9 of 10 T13 2 -26-04 property. By contract: the Board insure those funds came back to the Town. Cl Stelick and Cl Michaels said they may not to address this in the contract for this year but begin discussions regarding it for next years contracts. Cl Stelick said he had some concerns about how the payments were made, and perhaps any special requests for funding should be included in the first quarterly payment. Cl Michaels suggested that the entirety of the capital reserve paid with the first payment. Cl Stelick reiterated this year's contract needs to be signed and fine- tuning can begin for next year. Cl Michaels proposed the revised language be sent to the fire departments tomorrow. He will tell them we are starting from last year's contract, making this change, and ask for feedback on the quarterly payments. He will tell them we are talking about making the payment for capital funds in the first payment. Cl Stelick said $30,000 was put in this year's budget for fire department audits. He said he still believes we need to do yearly audits, but doesn't believe $30,000 needs to be spent to do that. He suggested getting a management letter from whoever does the books regularly for each department. C1 Michaels said what. they actually get are compiled financial statements, where the accountant takes the figures from the departments at face value and puts them into an appropriate financial form. An audit involves actually looking at the records and transactions and seeing if they match, then provides a letter in terms of practices, etc. Cl Stelick said he is looking for ways to save some money on this item. He would like to have some extra funds available in this budget line. Cl Michaels said he believes yearly audits need to be done until we have a few years where there are no maior issues in the management letter. Cl Stelick said he had spoken with Mr Lobdell of the Nana Fire Department and their inventory is done. He asked Supv Trumbull to contact Sciarmbba Walker and have them begin the audit process. CI Michaels said they are the only department: that he and Cl Stelick have not met with at: length and when a draft audit is received, they should schedule a meeting with the Etna Fire Department. Cl Stelick said he is pleased with the information he sees being shared at the Fire Department Chiefs meetings. Atty, Perkins asked that if Board members have any suggested findings, to please get them to him as soon as possible by phone, fax or e-mail. On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 10:25 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Bambi L. Hollenbeck Town Clerk n u Page I 0 of 10