Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-08-08TB 8-8-19 Page 1 of 6 TOWN OF DRYDEN TOWN BOARD MEETING August 8, 2019 Present: Supervisor Jason Leifer, Cl Linda Lavine, Cl Kathrin Servoss, Cl Alice Green Absent: Cl Daniel Lamb Elected Officials: Bambi L. Avery, Town Clerk Other Town Staff: Jennifer Case, Bookkeeper Ryan McHugh, Secretary to the Supervisor Supv Leifer opened the meeting at 6:04 p.m. RESOLUTION #119 (2019) – APPROVE ABSTRACT #8 Cl Servoss offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby approves Abstract #8, as audited, general vouchers #548 through #625 ($289,760.45) and TA vouchers #49 through #54 ($15,681.73), totaling $305,442.18. 2nd Supv Leifer Roll Call Vote Cl Lavine Yes Cl Green Yes Cl Servoss Yes Supv Leifer Yes Ag District Review The Ag Districts in Tompkins County are currently being reviewed. This is required by Ag & Markets every eight year. Monika Roth of Cooperative Extension will be attending the Ag Advisory Committee this month to discuss the process. There is a 30-day comment period that ends at the end of this month. Information is available on the County’s website. Supv Leifer said the Planning Board should review this also. Retro Pay for Union Employees A four-year contract was negotiated and agreed on with the Teamsters. Cl Green said she appreciates all the work that went into coming to an agreement that works best for the town and the teamsters. A resolution is necessary to approve the retro pay due under the agreement. RESOLUTION #120 (2019) – Authorize special payroll for retroactive pay to Union Employees Supervisor Leifer offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: WHEREAS, the Labor Agreement between Teamsters Local 317 and the Town of Dryden has been approved, and TB 8-8-19 Page 2 of 6 WHEREAS, the wage scale in the Labor Agreement begins on January 1, 2019, and WHEREAS, the Labor Agreement requires retroactive contribut ions for insurance premiums for employees who previously did not contribute, be it RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes the Bookkeeper to run a special payroll for current Union employees for retroactive pay according to the wage scale for 201 9 year to date. This payroll shall include the retroactive insurance withholdings due from January through August premiums. 2nd Cl Green Roll Call Vote Cl Lavine Yes Cl Green Yes Cl Servoss Yes Supv Leifer Yes Purchase of Lift Machine Highway Superintendent Rick Young would like to purchase a lift machine that will lift the trucks so that the mechanics can work on them. It would be safer than the method used now. He has looked at what the Town of Ithaca has and talked with State DOT who uses the Mohawk brand. This purchase would be off state contract. He has $42,000 budgeted for the contract with the county for snow and ice removal. He will use those funds and add some from the garage account. R Young said he will do the budget mods and purchase order for this. RESOLUTION #121 (2019) – AUTHORIZE PURCHASE OF LIFT MACHINE Supv Leifer offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby authorizes the Highway Superintendent to purchase a Mohawk power lift and attachments as described on a quote #RP19-1RYw dated July 31, 2019, at a cost not to exceed $58,000.00, using funds from the garage account (A5132.4) and excess funds over what was budgeted from the Tompkins County Snow and Ice contract revenue line (DA-2302). 2nd Cl Green Roll Call Vote Cl Lavine Yes Cl Green Yes Cl Servoss Yes Supv Leifer Yes Etna Fire Department Supv Leifer said he has received a document for calls Etna has responded to, but it was not broken down so that it can easily be determined whether their call response rate has improved. They are looking to get the funds that wer set aside for them a few years ago and is available in the fire fund balance. Planning Department Next week there will be a presentation on the housing conditions study done by Thoma. The Planning Board has made a recommendation for a consultant to work on the comp plan update and the board will vote next week to accept that recommendation. John Kiefer explained that a TB 8-8-19 Page 3 of 6 contract will be negotiated for a phased approach to the work due to the grant application that was submitted. J Case said the funds from the grant for the housing conditions survey were put into the CD account and asked whether expenses would be paid from that fund directly or w hether the grant money should be moved to the A fund. It was decided that the town’s portion of expenses would be paid from the A and pay other associated expenses from the CD fund. With respect to the problem property on Morris Road, Atty Sokoni will be filing a formal complaint so the town can go in and remove the buildings. The Ross property on Bone Plain Road was sold and the new owner will be clearing the property. TG Miller is still working with Atty Sokoni on the Apple Orchard PRV matter. The agreement should be ready for signature soon and Supv Leifer expects the matter to be completed in September. The PRV will secure the water source for the Varna area into the future. The Route 13 Corridor Study kick off meeting will be August 15 at 10:30 a.m. at legislative chambers. The Community Science Institute has submitted their budget request for 2020 and are looking for a 2% increase ($10,761). Supv Leifer met with NYSEG representatives today. Last year they wanted to put in a battery storage system on Cornell property at Sapsucker Woods and are doing a similar system at the cement plant. They will work with R Burger directly for any permitting. NYSERDA wants them to continue to do these things because eventually the technology will be used for grid storage. NYSEG will contact all fire chiefs in town to be sure they have a response plan so if there is a fire, they know how to handle it. The board doesn’t have to do anything. Tesla is manufacturing and installing the battery. This will be the second in the town and there will be 8 county-wide. NYSEG NYSEG is requesting a rate increase and a public hearing will be held next Wednesday, August 14 at the Tompkins County Library. There will be an information forum at 1:00 p.m. followed by a Public Statement Hearing at 2:00 p.m. Trails Supv Leifer reported that he a sent a support letter on July 26 about the South Hill Rec Way. The town has a small portion of that. It looks like NYSEG will give licenses to individual towns rather than the county. The part in Dryden cuts between two homes, so the town will have to work out some screening for the residents. There will be no Rail Trail Task Force trail meeting this month. The next meeting will be September 16. Electric Car Charging Stations Cl Green reported that R Young and R Burger moved forward on this in March. They got a bid from a state contractor. It appears that we can move forward on that. The two charging stations come to about the $8,000 available in the grant. There is additional TB 8-8-19 Page 4 of 6 electrical hookup work that is necessary. It is under $5,000 and because of earlier actions taken there is a Clean Energy Community Grant for $5,000 that can be spent to do the electrical hookup work. Locations have been discussed at town hall and it has now been suggested to add electricity to the recreation storage building at the same time. There may be a monthly charge to the town for the meter and R Young will check on that. Cl Green will write the grant application for two medium speed charging stations and check in with the vendor. Water/Sewer Consolidation – TG Miller sent some amendments to Atty Sokoni. Supv Leifer would like to have this finalized prior to budget season. Consolidation will make the special districts portion of the budget simpler. As part of the process the board will adopt the proposed agreements, hold a public hearing and publish the agreements in the newspaper. Supv Leifer will find out whether consolidation now will be effective for the January 2020 property tax bills. Broadband Study – Supv Leifer has a draft of the study. He will send to Atty Sokoni so that she can give a legal review of the proposal. There are a couple of ways to finance the project (through grants and bonding or loans or a mix of those). He understands that if Monroe County moves forward, they will create a district, but he isn’t sure if that is how they are funding theirs. Cl Green said she would like to see the full report and an opportunity to hear from Hunt Engineers and discuss the options. Supv Leifer said he met with a Spectrum government relations person on Tuesday. She will get a map of the area they claim to cover to him. The Spectrum franchise fee on people’s bills increased recently. They won’t share the list of addresses they plan to connect in Dryden unless the town signs a non-disclosure agreement. Spectrum claims they were never charging the right amount. Town’s percentage is 3% on the basic cable portion, not the 5% that other municipalities charge. Shared Services Plan – There was a public hearing in July at the county on this. At some point this board will need to look at the final plan. Things being investigated are shared code enforcement (for health and safety), interpreter/translation services for courts, backup dispatch with Cortland County, adding more municipalities to the health insurance consortium, an inflow and infiltration study (we are currently doing that for Varna), and short- term rental subscription partnership (Airbnb). The county will circulate a draft on August 23, the county government operations committee will review on September 5, and the county legislature will comment on September 19. The panel will vote on it September 30 and the plan is due to the state by October 30. R Burger may bring the Airbnb issue to the board. Budget Calendar – Next week the board will set dates for budget meetings. Supv Leifer doesn’t want to have an artificial cap. We know that assessments went up. Things we know we must contribute toward are the town’s portion of any match for grants on the rail trial and any other grant matches, so we’ll have to come up with a number for those. There are no programs we are looking to expand. Our biggest investment is trail and perhaps something for the broadband study and anything we need for the bridges. There will be PILOT money next year for at least the Ellis Hollow Tract. There will be an increase in infrastructure. We are not looking to expand departments. We will also have to decide how to address the compensation study results and staff salaries. Dryden Ambulance will be asking for an increase in their contract. If in September it looks like we’ll exceed the tax cap, the board will have to adopt a local law to exceed the cap prior to adoption of the budget. County Briefing Mike Lane said Airbnb can be a problem and hurt our bed and breakfasts and hotels in the County. It can take properties that should have year-round residents and turn them into seasonal residences and is a bed tax issue. TB 8-8-19 Page 5 of 6 On August 13 at 5:30 p.m. at Borg Warner Room at the library there will be a kick off meeting for the census. There will be a presentation by the Census Bureau. The libraries will be instrumental in helping people who are hard to count and giving them an opportunity to use the computer to file online. Elderly people and little children and other origins are difficult to count. We need the information to help with redistricting for election purposes and issues with grant funding. The County Administrator is pulling things together for their budget and meeting with department heads this month. He will present his budget message to the legislature the first of September and they will start their budget meetings. They have an open and transparent process for their budget and listen to all departments. They have over-target debates when a department asks for more than the targeted request. Sales tax is up, and casino revenues are up. They are happy but cautious because we keep reading that casinos are not making their projected earnings and Sports betting is coming on and that may help with that revenue. Revenue from casino licensing fee was used for the Tompkins County Center of History and Culture as a one-time use. The airport project is moving along well. The DOT project on Warren Road was bid by the state and they only had one bid. It was high and they decided not to accept it. They will re-bid the project. The county transferred land so this project could happen. There will possibly be a large refueling area to be used by the airport and other entities, such as DOT. On Tuesday night the legislature considered a resolution regarding a study for co- location of the Sheriff’s offices and city police department. This study has been going on for some time now. It has some connotations about central booking and arraignment area for prisoners. Unfortunately, it started to expand in two ways which turned some people off. The idea of using the Commercial Avenue location (in a floodplain) didn’t go over well. Then they suggested an area large enough to build a new jail. Some believe that good as consolidating administration might be, we shouldn’t have to move and build a new jail. He voted against it. He’s always been a strong proponent of combining the city and sheriff’s police agencies but doesn’t see how that will happen when you have an elected Sheriff and an appointed Chief of Police. M Lane encouraged board members to attend the county legislature meetings. The County will be talking about redistricting in the county for legislature seats after the census figures come out. There will be a short time from census completion to election for county legislation. George Road Bridge Contract Award Cl Servoss said the low bid received for the project was Silverline Construction at $976,699.00. The town needs to pass a resolution next week awarding the contract to Silverline and authorizing the supervisor to sign the document (Cl Servoss will draft that resolution). She explained the authorized budget for the grant was $1,013,250.00. We are getting $962,588.00. Taking away the B & L contract for the phase one preliminary design of $200,000.00 and considering the local match from the grant paperwork of $50,663.00, we are under funded by $163,549.00. That makes us in need of $214,121.00. She asked M Lane if the town could ask the county for $220,000.00 (anything left over would go back to the county). TB 8-8-19 Page 6 of 6 M Lane said the only contract the County has approved so far, is one with Ulysses of around $30,000.00. The sum of $220,000.00 will come as a surprise, however the r easoning of it is good because it is saving the county money in the long run. The county would have had to build this bridge and is aware of the argument . Now that more solid figures are available, he advised that the town approach J Smith and copy in Jason Molino, D McKenna, M Lane and M Robinson. Cl Servoss will send an email. TCCOG – Cl Servoss reported she attended the meeting last week. She spoke with them about our compensation study and asked what other towns and villages had come up with for titles, pay, and position descriptions. Everyone said they’ve tried it before, never com e up with anything solid, and if Dryden does, to please let them know. They also discussed the day of local government training that is being organized. Mike Lane noted he was pleased to see article on Dryden moving ahead with LED streetlights in the town. He asked whether any thought had been given to installing a streetlight at the intersection of Livermore and Route 396. It could be installed on an existing pole. Someone will speak with the Highway Superintendent about that. There being no further business, on motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Bambi L. Avery Town Clerk