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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-12-2000 TOWN OF GROTON MINUTES OF TOWN BOARD MEETING TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2000, AT 7:30 PM Those present: Glenn E. Morey, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Sheldon C. Clark, Councilman Duane T. Randall II, Councilman Francis Casullo, Town Attorney Also present: Colleen D. Pierson, Richard Case, Rosemarie Tucker, Monica Carey, Mary Decker, Dolores G. Hemming. Supervisor Morey opened the meeting. Two changes to agenda: Number 10, executive session will deal with personnel and litigation; Number 12, change next meeting to 2001, not 2000. MOVED by Councilman Randall, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, to approve the minutes of the November 6, 2000 Budget Hearing as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. MOVED by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to approve the minutes of the November 14, 2000 meeting as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. General Fund Claim Numbers 392 – 421 of the in the amount of $19,097.37 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Sovocool, seconded by Councilman Randall, to approve the General Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. Highway Fund Claim Numbers 195 - 220 of the in the amount of $30,446.30 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, to approve the Highway Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. Special Grant (HUD) Fund Claim Numbers 194 - 196 of the in the amount of $3,978.07 were presented for audit. Town Board Meeting Page 2 of 11 December 12, 2000 MOVED by Councilman Randall, seconded by Councilman Clark, to approve the HUD bill for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. Supervisor Morey invited privilege of the floor. No one wished to speak. Monthly Reports: Supervisor Morey – We will move monthly reports. Liz is in Hawaii for a week and she’ll be back somewhere around Saturday or Sunday, and hopefully she’s enjoying her time. The monthly report from the Supervisor, you have your packet there. We also have some transfers. RESOLUTION # 81 – TRANSFER OF FUNDS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby approve the following transfer of funds: General Fund – Town Wide: From: Contingency A1990.4………………………………….. $1,271.57 To: Justices, Clerk Pers. Serv. A1110.13…………………… 358.47 Justices, Contractual A1110.4………………………….. 415.63 Hwy. Clerk, Pers. Serv. A5010.12……………………… 486.37 Deputy Clerk, Pers. Serv. A1430.1…………………….. 11.10 From: Insurance A1910.4……………………………………… $2,248.17 To: Deputy Clerk, Pers. Serv. A1430.1…………………….. 555.44 Elections, Contractual A1450.4………………………… 1,697.73 General Fund – Part Town: From: Contingency B1990.4…………………………………… $ 233.60 To: Zoning, Deputy Clerk…………………………………… 233.60 Highway Fund – Town Wide: From: Snow Removal, Sick Time DA5142.12………………… $ 803.63 To: Snow Removal, Vacation DA5142.11………………….. 85.38 Medical Insurance DA9060.8…………………………… 718.25 Town Board Meeting Page 3 of 11 December 12, 2000 Supervisor Morey – Mark was going to be here tonight, but he did sound like he had a cold, so I don’t know if he’s under the weather or not. Rick? Richard C. Case, Jr., Highway Superintendent – The Highway report will be real brief. We’re devoted to snow removal. Today we were devoted to tree removal and snow removal. What I’ve been working on is like I reported last meeting, securing funds for the excavator that we’ve been talking about. I think one of the concessions was that we would be running short on funds and I’ve got in front of you an example of the financing available by bonds. I’ve talked to Steve Gobel over at the bank…. This is using the capitol equipment reserve fund that we have. That we’ve been putting away for since I’ve been here and I think the year before. Presently, information on bonds, they can be written from one to ten years. Bonds can be renewable yearly with a flexible rate or set for a fixed rate for a determined number of years. A fixed rate is around 1% rate higher than the present rate at the time of the loan. Presently bond rates are at 4.3%. So, roughly, you make a fixed rate and what we’ve been working for with equipment people is a five-year buy-out program. I just wanted to give you something there to compare. That sheet does not take into consideration the interest that we will be earning on the CD’s that we put this account in. This is not dyed in the wool, these are round numbers and they are payment numbers. I think that it’s conceivable that what we do will come in between this $35,000 and $40,000 payment scheme. But, these yearly payments for the bond are due one year after we have the bond issued. Our current CD rate is a shade over 5%. So, we’re borrowing on almost an even wash here. The equipment people at Syracuse Supply are the only ones who have been openly giving me numbers. Their current rate of borrowing is 7.15%. So, my goal here is to just make everybody aware of where we would stand if we went this avenue as far as financing. We talked last month about you asking me to go and put this out to bid. What I would like to do is go out to bid. We have researched five different pieces of machinery. And put it out as a new piece of machinery and see what we get for numbers. Then maybe we can lock in a little closer to what those payments would be. I just wanted to present you with that so that you see that we are not completely depleting that capitol reserve account as we go along. Now, certainly those payments that are in there, those are you folks’ figures that you put in every year in the budget, but we’ve been working toward these large ticket item pieces of equipment in this fashion. I think the only smart thing we can do is keep this capitol reserve and it certainly isn’t my intent to zero it out. We need that interest that we gain to keep this thing going. But also to set and wait for these big ticket items to come through, I’m afraid the inflation on this stuff is going to outweigh what our interest rates would be, even as far as probably the dealers’ municipal rates. So, those are my concerns and I’m open to suggestions and questions. Supervisor Morey – Any questions from the Board? I’ve got some comments. Rick, the first one for $35,000 a year comes out to be about a $175,000 thing. The grade-all, I guess we’ll call it, I thought you said you had one for $130,000 and what was……. Richard Case – They’re coming in and these are just verbal. Supervisor Morey – Okay, did you like the $130,000 or the $180,000? There’s two models that range from about $130,000 and one for about $180,000. Would the $130,000 meet your needs? Richard Case – We have not had the opportunity to try it out. Before we would get any further, you know once we put this out to bid, these vendors are going to have to make it available to us. Hydraulic functions and capabilities are one of the large items here because of what we are trying to do with the brush-hog operation, the mower attachment that possibly we could get. So, Town Board Meeting Page 4 of 11 December 12, 2000 there are considerations to be made. Obviously, when you compare anything like that there are going to be pluses and minuses and I want to see all of them before I make any recommendation. I’ll come back to you with a recommendation, but I’m sure they are going to range anywhere from $130,000 to $179,000. Supervisor Morey – Okay. I think all the numbers here that Rick presented tonight, because I asked him to come to the Board and talk to us about this, these are very arbitrary numbers, all right? These have to do with what bonding would be and we’re not saying that we want a bond. But before we go to the next step, we’ve got to figure out how much money we need first of all. If we do a municipal lease it’s a lot easier than this. It would be a lot cheaper. But Rick showed you here that it is a possibility for the most difficult way to do it. But until we do this and make a decision, or an intelligent decision, we have to find out how much it’s going to cost us in the long run. The bid will go out as we reject or accept all bids so we don’t have to make an action after this. Rick has the smaller one coming to test in the next couple weeks. Richard Case – There’s three that I’m trying to make arrangements for our operator and myself to get our hands on to look over. Supervisor Morey – And this new machine will be used throughout the year because it will have blades on it and different additions to it to give a full twelve months use out of it right now. The grade-all we have now is just basically limited to specific jobs and the newer ones are a lot better. On the bid, can we ask for a trade-in on the one we have? Richard Case – The way I would like to present the bid is with trade-in and without. And also, I would like to have any additional options that they would like to put in because some of these companies will have a guaranteed buy-back in a certain amount of years, which could be an advantage to us. Also, I would like to put it out as a complete buy-out so that if we did get our own financing, and I would like to have them also put in their five year plan. Supervisor Morey – The leasing program that they have. Richard Case – The other thing in this financing is that there is different leasing available but to take this money out of the capital reserve, the State has made the avenue, we would have to go to Public Referendum. Just like everything else we do, the public has their option to come in and voice their opinions. If we proceeded, the State has made an avenue that these payments, by going with the bond, can come out of the capitol reserve account. So that is something that they haven’t had previously, I don’t believe, according to Liz. That’s the other reason we are going with the buck to buy out lease program so that the vendors are talking apples and apples here. Councilman Scheffler – You’re going to wait to see what machine will do the job before you put it out to bid? Supervisor Morey – No. Richard Case – No. We’ll put it out to bid, but hopefully before we would make any decision and we would put a stipulation in the dates in there that we can set the date that they will keep the bid for six, eight months, a year. Town Board Meeting Page 5 of 11 December 12, 2000 Attorney Casullo – We’ll get together. You’ve got some general bid specks that you can speck this thing out at? We’ll get together and formulate something, provided the Board resolves tonight that that is what they want you to do. Richard Case – This is not going to happen over night as far as getting everything together. Supervisor Morey – All we have to do is have a consensus, we don’t have to make a resolution, do we? Attorney Casullo – Well, I think you may want to resolve that you are going to authorize Rick to put this out for bids. RESOLUTION #82 – PUT GRADE-ALL OUT TO BID MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Clark. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby authorize the Highway Superintendent, Richard C. Case, Jr., to put the proposed purchase of a grade-all out to bid. Colleen D. Pierson, Town Clerk/Tax Collector – Submitted her monthly Town Clerk’s report for the Board’s review. Arland Heffron & Arthur Dawson, Town Justices – Submitted their monthly report for the Board’s review. Attorney Casullo – Had comments he would like to make during the discussion on tree foresting. RESOLUTION #83 – APPROVAL OF 2001 HIGHWAY NEGOTIATIONS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town of Groton Highway Employees be granted the following for the year 2001: Three percent (3%) across the board for Highway Employees. Town Board Meeting Page 6 of 11 December 12, 2000 RESOLUTION #84 – JOIN NYSEG SOLUTIONS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby approve the joining of NYSEG Solutions. Supervisor Morey – Let’s set the date for the organizational meeting for next month. The two open dates we have to do as soon as possible and usually it’s on Tuesday. The first Tuesday of ndth the month is the 2 of January and the second Tuesday is the 9. That will be the regular Board Meeting. RESOLUTION #85 – SET DATE FOR ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby set January 9, 2000 at 7:30 PM to hold its Organizational Meeting followed by the Regular January Board Meeting. Supervisor Morey – I see we have representatives from the ZBA and the Planning Board. Do they have any comments? Mary Decker – No, just curious as to what you were doing. Supervisor Morey – Okay. And Delores, how are you? MOVEDExecutive by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Randall, to enter into Session with the Town Attorney, Francis Casullo, for purposes of personnel and litigation at 7:50 PM. MOVEDRegular by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to resume Session at 8:30 PM. Town Board Meeting Page 7 of 11 December 12, 2000 RESOLUTION #86 – AUTHORIZE ATTORNEY TO HANDLE CHAMPLIN ROAD DISPUTE MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby authorize its attorneys to take all steps necessary to protect the Town’s interest relative to the property owned by Douglas Albern on Champlin Road, Tax Map #28.-1-4.2, concerning the dispute Mr. Albern is involved in with Colleen Sullivan. Supervisor Morey – We’ll move on to announcements. One is about tree foresting. Sheldon, can you tell us a little bit about what’s going on? Councilman Clark – Bob brought this notice over today. This is just a draft. It’s pretty self- explanatory. The bids will all come in. Glenn said that we would have to have them here. Bob thought that he always uses the “Rusty Nail.” As it is, a lot of the guys come in from the field or the mud or whatever and it’s a good place, getting off “81”, for them to congregate. He’s used it a number of times. So, we’ll just have to change that to here. He did say that thanks to the survey, when he cruised the property he did come up with a guess on the number of trees to be cut, and then after the survey it shows that half of that woodlot is on another property. So, it cut his estimate right in two. But there is between $17,000 and $20,000, approximately, worth of timber there now. And he says in fifteen years, it will be double that by doing this procedure now. If you notice how carefully they are treating the woodlot, with the kind of equipment it states to use; the cull trees, they’ll take out of there; so it leaves it in a real good condition. That’s why I would highly recommend Bob to be the overseer of the sale. Any questions? Councilman Randall – Why do we need an overseer when is goes out to bid? I don’t understand that, I guess. He’s getting a cut, obviously. Councilman Clark – Right. I feel that it is very, very important. You don’t know how to scale logs, and a forest guy, or a logger goes in there, he can take out whatever he wants to and pay for what he wants to. They can leave the woods looking however they want to. They can leave the terrain, the skid trails, however they want them. This will all be controlled and policed by him. By going out and him taking these bids, we have the chance to get better bids. We would call, say Gutchess or somebody, like for instance you’ve got black cherry and white ash, which Gutchess doesn’t even handle. Somebody who would get that bid who wants that would go for it big time. Councilman Randall – But don’t you control some of that, I mean it would be like getting several bids from a contractor to do a roof job, and you know, you look up there references and check on stuff. Wouldn’t you be doing that? Councilman Clark – You’re not qualified to do it. I’m not qualified to do it. Supervisor Morey – What I think we are doing is we are getting a consultant to come in and mark these trees and tell them exactly where the 56 sugar maples are and where the 28 white Town Board Meeting Page 8 of 11 December 12, 2000 ashes and so on and so forth. There’s 117 trees up there. There’d be some expertise that we don’t have. Councilman Randall – They’re already marked though. I’m saying they’re not coming in and doing that. That’s already been done. Councilman Clark – But he did it and he’s got the knowledge on which trees to do. Supervisor Morey – Who’s going to make sure that they are the only trees they take? Councilman Clark – He will. Supervisor Morey – That’s what I mean, but if he’s not involved? First of all, we don’t have a contract with Bob, number one. Number two, we don’t know how much it’s going to cost for this contract, and if it is over $2,500, we have to put it out to bids for this. He came in here and he also wanted to bid on this? Councilman Clark – No. Supervisor Morey – Oh, now he doesn’t? Councilman Clark - No. Oh, no. Councilman Scheffler – He wanted the right to us giving him a chance to be the broker. He didn’t want to come in and mark the trees and give us all the information and then have us say we’re going to have so and so be the broker. He wanted us to give him a chance at the job after he did it. He marked it for free. Councilman Clark – No, he cruised it for free. Now he’s marked it. We would not look to good if we didn’t give him a chance. Supervisor Morey – Sheldon, we were very explicit that we were not tied into it. He offered to do a free service for us and if he went above and beyond that, we have no, I mean we were very explicit about what we wanted to do with him. Councilman Randall – There is a liability there. He as a broker, if something is messed up or whatever, we’re still holding the bag aren’t we? Supervisor Morey – If you read in the second section, he’s requesting liability insurance, which we have to also, for a successful bidder. Last sentence, under terms of sale. Which seems very low, is $300,000 – 500,000, seems like a minimum……….? Attorney Casullo – Sounds a little low to me…….(not using microphone). First of all, I think this is a good idea, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know much about logging, so I plead my ignorance. But if you are going to send this out for bids, is it going to be bid that, suppose somebody just wants to give you a good price for the sugar maple and they don’t want to bid on the whole package. Can you do that? Why not? I’m just asking, I don’t know. Town Board Meeting Page 9 of 11 December 12, 2000 Councilman Clark – Because it will go out to probably fifteen vendors, and the way that they work, they buy like that every day, and they will take what they want for their mill and they will sell the black cherry to a black cherry mill. Supervisor Morey – Basically, Fran, also we want to save the land instead of the woods starting to die off. Attorney Casullo – No, I was just wondering. I’ve seen a lot of bids on projects and sometimes you say your going to bid, and you do this in a large foreclosure sale. Say there’s like 20 lots. Sometimes you say you are allowed to bid on a particular lot or you can bid on the lots as a 20 whole. What I’m saying here, I don’t know the standard. Can someone come in here who just has an affinity or just a love for sugar maple, wants to do something with sugar maple, goes up there and looks at and just wants to blow you away with an offer for those 56 trees? Is that possible? Councilman Clark – Well, that would come in in the bid, wouldn’t it? Supervisor Morey – I think what we do is take the most economical situation for the Town. Attorney Casullo – I’m just asking. Councilman Clark – This, according to sales by timber buyers, is small, real small. Attorney Casullo – Okay. Then it says in here “all forest products named in the sale will be removed from the property of the seller by March 31, 2002” and it also indicates that you can’t log in April, May or June and may be restricted during times of inclement weather or during times when ground conditions will not adequately support logging. We’re going to have a consultant who is going to make those decisions as to when it is too bad inclement weather or it won’t adequately support the logging equipment? Councilman Clark – Yes, he will do that. Attorney Casullo – We’d have to hire somebody to make….I don’t know and I don’t know if anyone else on the Board could make those determinations. I’m just bringing these out, just for examples. I agree whole-heartedly with Glenn: The bids have to be here. They have to be sent here. And also the bid deposit check has to be payable to the Town. It can’t be payable to anybody else. And then the deposit of $750.00, normally, I’m not saying this is set in stone, but you normally take a 10% deposit. Now, I don’t know if $750.00 is low or what, but you normally take 10% of the bid. But that’s open for discussion. I just would hope that maybe this has some work to do. I think conceptionally it’s a great idea but before we okay this notice of sale and the information in here, maybe we want to think this through just a little bit more and make sure we have everything set. I agree with Tyke. He pleads his ignorance and so do I. This doesn’t happen everyday in my practice and I’m sure it doesn’t happen everyday in your occupation. I just want to make sure that if we’re doing this that we’re going to maximize the dollar amount and we’re doing it right. I think we just have to be careful of what we do here. I think overall it is a great idea. Councilman Clark – I would just add that I have done a lot of it in my lifetime and I can’t say or speak more highly for someone to oversee this more than Bob Demeree, or else I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out. Town Board Meeting Page 10 of 11 December 12, 2000 Attorney Casullo – I know he’s very well respected. I just think that maybe it might not be a bad idea, it’s up to the Board, maybe have him over here once again just to explain some of the technical aspects of this. It’s up to the Board, but I have some questions that I would like to ask him from a legal standpoint about this. Supervisor Morey – Rick, any questions? Comments? Richard Case – I’ve always got a comment. We started this out and we talked about it, Don and I talked about it. I certainly am not an expert at this. This just reinforces what Sheldon said. For me to oversee this, I didn’t feel comfortable. We’re talking about some dollar values here that I’m not, I have no idea what sugar maples are. And to let someone come in and butcher up the landscape up there, I don’t think would be in our best interest. This is why I thought Sheldon’s idea on this is real good and this Bob is from the DEC, retired, I believe. I believe the word he used was cull these trees. So this is going to be resource that we use someone who’s like this, either Bob or someone, and he’s certainly done an excellent job thus far from what I’ve seen up there. He’s asked us to do things in a specific order, which has all made sense to me. What he’s seeing now reflects what we have done. So, the two of us have worked well together and he certainly has put an effort through. Like Sheldon said, I would hate to see him completely shut out of something here for doing the research and time he has spent. I think this is a resource that we need an expert opinion on and to oversee it. The time periods that he is talking about are so that it won’t be butchered up up there. He’s going to come in and pay attention to that. Supervisor Morey – Basically we’re looking for a consulting fee not basically a brokerage fee. All right, can I ask that Sheldon and Rick get together and finalize this stuff and send the final to Fran? But can we also have him back next month, maybe, to talk to us a little bit more and also get a set fee or some kind of fee schedule that we can finalize something with? Would that be all right? Councilman Scheffler – I think we’re going to need something, according to our procurement policy to have an idea because we may have to bid it. If it’s over a certain amount, we have to bid it to three guys. I agree that we should have either him, or somebody like him, do the administration of it. Supervisor Morey – All right, thank you for all the hard work. Announcements: st Town of Groton Christmas party for the employees will be Thursday, December 21, noon, Groton Hotel. Donation for memorial for Terrence Graves (no response from Board). Donation to help replace vandalized Village’s Blue Christmas Tree lights (no response from Board). Health insurance rates going up. Notices have been sent to all. NYS Association of Town meeting in New York City, February 18-21, 2001. Town Board Meeting Page 11 of 11 December 12, 2000 Vacancies to Town Advisory Boards – looking for suggestions. Dolores Hemming explained that the Groton Express Mart was collecting money to help replace nd the Village’s Blue Christmas Tree lights and had raised $960.00. On December 22 at 6 PM at the Express Mart a small ceremony will take place to present the check to the Village. There being no further business, Councilman Sovocool moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilman Scheffler at 8:50 PM. Unanimous. Colleen D. Pierson Town Clerk