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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-08-01TB R -1 4)l TOWAF OF DRYDEN TOWN BOARD MEETDVG AUGUST 1, 2001 Sonxd Members Present; Supv Mark Varvayanis, Cl Thomas Hatfield, Cl Deborah Grantham Absent: Cl Ronald Beck, Cl Charles Hatfield Other Elected Officials; Bambi L. Hollenberk, Town Clerk Jack lush, Highway Superintendent Other Town Staffir Mahlon R. Perkirxs, Town Attorney David Puttzam (TG Millers), Town Engineer Snpv Varvayanis opened the board meeting at 7:10 p.m. 'Town Shard approved the minutes of June 6 and June 10, 2001, xvith changes, RESOLUTION 4176 - APPROVE MINUTES Cl Grantham offered the following resolution and asked for its adoGrantham ROI E D, that this Town Board hereby approves the minutes nutes of June 6, 2001 and June lil, 2001, as amended, Cl T Hatfield Rou Call Vote Cl T Hatfeld Yes upv Varvayar,is Yes Cl Grantham Yes 9 Cl Grantham reported that the Building Committee has had two meetings with Pamela Kingsbury of Egner Architectural Associates to discuss space requirements and adjacencies for each department. Records storage is a big concern and care will he taken to insure that we have adequate space for current and future needs- Ms Kingsbury and court staff have also visited the court facilities ut the Towns of Groton and Lansing. The next step will be to review conceptual diagrams of space prepared by Ms Xdngsbury, The Town has two capital reserve funds, each canta'n� $400,000, to be used for u new building, and the expense of the needs study (approximately $8700 will be taken from those funds). These were established by referendum years ago and as long as the cost of the building does not exceed that, it will not need to go to public vote. The intent is not to exceed those funds for a new building, an d hopefiiuy it will be less. Supv V4Tvayanis would like to have some of those mordes available for a salt storage building- The Little Grace Commission is continuing its work for the Tuwn and Cl Grantham will be meeting with Stu Berg regarding the information and technology needs part of it on Monday evening at 7:30 p.m- C1 T Hatfield may also attend that meeting- 999999r 4� TB 8 -1-01 The Board would like to put the question of increasing the Town Clerk's term to four years on the ballot in November. Atty Perkins reported that there is time to do so, the first step being the introduction of a Local Law. The local law will be subject to a mandatory referendum and it could be on the ballot in November so long as it is adopted by October 1. He will prepare that and it can be introduced at the August 8 meeting. Cl Grantham asked Atty Perkins about transferring money from the general construction capital reserve fund to the town building capital reserve fund and whether a referendum would be needed. He will check the wording of the resolution establishing the funds. Supv Varvayanis assumes there need not be a transfer, but checks can be written from each. Supv Vamayanis has spoken with the Village about sharing space in a new building. They had expressed interest previously about putting the police department adjacent to our court offices, but the Mayor is now thinking of possibly moving all the Village offices. He has also spoken with Dryden School officials about sharing space for their district offices, but they would like to keep those at the school. In the past there had been talk of combining some garage/ maintenance items between the school and the town, and they may stall be interested. The school is getting a bus washer and thought the Town may like to use it. Jack Bush stated that it may not work because the Town's trucks and equipment are not smooth sided as a bus is. The cleaning process also provides work for the employees. With respect to the draft franchise agreement with Time Warner, Cl Grantham pointed out that the agreement covered only programming services and did not include Road Runner. Cl T Hatfield stated that Road Runner is not now paying franchise fees to anyone anywhere and is not included in any franchise agreements. Cl Grantham is concerned about poles and wires within the easements and stated that the agreement does not really talk about notification that they would be working in the easement:. The agreement talks about protecting other utilities in the easements, but not about protecting the town's roads. There is no provision for damaging the road or shoulder of the road while working in the casement. She also noted that the insurance is only two million dollars and that's not a lot of money if damage is done to roads. There is also no mention of the density of service in the agreement. Cl T Hatfield would like to get that down to 15 from 21 per mile. Kevin Ezell is working on getting a map that shows the difference that would make. Cl T Hatfield believes it will be necessary to have a public hearing on the franchise agreement at some point, and Cl Grantham would like to have the maps available at that time and make a note of the availability of the maps in the public notice advertising the hearing. The Town will not be subscribing to Road Runner. The cost to the Town would be approximately $1800 a year and it is presently costing the Town around $800 per year for internet access. Cl T Hatfield noted that he had received a positive comment from someone on the Town's new phone system. Regarding Sapsucker Woods Road Sewer: Atty Perkins - The Town has 3 or 4 permits available to it from the Village of Cayuga Heights for that area of the Town. The Town contracts with the Town of Ithaca for transportation of wastewater to the Cayuga Heights plant and it's treated by Cayuga Heights. So we pay Cayuga Heights and the Town of Ithaca for Sewer District # 1, the Sapsucker Woods area. Cornell University wants to connect to the Town of Ithaca line by crossing Sapsucker Foods Road and tying into a manhole and connecting to the Town of Ithaca line. The Town apparently is willing to allow the use of one of its permits for that connection. The Cornell ® property is not in the sewer district, nor is it adjacent to the sewer district. Therefore, I'm not Page 2 of 5 TB 8 -1-01 sure how the Town really is involved in this request, other than to say by letter if the Board authorizes it, that it's willing to allow one of its units to be used by Cornell for this connection. ® This is a maintenance building in the Town of Dryden. This is not a gift. They are going to pay for the connection and they are going to pay for sewer services and so forth. Cl T Hatfield - Are they going to pay for that unit that we own? Atty Perkins - No. We have control of it. We don't own it, except that we had to purchase it. To complete this further Cornell also is going to be building a new force main in the Town of Ithaca for the new building that they are building in the Village of Lansing. It's going to be I think entirely within the Town of Ithaca, and wants to allow Chris O'Connor's two properties to be tied into the Town of Ithaca maintained line, which would require the use of two more Town of Dryden permits. So I'm not sure either why we're involved in that process or if you want to be involved in that process. Cl T Hatfield - It seems to me they want us to give up about three out of four units that we have for service in this section of Town, and it seems that Cornell nailed our feet to the fire on a different water and sewer project a few years ago. Maybe it's time to straighten the record out. I can't remember the name of the line I'm referring to. Atty Perkins - Well there are a number of events involving Cornell over the years, but I think the one you might be referring to is when we had to pay part of the cost of the reconstruction of the sewer line that goes from the Varna Sewer District up over the hill, through Tower Road and over and there was some question about transferring the sewer line to the Town of Dryden and I don't know whether the money is still in escrow or not.... Dave Putnam - That's a water line. When the PRB was built Cornell sold Line to the Town of Dryden and then the Town of Ithaca. Atty Perkins - Right. At the same time. Connell sold the same line twice. We also had to rebuild the sewer. Cl T Hatfield - It seems to me there's another issue with Cornell water and sewer where we can't expand the flow through one of those lines out there without their permission. Atty Perkins - It's a 16" interceptor sewer that runs down Tower Road to the Thurston Avenue bridge. Cl T Hatfield - This seems like it might be the right time to talk about all of those issues. There is still $50,000 set aside because the matter of the sale of the water line to the Town of Dryden (or Town of Ithaca) has not been resolved. The Board would like to take steps to resolve this, but the matter at hand is more immediate. The people have moved into the maintenance building. The sewer line is built. D Putnam, Atty Perkins and Supv Varvayanis all believe there is an agreement: to give Cornell one permit. Supv Varvayanis - So the real question is Chris O'Connor. He's someone who has been asking for sewer going back to Clint Cotterill, Cl T Hatfield - We tried to get him to participate here in order to get him on water and sewer to make the road cut a little more convenient to what Jack was looking for, and he absolutely refused as I recalled. Atty Perkins - I discovered today that there is more to that than was said at the time, and that is that it wasn't that he was opposed to what we requested but there was a large Page 3 of 5 TS 8 -1-(11 rhododendron tree or bush that would have had to been removed and apparently his parents' ashes are buried under it. That was the reason that he didn't feel that he could comply with that request. He'll be tying in to Cornell's line and they want very much for him to do that because they think he's a good neighbor down there and apparently he's got two failing septic systems. It's still a board decision. None of these connections by the way use any Town of Dryden facilities and that's wh-y i wonder why we are sort of driving this thing. If the board is amenable to allowing three units to be used, then we write a letter to that: effect and let Cornell and the Town of Ithaca and Cayuga Heights straighten it out. Supv Varvayanis - All I know is that Clint and Jim before me have promised Chris O'Connor that they would do everything they could and he has been patient for the last 15 years to get sewer. I don't really see that we have that much other use. Hopefully Cayuga Heights is about to open up the rest of the sewer. Atty Perkins - You're correcting a problem. It's not like he's going to develop property. Cl Grantham - I think it's important to do it for hire. D Putnam - I don't think there is any buildable lots in the sewer district. I think they're all developed. I don't know if they are all connected to the sewer and that ought to be figured out before you give away the sewer units. I think they all are, but Bolton Point's records show that two of them aren't. Atty Perkins - Ron Anderson says that 5 units were awarded in 1988 and no additional units granted in the 1993 and 1994 allocation. The Village of Cayuga Heights records show that only one of the five units has been used since 1988, therefore there are still four units available for use in the town sewer district. is O'Connor would require two units and Cornell is asking for one. Cl T Hatfield noted that would use three of the four available, leaving one and if there are in fact two properties in the district not: yet connected, we could end up short one unit. D Putnam stated that the two properties are connected to water, and may be counted as being connected to sewer but: the official records are not clear. After further discussion, the board passed the following resolution. RESOLUTION * 177 - RELINQUISH SEWER UNITS Cl Grantham offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby authorizes the Supervisor to execute whatever assurance the Village of Cayuga Heights finds necessary to allow the use of three of the Town's sewer units, one by Cornell University and two by Chris O'Connor. 2nd Cl T Hatfield Roll Call Vote Cl T Hatfield Yes Supv Varvayanis Yes Cl Grantham Yes On motion of Cl T Hatfield, seconded by Supv Varvayanis and unanimously carried, the Board moved into executive session at 8:20 p.m. to discuss a matter of litigation, Tottey vs. Town of Dryden. No action was taken. Page 4 of 5 TB 8 -1 -01 On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:25 p.m. isRespectfully submitted, Bambi L. Hollenbeck Town Clerk Rig 5 of 5