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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-13-2001 TOWN OF GROTON MINUTES OF TOWN BOARD MEETING TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2001, 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: Mark Gunn, Liz Brennan, Arland Heffron, Joe Graham, April Scheffler. MOVED by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Clark, to approve the minutes of the February 13, 2001 meeting as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. General Fund Claim Numbers 47 - 86 of the in the amount of $180,224.90 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to approve the General Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. Highway Fund Claim Numbers 24 – 46 of the in the amount of $166,206.99 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Randall, to approve the Highway Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. Special Grant (HUD) Fund There were no bills for this month. Supervisor Morey invited privilege of the floor. No one wished to speak. Monthly reports: Liz Brennan, Bookkeeper – The year 2000 books are closed and the Annual Report has been filed electronically with the Comptroller’s Office. You should all have copies. You got any questions on that, or want more information, just let me know. Town Board Meeting Page 2 of 14 March 13, 2001 Supervisor Morey – What I would like to do is jump to number 10, review the fiscal year 2000 annual report. Is there any questions for Liz? Liz Brennan – I know there’s a lot there. If you get in the middle of it and need some more information. The next step would be to call the auditors to start setting up an appointment for the audit. Supervisor Morey – Private auditor. Liz Brennan – Yes, Rick Beals. And at this point, I am catching up with the books from January and I should be up to date by the next board meeting and you will get your monthly reports again on a regular basis after that. Now for Rick, Rick is sick tonight, so he won’t be able to talk. The check for the truck is on the abstract this month and he just wanted you to know that he’s not going to be mailing the check. He’s going to wait until he has delivery and make sure that all the parts are on it and everything is okay with it. So, he will have it in hand until that, and as long as everything is okay then he’ll present the check to the company. Councilman Clark – Did he have any idea of the delivery date? Liz Brennan – I think it’s any day. Supervisor Morey – What they are doing is putting some lights on and extra equipment. It has been in a show up in Syracuse and it is in Central New York, so it should be within the next couple of weeks. Liz Brennan – Then on the excavator, the whole price would be borrowed minus the $15,000. And that is actually money from last year’s 2000 budget that we encumbered into this year. So that’s money that we will have as a budget line item. Supervisor Morey – Right, you’re going to stick around for that. We have some other line items, then after that…. Any questions for Liz? Thank you. Mark D. Gunn, Code Enforcement Officer – I did a little bit of a run-down of the things that I took care of for February. I think everybody got that. Everything is pretty much self- explanatory. It showed some of the things I’ve been working on for Mr. Baker, for the Elm Tree, LSIs are current for the month, and some things that Stonehedges wants to do. I just yesterday got a list from the assessor’s office on some structures in the Town of Groton that are actually listed as 2-family and 3-family dwellings. I have to go through them and put them in my LSI records and start inspecting those because I only have 2 out of the 22 that are currently being inspected. I am assuming that some of them, two families are not living in them. Years ago they might have had an in-law or something living in the upstairs or something of that nature. I only had one building permit last month, for a remodel job on Cobb Street, and I didn’t have any last year. Councilman Clark – What’s the variance issued by the State that is being challenged? Town Board Meeting Page 3 of 14 March 13, 2001 Mark Gunn – For the Elm Tree you mean? There is an issue of their sprinkler system that they have. There was an item number on the variance issued by the State for the Elm Tree that stated that they would have sprinkler protection on the first floor. The Peacock’s don’t recall it being required in the verbal part of variance. They don’t remember that being stated. They think it’s a misprint or something of that nature. So, they are going through the steps of going back through the variance board and seeing what they say about it and see if they can’t have that scratched off so they don’t have to have the sprinkler on the first floor. Right now, as it’s written, I have to require it unless somebody shows me that the State is not requiring it. Supervisor Morey – Can we do anything to help these people along? Mark Gunn – As a matter of fact I talked to Bill Stewart last night. Bill Stewart is the senior construction engineer for the Department of State. He’s out of Binghamton. I spoke with him last night. He read it over and he actually feels that the fact that it was a pre-existing restaurant, and it didn’t have sprinkler protection, he feels that it wouldn’t be required and they wouldn’t have a problem getting something saying that it’s not required. Just as I came in, I received a phone message from him also stating that he read over the transcript of the variance and he feels that the way that it’s stated it’s stating a different fact. So, it’s kind of an up in the air thing and how it’s going to play out in the long run, I don’t know. The existing restaurant that is downstairs, this really has no bearing on it running. So, they can stay open. This has no bearing on that. The requirements for the downstairs sprinkler, that is something for them to open up the second floor. Councilman Randall – Also Mark, could the Board have maybe a copy of the reasons why the special permit can’t be issued to Harvey (Baker)? I don’t think any of us have that. Mr. Gunn stated that he had given everyone a copy. Supervisor Morey said he would make more copies if needed. Colleen D. Pierson, Town Clerk/Tax Collector was out sick. (Monthly Town Clerk’s report and Tax Collector’s report were submitted earlier.) Richard C. Case, Jr., Highway Superintendent was out sick. Arland Heffron & Arthur Dawson, Town Justices submitted their monthly report for the Board’s review. Francis Casullo, Town Attorney had nothing to report. Supervisor Morey – I did present Fran with a news article from the Ithaca Journal about indemnification. Fran is going to look into that and see whether we should be concerned or not. Tonight I invited Dewey Dawson and Arland. Arland seems to be the only one who showed up. How are you? Judge Heffron – I thought Judge Dawson was going to be here too. You asked me to come. What did you want to know? Town Board Meeting Page 4 of 14 March 13, 2001 Supervisor Morey – Well, basically the letter just stated that I’d like to request your presence at th the next Town Board Meeting to be held on March 13, 2001 at 7:30 PM. The Town Board has not had a report from the Town Justices for quite some time. Judge Heffron – We send you one every month. Supervisor Morey – Well, I know, but you haven’t been here in person, either one of you, so… And basically to just discuss issues regarding office hours and your workloads. Judge Heffron – I went through some files today. This represents our workload for the year 2000. The Town Court opened 823 cases. That was initial arraignments, small claims, one thing or another. We actually closed 794. Mind you, some cases that are open may take several weeks to resolve but they are still not closed cases and are not included in this category and the number of hours that you may spend on pretrials and this sort of thing. I’m going to give you some comparison figures here, which I’ll talk about a little bit later. Out of those cases, the Town received back from the State Comptroller the amount of $14,244. This is what came back to the Town. I’m going to jump over to a little comparison here. The Village Court, in 2000, opened 756 cases and they closed 711. I’m just throwing these figures out because these are figures that you are going to have to be aware of a couple of years from now. The Village received back from the State Comptroller $14, 466, for a total coming back to the community of $28,700. The hours vary from time to time. It doesn’t take time for a person to come up here with a speeding ticket, read him his rights, and he pleads guilty or not guilty. On the other hand, somebody who comes up here with a small claims case, it may take several hours to resolve that. I’m in the office a part of four days a week, sometimes five. But I’m here almost every day doing both Village and Town work. I honestly don’t know how much time Dewey spends here because I very seldom ever see him, but I know he’s here from time to time, of course. Regarding the Court Clerk, the first two months of this year, she had spent a total of 204 hours, which was about equally divided between the Town and the Village. So, approximately 105 hours for each court which jumps up to a round figure of something around 1250 or 1300 cases coming down the street. Although Mrs. Palmer and I have our differences from time to time, she is almost an invaluable Court Clerk. She is very, very good. We’ve never had any complaints on her on our audits. We’ve never had any complaints from the State Comptroller. That part of it works out very good. We keep talking about the Town taking over the Village Court. The Village Court is not a Constitutionally provided for court. It’s up to the Village whether they want one or they don’t. The Town Court is a Constitutionally provided for court. The Town must operate a Town Court. It’s included in the Constitution. So, as of April 2003, the Town will absorb the Village Court. Many of the figures that I’ve given you here are not realistic in as much as a lot of the cases are still pending. Some of the cases that were opened and not closed are still pending awaiting pretrials, jury trials, bench trials, or one thing or another. This is something else that we need to be aware of in the future: we are scheduling more and more jury trials especially on DWI cases. Our District Attorney will not reduce a DWI case if the Breathalyzer test is a .14. Up until this time the Breathalyzer test was under a .20. On the first offense it was almost automatic that they would reduce it to AWAI, which is not a misdemeanor and doesn’t require a jury trial. Because of that, we are going to be faced with more and more jury trials. This requires a Court Officer; requires practically an all day affair. One jury trial we had recently started at 9 o’clock in the morning and ended at 9:30 at night. We were lucky to get out of it then, I guess. Town Board Meeting Page 5 of 14 March 13, 2001 I’m sorry that Dewey isn’t here tonight, because he was going to bring up the subject of the door. And I am not going to get involved in that any further than I have. You are all aware of it and I am not going to comment on that. Mr. Dawson was going to do that. What more do you want? Supervisor Morey – Concerning the door, Arland, we were told later from George Senter, which is the Village Building Code Officer, that we couldn’t do that. So, that is out of the picture right now. Justice Heffron – That letter indicated that one of his superiors said it was. Supervisor Morey – Well, he reneged on that. After further review, he reneged on that. Justice Heffron – He did? Supervisor Morey – Yes. Now, another discussion that we wanted to have tonight is the Court hours, office hours. It appears that we are getting a lot of complaints right now that people have to make appointments, which is not bad, but when they show up for the appointments, there’s nobody here to take there money. Justice Heffron – Well, I’m aware of that and it’s a sore subject. Supervisor Morey – Well, you know, we’re bringing this to the Judges because this is your office. And we are getting constant complaints about not being open or convenient for people. Justice Heffron – Mrs. Palmer has stated the fact that she will not keep the office open without another person being in the office or else having the security door. Supervisor Morey – Well, that’s fine. But Mrs. Palmer is not the Judge. Councilman Sovocool – She’s not the Judge, Arland. Supervisor Morey – You are, Arland and so is Dewey. So, it’s up to you to have office hours so people can come during the day and pay their fines. Justice Heffron – Well up until now the Court Clerk has always made her own office hours. Supervisor Morey – That’s fine, but she doesn’t run the Court, Arland, you do, and it’s your responsibility to have daytime hours or hours that you can set during the week. Justice Heffron – I will review that with her. Supervisor Morey – Not her, with Dewey. You two people run the office. Justice Heffron – As I say, I don’t see Dewey one week to the next, hardly. But we will bring it up. I am aware of what you are saying. I think, myself, it’s silly for someone to have to call the office to make an appointment to pay a fine or something like that. Okay, I’ll…..well it might boil down to having a new Court Clerk or having office hours, one or the other. Town Board Meeting Page 6 of 14 March 13, 2001 Supervisor Morey – Well, I think you should get together with Dewey and find out. I think you should see Dewey, sit down and talk and find a solution for us, so everybody’s happy. Justice Heffron – Well, we’ll certainly try because I am aware of it and I don’t like it either. But in that office back there we all have to work together as harmoniously as we can. Supervisor Morey – You’ve been doing a great job since you’ve been there. Justice Heffron – Of course, my term is up this fall. I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to be a candidate or not. Most likely, I will. What else can I answer? Supervisor Morey – Any other questions for the Judge? Councilman Sovocool – No, office hours was my big question because of all the complaints that we’ve been getting. Justice Heffron – Well, that’s a problem, I admit, and between the three of us back there we will resolve it. You don’t care what they are as long as they’re posted? Supervisor Morey – Thank you. Correct. Councilman Scheffler – As long as they’re posted, somebody’s there…. Councilman Clark – It would be awfully nice to have a sign posted out front. People come here, they have no idea what door to go in out front. And of course, they go into the Clerk’s Office. April Scheffler – We’ve got one now. Supervisor Morey – Have you seen the front door lately? Councilman Clark – We’ve got a new sign? Oh, I haven’t been down there then. Justice Heffron – Maybe I should find fault with some of you Board Members. None of you ever come to Court. I think that would be helpful all the way around. I might suggest that to some of you. Court is every Thursday night at 6:00, every Wednesday morning at 9:30 and Wednesday night at 7:00. The Court is always open to the public except when we’re adjudicating a youthful offender. I think the Board has to be aware of what’s going to happen down the stream and when it comes budget time keep some of those figures in mind. You’re going to loose the $3,600 a year that the Village is paying you. The Village pays the Town for the use of the building here. I always told Teresa it was too much money, but that’s the way it was. On the other hand, all of the money that is now going to the Village will come to the Town, so you are looking at an income here of $28,000 or something like that, which would certainly help offset the cost of the Court. Anything else? Supervisor Morey – No. Thanks for coming. Justice Heffron – Where does that leave us on the door? Town Board Meeting Page 7 of 14 March 13, 2001 Supervisor Morey – You’re not going to get a door. We’re looking into a slide-through window. Justice Heffron – Back on first base, where we started from. Okay. Supervisor Morey – Moving on to the bid for the excavator, on February 9, 2001 at 1 PM, the bid opening was held for the rubber tired excavator that was advertised. Present at the opening were myself, Fran, Liz, Ann Jackson form L.B. Smith, Mike Rasmusson from Syracuse Supply, and Rick Case. Last month Rick made a recommendation to accept a bid for a Caterpillar Excavator, Model M315 in the 2001 model. He also asked us to consider Option #2 which is a net purchase price of a new machine, minus trade-in of the Town of Groton’s 1980 excavator, for the sum of $151,194.00. I think everybody’s got the tabulation of the bid and the bid notes from last month. I’d like a motion to accept the bid that I just said in the amount of $151,194.00. Can I have that motion? RESOLUTION #21 – ACCEPT BID FOR RUBBER-TIRED EXCAVATOR MOVED by Councilman Sovocool, seconded by Councilman Scheffler. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED, that the Town of Groton does hereby accept the bid from Syracuse Supply Company for one 2001 Caterpillar M315 rubber-tired excavator for the net purchase, minus trade-in of the Town of Groton’s 1980 Badger Excavator, for the sum of $151,194.00. Attorney Casullo – I think what needs to happen now, normally what we have done in the past is we send letters out to the other bidders telling them that we took another bid and we appreciate them taking the time. I’ll talk to Rick about that. Now, you’re on the money aspect. Supervisor Morey – Permissive Referendum. Take us through it, will you please? Attorney Casullo – My understanding is that the purchase price is $151,194. I’m looking at a letter that Steve Gobel sent you from the First National Bank of Groton. And his letter indicates that you were going to finance $136,194 through a bond, payable over a 5-year period at interest of 4.7%. That $15,000 was not going to be bonded. It was going to come from the Highway Capital Reserve Account. Because of that, because you are taking money out of a Reserve Account, you have to make that subject to Permissive Referendum. What Permissive Referendum is is this: You put a notice in the paper saying that the Board desires to bond $136,194 for the purchase of a Cat Excavator, for a total purchase price of $151,194 and you the other $15,000 is coming from your Highway Capital Reserve Account. That is what is making it subject to Permissive Referendum. So, you put the notice in the Groton Independent newspaper and the residents of the Town have 30 days, if they so desire, to file a petition, and you need a certain percentage of the residents of the Town, challenging your decision. If they get the requisite number of signatures on the petition, they can force a vote. You would have a special election. If nothing transpires within the 30 days, no petition has been filed, then you simply Town Board Meeting Page 8 of 14 March 13, 2001 move ahead with you financing. But because you are taking it out of the Capital Reserve account, you have to have this referendum. So, there is going to be, at the absolute best, from the time you put the notice in the paper, which should be this week or early next week, you’re going to have a 30 day period at that time. That’s it in a nutshell. Liz Brennan – We do have a line item where we were going to move the money to the Capital Reserve for the budget of $55,000. That’s not in the Capital Reserve right now. Couldn’t we just take $15,000 from that as a down payment? And that would shorten the paperwork part of it. Attorney Casullo – You have just a regular line item? Liz Brennan – Yes. Attorney Casullo – It’s not in an account or anything? Liz Brennan – No. Attorney Casullo – Well, if that’s how you have it, not in a Reserve Account…. Liz Brennan – It’s a line item to be transferred to the Capital Reserve, but we haven’t moved it yet. Attorney Casullo – If it hasn’t been moved and it’s just sitting there as a line item, I think you could get around it. I do. Supervisor Morey – Let’s have the Board…..Louie, what do you think? Councilman Sovocool – We’ve already voted to transfer it. It’s in the minutes that we were going to transfer that. What happens if we don’t do it? Attorney Casullo – That’s a different story. You voted to transfer it into there and you just haven’t done it yet? Councilman Sovocool – Am I right? Supervisor Morey – No, we haven’t voted on that. We voted to accept the bid at $151,000. Councilman Sovocool – Right, but this $15,000, didn’t we budget that to go to the Capital Reserve? Liz Brennan – Right, and that is there. But then we also have the line item for $55,000 that we normally, once a year transfer monies that were budgeted to add to the Capital Reserve. So, we still have that. Councilman Scheffler – Spend this year’s Capital Reserve on it? Liz Brennan – Right. Instead of going through taking it out of the Capital Reserve and putting it into the purchase, we can directly take the money from the line item and use that for the down payment. Town Board Meeting Page 9 of 14 March 13, 2001 Councilman Sovocool – Are we still going to be putting money into the Capital Reserve? Liz Brennan – We would still have $40,000. Supervisor Morey – The only reason we have $15,000 out of the Capital Reserve is because we had to cash out the CD to pay for the truck. There’s $15,000 more in there than we needed. So, it’s sitting in our money market right now to be put into the CD. Councilman Scheffler – Wouldn’t we still have to do a Permissive Referendum? Supervisor Morey – The thing is, I would rather go Permissive Referendum. I’m jumping ahead of everybody just to let everybody know that we’re doing this. Okay? Attorney Casullo – Let me tell you what I normally do. With a lot of municipalities, as well as the County, we normally take a course of action that if there’s a way to let the public know what you’re doing, then we normally go that way. Councilman Sovocool – I think that’s the best. Councilman Scheffler – It would be safer. Councilman Randall – I agree with that. I wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t do that. Councilman Clark – Yes. Supervisor Morey – Yes, we might as well do it. Attorney Casullo – That’s fine. So, what I need…… Supervisor Morey – In a Permissive Referendum, in your experience, have you ever known anybody to bring a negative……….. Attorney Casullo – Never in my experience. Supervisor Morey – I remember when we did the front-end loader here in the Town, they had some discussion, but nothing was ever done. Attorney Casullo – I mean you guys have had some pretty significant capital projects and it’s never happened, the Town Hall, the Highway Garage. Councilman Sovocool – What if they do, and reject it, and we’ve already put in for it, we’ve accepted the bid, right? We’ve told them we are going to buy it. Supervisor Morey – In the letter, basically all it’s going to say is thank you very much for responding to the bid; we have chosen to award the bid to Syracuse Supply; again, thank you very much. It will say on condition of Permissive Referendum. Councilman Randall – How many signatures? I’m just curious now that you’ve said that. Town Board Meeting Page 10 of 14 March 13, 2001 Attorney Casullo – I think it’s almost like 50% of the electorate. It’s a relatively high number and normally it will never happen. RESOLUTION #22 – BOND FOR PURCHASE OF EXCAVATOR MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Randall. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board of the Town of Groton has authorized the purchase of one new CAT M-315 excavator (2001 model) from Syracuse Supply for the Town of Groton for the sum of $151,194.00. The Town will pay for the excavator, in part, by bonding in the amount of $136,194.00 to be paid over a five (5) year period at an interest rate not to exceed 4.7%. RESOLUTION #23 – PURCHASE SUBJECT TO PERMISSIVE REFERENDUM MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Clark. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board of the Town of Groton has authorized the purchase of one new CAT M-315 excavator (2001 model) for the Town of Groton for the sum of $151,194.00. The Town will pay for the excavator by bonding in the amount of $136,194.00. The remaining sum of $15,000.00, which reflects the balance of the purchase price, will be taken from the Town’s Capital Highway Equipment Reserve Account, which is subject to Permissive Referendum. Supervisor Morey – You’ve been inundated by paperwork from Better Housing of Tompkins County about the rehabilitation grant that we are applying for. We have to have a couple of th public meeting and we need to set one for March 20 at 7:30 PM, this next Tuesday. Stacey Crawford will be here next Tuesday to answer any questions that they might have. Can all of you make it? Consensus was that this would be an acceptable time. Supervisor Morey – I talked to Bob Demeree last week and he couldn’t make it tonight. But I would like to make a resolution. Town Board Meeting Page 11 of 14 March 13, 2001 RESOLUTION #24 – AUTHORIZE BIDDING FOR SALE OF TIMBER MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Clark. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve Robert Demeree as Forestry Consultant and thereby grants authorization for him to send out bid packets for sale of the Town’s timber, which are to be returned to the Town of Groton by May 14, 2001 at 7:30 PM. RESOLUTION # 25 – APPOINT TERESA ROBINSON TO CAYUGA MEDICAL CENTER AT ITHACA CORPORATION MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby appoint Teresa Robinson to represent the Town of Groton on the Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca Corporation for a two-year term from April 2001 to April 2003. RESOLUTION #26 – APPOINT MONICA CAREY AS PLANNING BOARD CHAIR MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby appoint Monica Carey as 2001 Planning Board Chair for the Town of Groton Planning Board. Supervisor Morey – You also, had in your packets, the M&T Investments to review. Town Board Meeting Page 12 of 14 March 13, 2001 RESOLUTION # 27 - APPROVE CONTRACT BETWEEN TOWN, VILLAGE & COOPERATIVE EXTENSION FOR YOUTH SERVICES MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Clark. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby approve the agreement made between the Town of Groton, the Village of Groton and the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County for the purpose of insuring the development and availability of youth service programs for the youth of the Village and Town. RESOLUTION #27A – APPROVE INCREASE IN INSURANCE RATES MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Randall, Clark, Morey. RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve the increase in insurance rates of $2,141.87, for a premium of $31,573.03, as quoted at the February 13, 2001 meeting by Chris Dempsey for the Town’s insurance coverage through Selective Insurance Company. Councilman Randal – I think we should put it out to bid. Supervisor Morey – We’ll do that next year. In your packet, I’ve given you some communications between the Board of Representatives as well as a couple of town supervisors, Don Barber from Caroline and Mark Varvayanis, from Dryden, having to do with the public interest in communications towers that are going up for the 911 system. I have a meeting this Thursday with the supervisors to discuss their concerns. Are there any concerns here on the Board that I should know about that I could take to them? We have one tower. It’s on the Houston Farm and that’s the only tower that it’s anticipated that we need for the Groton Town. They do want to raise that and they were here a couple of months ago for a presentation. But what they want to do is over-ride the towns and over-ride their rules and regulations. What the town supervisors want to do is say, “no you aren’t exempt for that.” And both sides have law cases that prove their point. And that’s exactly where it is going to end up, is in court. It won’t be settled until it goes to Appellate Court. Any comments? Any feelings? Councilman Randall – I saw the letter from Don Barber. I think that if the municipalities band together in some form we’re going to be heard. If we don’t, if we act as individuals, that will never happen because we are up against a bigger power here. Supervisor Morey – Exactly, that’s why I’m going, Tyke. You know we don’t have any concern, but I want to band together and make sure that the County is not over-stepping their right. Town Board Meeting Page 13 of 14 March 13, 2001 Councilman Scheffler – I think they should at least give us the respect of coming out and checking. I can’t imagine any town denying them a tower for 911 service and I don’t understand what, they’ve been here twice already, and another 20 minutes or half and hour with our planning board and it would probably all be settled. But they don’t want to do that. Do I understand it right? Supervisor Morey – Yes. Monica Carey also has the copies of the letters and she’ll be taking that up with the Planning Board on Thursday. If I’m out of the meeting I’ll be at the Planning Board. Councilman Randall – What about Bert Houston? How do they feel about it? Has anyone really asked them? Those neighbors are the ones that are affected the most. Supervisor Morey – No, I haven’t. Councilman Sovocool – You’ve got Louie Hall across the road, and he’s a cop who benefits from it. Pat Houston and Lou Sincerbeaux, I don’t think there’d be any….. Councilman Randall – I think the height is similar to the one that Perosio has down from me. I think that’s exactly how high it would be. Councilman Scheffler – Those people should at least have a chance to be heard if they want. Supervisor Morey – Also, in your packet, you got a description of the Groton Town Historian. I thought it was very interesting, reading it, and thought it was nice that we do pay our historian and some people don’t. Announcements: th Groton Businessmen’s Annual Spring Banquet, April 7 at the McLean Fire Hall. th Municipal Officials Dinner, March 20 at 6 PM at the Lehigh Valley House. th Groton Planning Board, March 15, at 7:30 PM Supervisor Morey – You also have, in your packet, the annual report for the McLean Fire District for your review. Anything else? Councilman Scheffler – This Emergency Management meeting, is that something we should be sending somebody to? Supervisor Morey – Yes, we do have a representative. That happens to be Lester Coit. Councilman Sovocool – What ever happened with Holmes on the TV? Supervisor Morey – Billy Holmes talked to Dennis Butts, who is our representative. Bill’s complaints were having to do with not a real choice and no representation of prices going up. Town Board Meeting Page 14 of 14 March 13, 2001 Councilman Sovocool – Butts is still on the Commission? Supervisor Morey – Yes. Councilman Clark – What’s the usual protocol on that Spring Banquet, does the whole Board go? Supervisor Morey – You are, as a Board Member, a member of the GBA, so everybody can go. There being no further business, Councilman Sovocool moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilman Clark, at 8:18 PM. Unanimous. April L. Scheffler Deputy Town Clerk