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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-05-09 TOWN OF GROTON - MINUTES OF TOWN BOARD MEETING TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2006 AT 7:30 PM THE TOWN HALL, 101 CONGER BOULEVARD Those present: Glenn E. Morey, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Richard B. Gamel, Councilman Sheldon C. Clark, Councilman Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town Also present: Diane Bradac, Tyke Randall, Anne Wiegard, Dewey Dawson, Elizabeth Brennan, Richard C. Case, Jr., April Scheffler. MOVED by Councilman, Sovocool seconded by Councilman Gamel, to approve the minutes of the April 11, 2006 meeting as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Claim Numbers 121-156 of the General Fund in the amount of$32,471.40 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Clark, to approve the General Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Claim Numbers 62-82 of the Highway Fund in the amount of $72,214.56 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to approve the Highway Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Claim Numbers 13-14 of the Special Grant (HUD) Fund in the amount of $8,640.00 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Gamel, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, to approve the HUD bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Town Board Minutes Page 2 May 9, 2006 Monthly Reports: Elizabeth Brennan, Bookkeeper/Highway Clerk — Submitted monthly report for the Board's review and informed them that the auditor was in the process of doing the audit. Gary Coats, Code/Fire Enforcement Officer — Was absent but had submitted monthly report for the Board's review. Richard C. Case, Jr., Highway Superintendent — At the present time, the changeover from winter maintenance to summer road maintenance is complete. The preventive maintenance program is on schedule and repairs of equipment are taking place daily. As a result of March's heavy rain, there are still some shoulder and ditch repairs to finish. Preparation of Old Stage Road, from Salt Road to Champlin Road, and Lick Street, from Old Stage Road to Clark Street Extension, is now underway for the 2006 paving season. All of the highway employees have worked hard on these projects trying to keep us on schedule for paving. Intersections are being broomed and patching is taking place when time and manpower allow. The new stake-rake truck has been received and put in service. I have received correspondence from Thomas Madison, Commissioner of NYS DOT that our portion of the NYS CHIPS Funds will be $80,070.24 for the Year 2006. This is an increase of $9,787.39 over our 2005 portion. I would like to thank the Board for attending the annual road tour. Your interest in our highway road projects is greatly appreciated. At this time I would like to present for your consideration the purchase of a tandem cab and chassis. It has come to may attention that there will be some costly updates taking place in the Class 8 heavy duty trucks exhaust and emissions as of January 2007. The Federal Government has mandated that an exhaust device be mounted on all new diesel engines as of that date. My concerns are: 1. This device will have no less than 4 sensors. These sensors have the ability to completely shut down the engine or limit its ability to perform. The last thing I need is a truck to shut down on the roadway during a snowstorm. 2. This device will create some very high exhaust temperatures. We have already had problems with the exhaust melting transmission lines on the newer trucks. 3. The device will need to be added to the preventive maintenance checklist. The cost of replacement for this filtering device is being estimated at between $3,500 and $6,000 per filter. 4. The emissions change will add an estimated $15,000 to $20,000 per truck. I would prefer that the rest of the trucking industry work the bugs out of this system. It is my understanding that if this purchase is the direction you would like to pursue, I would have to start the transaction by the end of this week. Other municipalities are taking advantage of this savings Town Board Minutes Page 3 May 9, 2006 by purchasing factory build slots before the build-out date. We are replacing with this truck, a 1992 truck that has in engine hours 385,000 miles. It will come out of the Capital Reserve. There is money there for that. I know it's going to take us down to around $1,000 but I propose that we purchase this truck at this time, pending permissive referendum. Councilman Gamel — Everything after 2007 has to have this thing on it from the factory, but everything else is grandfathered prior to that? Mr. Case—Everything we currently have and that's why everyone is trying to get ahead of this. With emission stuff they don't go backwards, they go forward. Sheldon and I and Glenn have had conversations about this. I don't see us purchasing a truck for another three years, if we get this purchase. I want to let the rest of the industry work this out because this is going to be costly. I had our mechanic do some of his own research and he is finding out the same thing. It's going to be a nightmare for the preventive maintenance part of it. I mean, $3,500 for a filter is ridiculous. We've already had problems with the new electronic stuff. There is no conceivable way that we can afford the diagnostic tools to have on hand. So, when this electronic stuff shuts down, we're down. We're at the mercy of the dealer. Like I said this is a mainline piece of equipment and if you don't approve I will be coming to you next year and asking for it anyways because we will need the vehicle. Councilman Gamel—When does that account get replenished again? Next September right? Supervisor Morey — Right. This is an important vote and I know everybody has been thinking about it since the tour, so what have you got? Councilman Sovocool—I guess I agree with Rick. I guess we've got to do it. I don't think it's right, but.... Councilman Scheffler—I hate to draw the funds down that far but I think probably it's the thing to do. Plowing snow is going to be hard on those exhaust temperatures because it's working hard all the time. I know what this thing is and it can't possibly work. Councilman Gamel — What do we do in the meantime, between January and September, if something else happens with the funds down? What happens if something else major breaks; a tranny goes; a rear end goes Mr. Case — That type of stuff, Rick, is covered in the 5130 Repairs. When you folks put this account together it was to replace any mainline vehicle that went down. I don't foresee a problem. We've had good mechanics here and we're on top of it. There's enough in the 5130 to cover, God forbid, an engine job, which would be in the $20,000 range. I'm not a gambler and this is something that I wouldn't back away from. Councilman Gamel—Do it. Councilman Clark—I totally support it. Town Board Minutes Page 4 May 9, 2006 RESOLUTION#06-047—PURCHASE INTERNATIONAL PAYSTAR TRUCK MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Gamel Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark Nays—Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes the purchase of one 2006 or newer International Paystar tandem-axel truck subject to permissive referendum. This vehicle will be purchased on the New York State Office of General Services 2006 Heavy Equipment Contract, No. PC62176, for $105,642.00. The sum of$105,642.00, which reflects the purchase price, will be taken from the Town's Capital Highway Equipment Reserve Account and be it FURTHER RESOLVED, that said purchase will occur unless a petition in compliance with Section 91 of New York State Town Law is received by the Town Clerk protesting said resolution and requesting a referendum thereon. April L. Scheffler, Town Clerk/Tax Collector — Submitted her monthly report for the Board's review. She reported that the Town Clerks Convention was a great time and that there were many new things to learn. Marriage licenses will soon have a new and better format for printing. After a class on passports, she is looking into taking and processing the applications since new laws will require everyone traveling out of the country to have a passport. This would entail a $30 commission for the Town for each passport application. The State dog law has been rewritten which would repeal having the licenses expire at the same time as the rabies certificate and is on the Governor's desk awaiting his signature. A letter was received from the McLean Fire Department informing the Town of their intent to renew their liquor license. Consensus of the Board was that they had no objection to the McLean Fire Department renewing their liquor license. Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town Had nothing to report. John Norman and A. D. Dawson, Town Justices — Submitted their monthly report for the Board's review. Judge Dawson — The teleconference that John, Peggy and I went to regarding auditing and financial responsibility of the courts and the towns was attended be about 15 people. I know you were all here at a meeting that night so none of you could go. The supervisor was there from the Town of Lansing and seemed to glean some stuff out of it. As a result, we were offered the opportunity to get a tape of the conference. So, we put in a request for the tape and as soon as we get it, if any of you are interested in looking at it, it has some good points about the cohesiveness of the town and the courts and the financial responsibility area. Also, the Court has been pretty busy over and above what you see in your report. It seems like in the last two or three weeks especially, we're getting an unusually high amount of felony cases to handle from Town Board Minutes Page 5 May 9, 2006 our area. Incidentally, just to let you know, John and I have started declining to do nighttime arraignments for other courts when we figure that they are home and sleeping. We decided that they don't do that much for us. We've been doing it really a lot, considering the return we get on it. Even though we get 10 or 15 bucks for an arraignment, it's not hardly worth it to us or the Town. Obviously, if it's a real important case or something like that or if somebody really needs to be arraigned because of a physical altercation or something like that, we'll go out for that but if it just that another court has issued a warrant and they're not available to answer the warrant, then they're going to have to find something else. We're just not going to bend over that far backwards anymore to do it. Councilman Donald Scheffler, as Recreation Coordinator — Recreation is going well. Viola is in the final stages of setting up the summer programs and getting the brochure printed. She has several adult activities planned, including an art class, a credit and debt management class and a couple of short day trips are in the works. Joan Donovan, committee rep for the Village, has resigned for personal reasons. We will miss her expertise, knowledge and advice. I want to publicly thank her for her hard work and dedication, and wish her all the best. Duane Randall, County Legislator — McLean was awarded their celebration grants, one for Happenin' in the Hamlet for $1,500 and one for the kids' Halloween party for $400. The Spring Street bridge replacement has been postponed until 2007. In F&I, we have given the Planning Department and the Budget and Capital Committees direction on the 20-year capital plan and that's setting a priority on which buildings to deal with first. The order was the Health Department, Public Safety and then the Center of Government. Again, it's just to provide some kind of direction; it's not a done deal;just an avenue to explore at this point. At Glenn's request I have talked to Jim Shurtleff and the County, Bill Cezney (spelling?) about the sinkhole up behind Tichenor's. There's been some conversation both ways on where the County is going to get involved in this. My initial assessment, after going up and looking at it, is that we need to take care of the water flow before it gets to that point. I think that certainly is a County issue with bigger pipes up above Flang's particularly to get the water into the gully on the upper part instead of all going to the bottom. Supervisor Morey — June 7th can you make Groton Youth Commission meeting here at 7:00? The Cooperative Extension and the Youth Manager would like to make a presentation to you. Discussion was scheduled on NYSEG's intent to contest their inclusion to special districts for their mass properties. Since the Town of Groton had not received direct contact from NYSEG the Board decided to table the discussion. Supervisor Morey directed the Board to review the M&T Investment Report. Diane Bradac, from Tompkins County Office of Employment and Training presented information on Job Link, which is a youth employment program. It is a Federal program which provides Federal dollars for educational assistance, employment assistance and ongoing support. Their target group is low income youth age 14 —21. There are currently around 17 youth in the Groton area that they are working with and will be looking for summer jobs for these youth. She provided the Board with a variety of information on the program and said that they would be interested in their ideas as well as if they knew of any youth who were in need of help. Town Board Minutes Page 6 May 9, 2006 Supervisor Morey — Diane takes care of all the training and counseling for these youth. It's a great program. They pay the hourly rate so it's a win, win situation for everybody. April is going to interview and so is Rick. RESOLUTION#06-048—SET PUBLIC HEARING FOR FIRE DEPARTMENT INCORPORATION MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby sets a Public Hearing as part of their regular monthly meeting for Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 8:00 pm for the purpose of considering a request to form the Groton Volunteer Fire Department, Inc. RESOLUTION#06-049—APPROVE HUMAN SERVICES CONTRACT MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board approves the 2006 Contract with Tompkins County Human Services in the amount of$1,500.00. RESOLUTION#06-050—TOWN CLERK AND COURT CLERK TO ATTEND SEMINAR MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Gamel Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves payment of expenses for the Town Clerk, April Scheffler, and the Court Clerk, Peg Palmer to attend a one day session of the New York Association of Local Government Records Officers School on June 6, 2006 in Canandaigua,NY. RESOLUTION#06-051 —TOWN CLERK TO ATTEND WORKSHOP MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves payment of expenses for the Town Clerk, April Scheffler, to attend a workshop on Managing E-mail Effectively presented by NYS Archives on May 17th, 2006 at Cortland,NY. Town Board Minutes Page 7 May 9, 2006 Announcements: ➢ Planning Board, May 18 at 7:00pm ➢ Groton Business Association, May 17 at the Elm Tree Inn, topic is retirement options for small businesses There being no further business, Councilman Sovocool move to adjourn, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, at 8:08 pm. Unanimous. April L. Scheffler, RMC Town Clerk