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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-03-12TB 3-12-15 Page 1 of 5 TOWN OF DRYDEN TOWN BOARD MEETING March 12, 2015 Present: Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner, Cl Gregory Sloan, Cl Jason Leifer, Cl Linda Lavine Absent: Cl Joseph Solomon Elected Officials: Bambi L. Avery, Town Clerk Other Town Staff: Jennifer Case, Bookkeeper Dave Sprout, Code Enforcement Officer Supv Sumner called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. Supv Sumner said there will be discussion next week on The Shopper’s Special Use Permit application and asked board members to read the Planning Department’s review (distributed to board members) prior to that meeting. This new building will be in rural a residential district. There was discussion about the activity (stuffing inserts) being considered a light manufacturing operation. The Planning Department is of the opinion that it is a service business. Cl Sloan agrees that it is a non-industrial use. Verizon is planning a tower upgrade at 1387 Dryden Road. They are simply adding a device. This does not require public hearing and will be handled next week. Planning Department update – Supv Sumner said a candidate was interviewed a few weeks ago by her, Jennifer Case and Marty Hatch, and she is in the process of making him an offer. Cl Lavine would like an opportunity to interview him also and believes she has a responsibility to do that. Supv Sumner explained that the reason there was only one applicant was because the position was only advertised locally. She extended the deadline hoping to recruit more applicants. She felt she should interview this person to see if they needed to extend or expand the recruitment. The three people at the interview agreed he was a well qualified candidate. She introduced him to staff and they agree he is someone they can work with. She has not made a firm offer, but would like him to start April 13. Cl Lavine would like the information shared and would like to meet the applicant before an offer is made. Supv Sumner will try to arrange that and next week will make a motion to appoint him. Cl Leifer has seen the application and trusts the group that interviewed the applicant. Supv Sumner will try to arrange a meeting for the applicant and Cl Lavine and will draft a resolution for his appointment for next week’s board meeting. There was discussion about the use of personal email for town business. B Avery announced that she will only send board members emails regarding town business to their official town email addresses. Trails – This Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at town hall the Design Connect group will present their project, the Varna to Freeville trail, and request input. Email invitations have been sent to outdoor and trail advocate trail groups. Landowners will be invited to a later meeting. Supv Sumner said she met with Ed Marx and Tom Knipe from County Planning and Andy Zepp from Finger Lakes Land Trust to talk about trail plans. They will be asking the Town for an endorsement of their plans to extend the South Recreation Way from the Town of TB 3-12-15 Page 2 of 5 Ithaca through an extremely tiny part of Dryden and into Caroline. It doesn’t affect the Town I any way and they aren’t asking for funding, but they would like the town to agree to the idea. That group also talked about the DEC offer for the section of trail that goes through the Game Farm. The Conservation Board had sent a resolution recommending that the board accept that offer and Supv Sumner had asked that the board not act on it until she had a chance to meet with the trails network. That group agrees that they would like to continue the conversation with DEC to try and get what they really want, which is to go along the old railroad bed. Cl Sloan said he doesn’t want to do anything that would make it harder down the road to make a bike trail happen. Supv Sumner said DEC’s option skirts the rail bed completely by quite a wide margin and excludes bikes. There is no mention in DEC’s proposal about ADA compliance, which also makes it bike friendly. Supv Sumner said she has emailed Bob Beck and asked him to have the Conservation Board reconsider and revise that resolution. Some Conservation Board members agree that the resolution may have been a bit hasty. Bob Beck said the Conservation Board will rescind their last resolution and propose that the town renegotiate with DEC and get the best they can get , but try for the straight shot on the existing rail bed. The two bridges will have to be rebuilt. Gary Stewart in Cornell Community Relations has put Supv Sumner in touch with a Cornell employee in Albany who has agreed to help her. They need to at least talk to the commissioner. Getting other parts of trail in place will increase the pressure and needs to happen simultaneously. Supv Sumner said we will need a budget for trail design in 2016. There is no problem getting the easements. There are only two property owners involved and they are both agreeable. That would complete the section from Stevenson Road to Mt Pleasant. Freeville to McLean trail – There was strong objection to that section at the last board meeting. Between the time Bob Beck first talked to the Becks who own a large section of that rail bed and now, they have changed their minds and several other neighbors agreed with their new opposition. Supv Sumner talked to Kim Lamotte and Steve Foote last night and she understands their concerns. She asked to talk about whe ther someday this might be an acceptable idea and they agreed. The idea of connecting Freeville and Cortland County is fairly appealing, but it feels like an intrusion to them right now. She is trying to find a way to not let the idea die. The Conservation Board hopes to at least get it on the map as proposed trail and people are objecting even to that. Cl Sloan said he needs to learn more and talk to people. He suspects it’s the little landowner against big government mindset. It would be an act of generosity on their part that could improve the quality of life for everyone in Tompkins County. In California where he used to live there was opposition to proposed bike trail. When he returned years later it had been completed and property values had increased because of its availability. Supv Sumner announced that there may be opportunity to acquire the property across the creek from Campbell Meadow and part of the rail trail is on that property. She asked the board to keep this in mind as we move forward with discussions of budgets and priorities. Bob Beck said the board should move forward on accepting the Conservation Board’s resolution as a plan for the Freeville to McLean section. There could be a statement from the board that it is only a plan. Cl Sloan pointed out that it can’t be done without property owner cooperation. B Beck will be happy to talk with all the property owners again. He doesn’t believe opposition is as strong as the letter indicates. Craig Schutt reminded Supv Sumner of a conversation at the Ag meeting last night about perception. He said if the town moves ahead and passes the resolution about the Freeville to McLean trail, it will add to the perception that the town doesn’t listen to the local landowners and just moves ahead. Supv Sumner agreed it is a very strong perception. Cl TB 3-12-15 Page 3 of 5 Sloan said board members should be talking to the landowners and the people who walk on the trail. Cl Sloan suggested that zoning along the trail should be looked at. It could be conducive to related business and tied to agri-tourism and agri-culinary tourism. Bob Beck noted that the county trails group is very much in favor of the trail toward Cortland. Manure pit project – Supv Sumner explained that Beck Farms has proposed to build a conduit from their farm on Red Mill Road to a lagoon on Dutcher Road. It is being overseen by Tompkins County Soil and Water and DEC. The conduit will go under Fall Creek and Mud Creek and Fall Creek and North Roads. There is Ag & Markets funding through Tompkins County Soil and Water. Supv Sumner said because they didn’t put the information out in advance or notify adjoining owners, there is some fear in the area of the impact. This is an example of what happens when you take on a project without letting the neighbors know. The lagoon on Dutcher Road will be a 3.25 million gallon storage facility. At least one neighbor has some fear and Supv Sumner said she is confident that the Becks and Soil and Water and the DEC are addressing the concerns. It is an open lagoon on the edge of a unique natural area. It was noted that the project has been approved and is underway. Equipment and materials are on site. There was discussion about the reputation and size of the Beck Farms operation and Cl Sloan said this is exactly the type of business that the town has been working very hard to support. The Court has notified the board that they are ready for their annual audit. Cl Leifer suggested late May. There was discussion about whether to have a professional audit of the town. No one can remember the last time it was done. The board agreed to budget for a professional audit in 2016. Supv Sumner said at a meeting she recently attended they discussed the importance of having policies and that you can do a lot of things our own way if you have a rational, considered policy. Our procurement policy was recently updated. The ethics policy should be updated. The town needs a reserve fund policy. Supv Sumner has been doing a lot of work on reserve fund policies and brought examples for the board to review, along with information from the Government Fiscal Officers Association about determining the appropriate level of unrestricted (or unassigned) fund balance. Most accountants and the Comptrollers Office decline to say specifically how much fund balance municipalities should have, but Government Fiscal Officers recommends at a minimum that the general fund unexpended fund balance be no less than two months of operating revenues or operating expenses. Three months was recommended at workshop in New York recently. The board reviewed and discussed the materials distributed by the Supervisor. She explained that some of the town’s funds are designated for specific purposes; everything else is unexpended balance. The town currently has four operating funds and policies should be developed for the fund balance for each of those. Some of the funds that the town has collected over the years are designated for specific purposes (reserves); everything el se is the unexpended fund balance. Supv Sumner would like to address the unexpended fund policy first and then talk about reserve fund policy that we might want to establish. For example, for highway there is an unwritten policy that we will budget the same amount every year and when the equipment need is more than the budget we’ll use from reserve, and when it is less than that, we’ll return to reserve. That helps alleviate a spike in the tax levy when we need a new piece of equipment. TB 3-12-15 Page 4 of 5 There should be a discussion about what reserves we want to establish and how to fund them, and a discussion about how much unexpended/uncommitted funds should be held. Perhaps it should be something like 20%. Reasons for previously spending down fund balance include paying for the new town hall, a substantial amount of health insurance, and paying the farmland protection grant (which was repaid by the state two years later). No highway fund balance has been used in a long time, but the Highway reserve policy needs to be in writing. Reserve funds are established for a specific purpose and can only be spent for that purpose. They are either a type fund or a specific fund. Examples of reserve funds that might be useful and the board might consider establishing include snow removal, tax stabilization, unemployment, and retirement. The recreation reserve and the purposes for which those funds could be spent were discussed. Cl Sloan would like to see the Recreation and Youth Commission prioritize those items (trails, fields, building and others). It was suggested that the board review the Recreation Master Plan to see if we still agree with those goals. There was a discussion about planning bike trails and who would take the lead. Supv Sumner said the Recreation Commission should be drawn into the conversation more. There has been past discussion of a parks and trails department or function, and perhaps that would be a good thing to develop as part of the Recreation Department. The state of fields, lack of field space, and lack of gym space are problems the Recreation Department is faced with. Cl Sloan will draft a list of possible priorities for the board to consider. Supv Sumner distributed information for next week’s board meeting, including copies of each advisory board’s structure and goals documents. Cl Lavine reported that she attended the joint sewer meeting. She also went to the Agri - Culinary Tourism event at Coltivare and said that what they are doing is exciting. They have a system where all the food scraps are compressed so that the liquid is removed and returned to Dryden to be used on the fields. She shared some information packets including the 2015 Tompkins County Area Farm to Chef Directory. Hopshire Farm is looking for assistance with expansion of their parking area. The board discussed possibilities, noting that the town is not allowed to improve private property. The town IDA through Alternatives may help, but probably would not cover the entire cost. They are likely looking for a grant rather than a loan. Supv Sumner stated that the folks that produce That Indian Drink have plans in place to increase their market by a factor of 10 but they need an improved septic system and a homogenizer. They could do it with local milk if they can get a homogenizer. She is going to try and put them in touch with people who may be able to help locate funding assistance. RESOLUTION #53 (2015) – APPROVE ABSTRACT #3 Supv Sumner offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby approves Abstract #3, as audited, general vouchers #124 through #214 ($521437.24), CD voucher #257 ($200.00), and TA vouchers #34 through #36 (3,286.30), totaling $524,923.54. 2nd Cl Sloan Roll Call Vote Cl Sloan Yes Supv Sumner Yes TB 3-12-15 Page 5 of 5 Cl Leifer Yes Cl Lavine Yes There being no further business, on motion made seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 9:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Bambi L. Avery Town Clerk