20220607 Town Board First Monthly Meeting Final Record
6:14PM Jun 22, +0000
Speakers:
Town of Danby
Sarah Schnabel
Joel Gagnon
Leslie Connors
Katharine Hunter
Pat Woodworth
Laura Shawley
David West
Ted Crane
Ronda Roaring
Garry Huddle
Jack Shawley
Kim Nitchman
Kathleen
Derek
Keywords:
meeting
town
zoning
law
road
move
light
agenda
public hearing
culverts
question
put
comment
requirements
discussion
public
issue
include
board
masks
Okay. Got it. So I think we can call the meeting to order at 6:03 I guess it is. Welcome everyone who's here tonight; we're going to begin with several public hearings. The first of which is under proposed local law to explain the options for remote attendance at video conference meetings. This is about the state enabling legislation that expands in a limited way our ability to attend remotely before this law was passed by the legislature, in order to attend remotely if you were a board member, not available locally, for whatever reason, you had to broadcast your location, publish your location ahead of time, and it had to be an opportunity for people to join you at that location. Wherever it was, that has been amended to allow us to have remote attendance by people, board members from undisclosed locations, as long as they are observable at the meeting - you have to have the video on and your microphone so that people can see them. And as long as there's a quorum of the board present in some location, physically, at which people can also attend. So by passing this local law, we will enable that to happen in Danby. Anybody would like anybody like to comment on that?
I'm not seeing anybody. So let's close that public hearing.
Um, I've got a hand waving here?
I didn't see it. Sorry.
I don't see myself either. So...
because your video's not on.
Ahhh, thank you, boss. There you go.
All right.
Hiya. Just just to make the comment and, Joel, you did correctly note that it's a good thing to have the the attending public official, visible and audible at all times. I would like to hope that you would take that even more seriously, that their surroundings should be visible as well. The whole concern is that someone who is...I'll face the camera, that someone else could be in the room giving advice or instructions or information to the to the elected official, who isn't that was not available, visible or known to the public, which is the whole point of having the whole thing seen. So it important that should impose somewhat of a more restrictive environment on on non on remote participation. Thanks.
Okay. Anyone else? Now close the public hearing? Nope. There's a second one, which is on the proposed changes to the zoning law to allow light industrial uses in the commercial C zones. Which there are a few of them in Danby. David here? Yes. David would like like to synoptically review what that entails?
Sure. There are two parts of the proposed local law. The first part adds the term "light industry" to the uses allowed by site plan review in the commercial C zone, commercial C zone applies to only a couple parcels in the town, but it's the least restrictive commercial zone, the zone for kind of the most intense commercial uses. The second part amends the definition of industrial establishment in the zoning, which, as defined actually doesn't make very much sense. It includes light industry, but does not include heavy industry. So the proposal would flip that basically this allows uses that involve very little to no environmental impact but involves some kind of making of a product to happen in those parcels that are commercial C, and all of those have kind of derelict more industrial type building on them that would be good to reuse.
So with that background, would anyone care to comment? Kim?
Hi there. Um, it's hard for me to understand exactly what is light industrial and what is not. But my guess my concern is what about the current people who have businesses, particularly in The Hamlet, which, again, I'm sorry, I don't remember all the maps that we were working with. I think of one gentleman who has a place that burned down and got reconstructed across from the Danby Gathery, and he has a lot of heavy equipment there. And he's been there, his father was there...So, I get concerned about him losing his right to have his business where he's had it for generations. And then there's another fellow down the way who has a bunch of things near a trailer almost near White Hawk. And there are probably others. But I guess my concern is, you know, what happens to the people who have been doing things for all this time? You know, are these particular businesses something that are going to lose their, their previous rights, and what is a light industrial use? Thank you.
If you could explain to him, it doesn't have any effect on on taking anything away. It just adds to what can take place in Commercial C.
and only in Commercial Sales. So no one in the Hamlet area would be affected unless they were listed as a commercial property, which I don't think there is any in the Hamlet areas.
where with our revised zoning, we're much more liberal about what's allowed in terms of businesses in the Hamlet, if at all.
But this particular thing is just for the Commercial C zone.
C...what this is allowed. But this is what we'll do is we'll add the ability for light industry to be located in a Commercial C, which we didn't have [indiscernable] yet will have if we if we make this change. Anybody else? Ted?
Just to amplify the question that Kim asked... it all depends on the definition of light industry. For example, let's say you had a a building housing a factory, which is manufacturing clothing. Is that light industry?
Well, it might be but it's not a Commercial C
But this is expanding Commercial C to include...
includes a uses within the what's currently zoned Commercial C to allow for light industry to be conducted within...
exactly my point. So to to, to to build on Kim's exempt example. What if you were to decide to... Angel Heart decided to come back to town and open their clothing factory in Pat McLean's building? That it makes a big difference what the light industry is. Yeah, I'm sure that the people living on Gunderman Road would have something to say they took better on better on route 96 B than on an Gunderman Road. But do we really want that? That that? I think that's an important question to ask.
Yeah. Light industry is is carefully defined. David, you want to give the scope of it?
Yeah, so the defini... the town's definition of light industry is very long and incredibly restrictive and I'd be happy to read it. It says "Allowed: low impact industrial uses which may include subject to requirements set forth below; light assembly and fabrication businesses; warehousing and wholesale business; light manufacturing and finishing businesses; research and testing facilities and operations and similar uses. Each and all of which shall be deemed to be classified as low impact or light industrial only when the cumulative environmental and social impacts from such uses or impacts shall not significantly and adversely affect the environment including but not limited to air quality, floodplains, steep slopes, riparian and littoral and corridors, wetlands, aquifers and aquifer recharge areas and other freshwater sources and to such uses or operation shall not materially or adversely affect neighboring land uses, or any residential areas of the town. Three: the effects of impacts attendant to such uses or operations relating to parking driveways, road, traffic, landscaping, screening, noise and vibration emissions, lighting and light emissions, odors and smells and waste disposal or emissions are not individually or in the aggregate deemed significantly adverse. And four: the overall size of any structures improvements. In terms of size, height and the percentage of land coverage of all improvements in parking and road areas, you're not in any such dimension or percentage exceed the lesser of two acres or 50% of the overall lot area. And five: where required all variances, site plan approvals with or without conditions and special permit approvals have duly been applied for, granted, and timely utilized pursuant to the terms and requirements of the Town of Danby zoning ordinance and other applicable law ordinance rule or the requirements of the Town of Danby.
Which is David mentioned that the most restrictive set of conditions he's encountered anywhere.
What do you do? If I may ask? Would it include for example, the two things that are probably light industry that in Danby now or were one of which was the Angelheart factory? The other would be? What's it called Stork? Whatever it's called now, would those be included?
I don't think Stork qualifies as light industry. And Angelheart is an.. that exceeds the size limitation that David just cited.
Well, in putting putting a branch of either of those into Pat McClean's place.
whose property is that?
That's the large barn structure opposite the end of Gunderman road on 96. B,
is that in a commercial zone? [--No] So then it's irregardless of that property, that property would have... nothing would affect this because this is only... affecting Commercial C's zones.
Right. Fair enough. I'm looking at the presentation online is there a map of those of those C zones?
sending regular zoning map. It's the purple zones, which are very few and far between.
They're red, but yeah.
Oh, are they they were? Oh, wait, no. PDZs are purple.
And where would one find this? Is it available to the public as part of the meeting materials?
Zoning. It's the zoning.
So it's not in the meeting materials? I'd have to go searching for it.
It's yeah. There's no change to the map.
We're just... the use to the zone.
Yes, not everybody, David has that map memorized, or its location. That's why I was wondering whether it was in the meeting materials. I think this needs more thought. Sorry.
Any other comments? Okay, because..there goes that public hearing
Just to interject, you can find the new zoning law with a link right on the homepage of the website.
Oh, in that case, give me a moment if it's that easy.
You do that? Well, we move on to the third one. Yeah. The proposed law to adopt a New York State Stretch Energy code is the next one. Information about this was provided in the in the town newsletter, both the online version and more extensively and the written version. It also has been talked about in previous town board meetings. And this is in short, a [random voices]....somebody needs to mute themselves. This is a an opportunity I guess I would say to adopt a couple of years earlier than it will otherwise appear in the in the energy code in New York State, somewhat more restrictive or standards for energy conservation, that will improve the energy efficiency of new construction and extensive remodels at relatively modest cost relative to the cost of overall construction. And we will not be adopting this tonight because we don't have the actual text before us. The the complication that I encountered when reviewing the law is that the New York State, the uniform Fire & Building Code supersedes provisions of local law that are in conflict with it. And so to adopt something more stringent, there's one specific section here that is that is at odds with what the what the code provides. And when it has to do with with the section on energy recovery heat recovery ventilation. And evidently one needs to petition in the Code Council in order to implement it. Which seems bizarre. But I spoke with Guy and he suggested consulting with the Association of Town Attorneys to see how this has been handled elsewhere. And this is an unresolved matter. So we will have to come back to it. But tonight is an opportunity for anyone who care to speak to the question of whether or not we should do it at all. Are there are people who would like to comment on the potential adoption of the Stretch Energy Code?
Right, good. Let me just start I look, I'm looking at the map. I know this is a little out of place, but and you're right there are the red zones are pretty few and far between. I am concerned about one that is appears to be pretty far out of town on Bald Hill Road before it intersects with Comfort. And that one is certainly a concern. I'm not sure this is a great idea, no stretch, I think this is a great idea. I would strongly urge you to recommend its adoption. The issue came up previously at the town board, I don't remember if it was one year or two years ago. And it was it was defeated. The reasoning that I remember from that time was that it would be an extra cost to residents. And I think that that at that time, that was pretty short sighted because it's a case of pay some more now, or pay a lot more later. The whole point of the Stretch Code means that your energy efficiency is better. And your long term energy costs are going to be lower. And yes, it will cost more upfront. But it's a very, very modest return on it. Time to return the investment. So yes, I think this is a great idea. Any deep, small details that you're concerned about? You should certainly investigate. But in general, better, better energy efficiency is always better. Thanks.
Anyone else?
Does see anyone else wishing to comment? So let's close that Public Hewaring. Which brings us to additions and deletions to the agenda. We have three potential additions. I propose that we add them all. And we put them all at the head of business. That way we deal with them first. Are there other additions or deletions? I think there's one deletion actually.
Well, action on energy code could get removed.
That's the one.
So 9.1 can get removed. Right.
Right, Anything else?
9.30.
Yeah. Could we talk about what it was that you sent us the email about though?
Sure.
Okay, we could talk about it
I just didn't read it in depth, so Yeah.
Now or before?
Then, just at that point.
You know, I don't think we should delete the action on Stretch Energy Code, because the action that we could consider is to well, it's already...
But, yeah that's - that's in the additions, so....
Correct. Okay. Anything else? Okay, moving right into it. The next thing is privilege of the floor. An opportunity for anyone to address the board on any topic of their choice for three minutes a piece. Ronda? You're muted.
I was kept out of the meeting for 20 minutes and kept trying to get in and wasn't allowed in. Did you have the hearings already?
We did.
Well, I would like to use my three minutes then for what I was going to say at the hearing. And I'm really angry that you would attempt to keep me out of the hearings. I think that's really scum.
There was a typo in the agenda, Zoom link. So I would think it's fair to open those up again...
I think the board would welcome your comments since you couldn't be present Ronda.. That the mistake was that the Zoom link on the agenda did not match the Zoom link on the on the calendar listing. But you got it off the agenda here and you were waiting to get into a meeting that didn't exist.
I want to read to you from something that is online and I'm going to give you the email address in case you want to follow along with me, but I'm not going to read it word for word, I'm going to skim it,
And can you give us the context for which public hearing you're commenting?
I'm commenting on the one concerning light industrial zones. Okay? So the email is Ecode, we all know what Ecode 360 is Ecode360.com/8662268, 8662268. And it deals with light industrial zones in the Town of Ithaca. And I want to read this to you and I want you to think about this. I'm going to skip the purpose because it's very long. Permitted principle uses: businesses administrative and professional offices, industrial uses employing electric power and or power motor or utilizing hand labor or fabrication or assembly, indoor warehousing and indoor storage including self service storage facilities, printing, publishing, and bookbinding. Research and development facilities utilizing office spaces, indoor scientific laboratories and other similar indoor spaces. Amateur Radio facilities, small wind energy facilities, retail sales of product made on site and of items designed to be used with products made on site, adult entertainment. Permitted accessory buildings and uses: automobile parking and off street loading areas subject to the further requirement of this article, accessory storage buildings. The dwelling of an owner operator or manager, or of a guard, caretaker or custodian provided that in no more than one dwelling unit per industry shall be established. guardhouse, child daycare centers, cafeteria, lunch room, recreational facilities, including play fields, ball fields, tennis and volleyball work, volleyball courts, swimming pools and fitness centers.
Interrupting but why are you quoting from Ithaca's law?
okay, because I want you to understand what light industry means to them. And we have nothing like this and it goes on for quite some time we get into minimum areas of land, and it says 10 acres height limitations. It talks about building area, size of lots, parking, additional special requirements, performance standards, dealing with sound level limits and decibels, and what times and on and on and on. And what you're really by splitting this up and eliminating the light industry from Section C is that you're taking all of this stuff and allowing it to be put someplace where it might end up in a residential area. And we need to really think about all of this, we don't have these definitions. We don't have anything like this. And so we need to have lots more thought on what light industry means to us, how we're going to preserve the rural character of the town with all of this kind of light industry and I want to read three things, not three things but several things that they have in here. They talked about vibrations, atmospheric emissions, odor, layer and heat, radioactive and mic, electromagnetic interference, fire and explosion hazards and vermin. It's the fire and explosion hazards that really bother me because fireworks, the manufacturer of fireworks is light industry. So think about all of the things that you don't want to have in Danby that are light industry and they could be here if we allow light industry...
Not by the town's definition of light industry
Yeah, what you missed was David reading the the rather long list of restrictions on what qualifies as light industry in Danby.
Okay, and so I missed it and who else missed it? Who else is not at this meeting that might be talking about this? I think the whole thing ought to be postponed. And we certainly need to take a look a hard look at this law here put up by the town of Ithaca. And that's all I have to say.
Okay, that's with respect to that. If you have anything else you'd like to add on the privilege of the floor. Okay. Anyone else would like to address the board under privilege of the floor? Ted?
Yeah. So another problem on the agenda, Item 3.2, the amend town board rules of order limiting town board meetings to two hours. It's in blue, but it's not a link. So I have no idea what that item is about.
It worked for me as a link.
Well, when I do it, it takes me to the web, the default web site, it is not a link. If I try to copy it. I can't copy it. Anyway, the point is, not knowing what it is about, I have to just strike out blindly and say that look, guys, you give
me a second, I can share it, if you want to take a look at it.
Pretty much. The the title pretty much tells you what it's about. It's about limiting town board minutes to two hours unless we vote to extend them beyond it.
Yeah, it's just a very simple resolution. There it is.
That, that is what I assumed. So I'll just strike out now with a little more information. Hey, guys, you signed up to be on the town board, without limitation to what knowing that some meetings run long and your meetings do run long and not no longer because of public interrupting? It's all your own doing. I think that if you've tried, you've tried moving the meetings to six o'clock, to make it easier on yourselves. Well, that's so you don't have to go past nine o'clock, which is three hours. I think if you have business and it's on the agenda, you should complete i regardless of how long it takes. If you want to reduce the agenda and schedule extra meetings, well, past history says you're going to you might as well make them permanent meetings and have three regularly scheduled meetings a month. Meetings, with limited time, really tend toward the end to become less and less deliberative, and more as in how quickly can we get this done so we can get out of here. I think that limited time meetings. I have sympathy on people who don't like long meetings, but you've got to do the work.
I do just want to point out it's not a strict deadline. It's just that at two hours, we have to vote to continue.
Yes, I'm aware of that. And I think my comment about as the two hour limit approaches, you might vote to extend 10 minutes, but you might try to compress an hour's worth of work into that 10 minutes. And I think that's a bad idea.
Or maybe it's 10 minutes of work to begin with. But that's where I'm calling from.
Well, you know, I wasn't gonna say something here.
Can I say something? Joel?
Of course,
Okay, Privilege of the Floor is a time for people to say what they have what's on their mind, you know, to give information, to give ideas, whatever it is, I don't see it. And it never has been a time for discussion, which actually makes the meetings longer. And I know that when somebody says something, it's it's easy to, you know, jump to trying to give the person more information or to explain something but Privilege of the Floor is for people just to voice their opinion. And it's not meant as a discussion time. That's my two cents.
Yeah. Yeah, point point well taken.
It's a it's an excellent point. And if I may respond, I know it is self self defeating. But actually, Leslie until recent years, there was a considerable amount of discussion during Privilege of the Floor. Maybe it isn't intended to be that way. But you know, it happens. Yeah.
It should not be it should not be I think the point is well taken there should not be a regular practice
I am not going to argue that already. When it does happen and it's an additional considerations are brought to light. I think it's a worthwhile thing.
Okay, enough of that. Is there anyone else who would like to address the board in Privilege of the Floor?
Okay, stop sharing. Sorry.
Thanks, Sarah. But is there any correspondence, Janice? No? Ok. I don't believe there are any announcements. We do Okay, go to the planners report since it's not in writing, but something is going to convey it to us orally.
Hello, everyone. So we're working up to a fairly large couple of meetings in June for both the planning board and the BZA. But I want to report back to you quickly about the planning board in May there was no BZA meeting, but the Planning Board looked at scheduling a public hearing of hearing for a subdivision at 88 Gunderman Road that will happen this month to divide that parcel divide a 13 acre piece off of that parcel. We looked at 108 Marsh Road that will be back for final subdivision approval this month, which is a cluster sub, use of the cluster subdivision to create one small lot and two large lots at 108 Marsh Road. 256 Bruce Hill Road received preliminary subdivision approval as a cluster with the requirement to come back for a site plan review of each of the individual buildings there. You may hear about that. That parcel is also looking at very significant conservation easement on a larger than 70 acre lot. Should be a great place to get a conservation easement because it's mostly though not all mostly on seasonal limited access road. The portion of it that will be accessing the development potential is on a year round round. And we also had a long conversation with 105 Beardsley lane, which will be back on the agenda. That's the parcel at the top of Beardsley lane. If the build out was not following the approved site plan, the applicant came to amend the site plan, they basically got got rebuffed and put on hold for a month. And they have a new site plan that I just got today that will be back on the agenda for review by the Planning Board. And I guess the planning board will decide if they want to give some approval of site plan or perhaps push that off more, I think we'll see there.
And then Norbut solar farm will be back on the agenda for site plan review. So the planning, the Town Board, approved the plan development zone for the solar farm, along with kind of the general site plan that then the actual authority to, you know, look at any other mitigations that might be required, or any adjustments to that site plan wise with the planning board, so they'll be taking that up in a couple of weeks. Other than that, we have received responses to a request for qualifications for a firm to do our housing rehabilitation grant proposal. This was funded by Tompkins County. We got to two packages in response. One from Thoma, which is an economic development firm in Cortland and one from CT mail, who did our housing needs assessment. That was kind of the first step in moving towards being able to have a housing program. Joel and I met and reviewed those packages. And it seems to us that Toma's application was was the best there and that they would be a good candidate. We do have one issue being that both of the applicants said that the $5,000 grant we had was not quite enough for all of the work that needs to be done. So I'll be working with Laura to see if we can find a couple extra 1000 to round that out and and get that going so that we can get an application in at the end of the summer for a program.
You mentioned BZA. Whats up with that?
So BZA was cancelled because we didn't have any applications. So the BZA hasn't met very much this year. But now we have three applications on the agenda for this month. Everybody finally got their stuff in all at once. Let's see what are they? Well, the agenda isn't out yet. But I'd be happy to share with the board at the next meeting if you'd like an update on what's before the BZA. Okay.
Steve has submitted his Code Report in writing. That one new house on it. I have a suspicion I know which one it is. And I didn't see the Town Clerk's report but I see it got added to the agenda. Taking a look at it, looks good. I thought either Keith or Jack would be here to talk to us about what Highway's up to.
And Jack is right here
Hi, everybody.
Hi. So there's two things going on here. But you know we have it on the agenda, we're willing to wait the Highway's proposal to further commit CHIPs fund. So if you're willing to sort of separate into two pieces, this time could be just sort of giving a general overview of what I was up to and planning to be up to.
Yeah, so Highway's been doing a lot of ditching work. We're continuing to get the water the focus right now is to get the water off the roads. Water infiltration causes the pavement failure. So we're, we are going through the town. Taking care of the water. We started with Comfort Road and good news, Comfort Road is ready to pave. And that was one of the things on the agenda tonight was to pave that. Wwe will not have to close the road down when we do pave that which could be as soon as a week or two depending whether and when the people can come in to do that. We will work half of the road at a time so that we will continue to keep that open. Another thing that we have that we've focused on is the Gunderman road project, we do have the culverts. The holdup has as of right now is the gas company. They were they have obligations to come out per request. And they did not meet that today. They have to be there when when they do the excavation removal of the bridge. So as it stands, the company that you know the gas company should be out there. They said tomorrow, would that inplace we will be removing that bridge, if all goes right, tomorrow. That's some more good news that we have is we wanted to run the loader through the auction to see if we could get anything over $156,000 Because that's what the trade was offered. And it ran through the auction and we received $162,300. Three, so that we reduced our $15,000 requirement down to $8700. So that was a good savings for the town. We're going to continue to work on ditches and get the water off the road to get these roads improved. We've got some chip sealing in the near future coming up to keep the good roads in good shape. The road that we're going to pave, on Comfort will be between Leib and Gunderman. We're going to we're working on reprofiling roads, bringing the roads back to the width. They should be removing the ditches. We're down in West Danby doing the same thing now, trying to it's been a lot of water that had been laying intothe edge of these roads and we're going through... Keith and I are looking at culverts, replacing culverts. Residents are replacing a lot of culverts up around town. We're trying to get this all accomplished. So we have good roads in the town. And that's that's where we stand right now and the highway department. We're going to continue with that culvert replacement. We've got approval from Army Corps of Engineer- verbal- and approval from the DEC Department of Conservation to purchase the 10 foot by 14 culvert for West Jersey, but that that's probably going to take a while to get in. As it stands we've been running about looks like four months, because either material or other situations causing problems to get stuff. That's been the biggest problem. The material is like in bands out in California that have to be shipped here. So the culvert companies can then manufacture the pipe and that's been the biggest problem is the companies that manufactures culverts, they require raw stock of band that's just like big thick sheet metal and the stuff like sets in California and I have to get truck here. Example The one we have was the sheet steel. You can see it was manufactured in September, but by the time they got it from here to the company was just four or five weeks ago, six weeks ago. It's moving the material getting the raw stock here finding trucking and stuff like that, which seems to be the biggest holdup.
Looks like Gary's got his hand up. Do you have a question for...?
Just one question for Jack, when you're repaving between Liebe road and Gunderman. Can you make that turn and go down Gunderman about a quarter of the way.
We're gonna we're gonna stop just shy of Gunderman. And the reason for that is the county was going to be working on Comfort Road, and they're going to change the pipe that crosses Comfort right at Gunderman. So we're going to start our pavement just past the pipe, which is probably about 10 feet shy of, of the intersection. And the county is going to pick it up when they pave the rest of the road. And I don't know their timeframe. So they have to do pipe work on their it's their jurisdiction change the pipeline on Comfort, which parallels the Gunderman, so we can't we can't pave that portion. What would be good question to bring up to them.
Well, it's understandable.
Yeah, thank you.
Ted, you?
Very, very quick. At the intersection of Gunderman and Comfort, is there any chance of eliminating that sudden, steep slope? As you're traveling north?
Is your cursor talking?
Probably not Ted? It would, you would run into situations of water infiltration, like a bathtub by cutting it down? And, you know, get property owners on both sides. If we lowered that part of the road, it would become like a bathtub for ditching and so on. I I don't think we'd be able to do that. Plus, it would have to be the county involvement as well, because that's their portion. So many feet from there they own which is why they're gonna change the pipe.
Yeah. Fair enough. But I hope you're aware that, at least among the residents, myself and those I have talked to about that, that is considered a real safety hazard.
It is it's a good one to bring up in the county. We will do that. We'll let you know what they said.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ted. That's a good good question.
Would it help to help to reverse the stop signs?
That would be [indecipherable].
Would reduce the hazard.
[Concurrently] Four way stop isn't a bad idea
Reduce the hazards
Four way stop is not a bad idea.
Talking about two way but the other way.
Yeah.
You make if you make Comfort a through, and then Gunderman a stop.
That would be a state county decision.
I think you were asking about that one time, Leslie. Something about that four way, of making it a four way stop right here? I think that was you that was asking.
It was on the list, but it was down a little bit. There were other things in front of that.
We'll bring that up in the county as well. That's a good point.
Yeah, just for people's information. They make that decision based on the traffic counts. So it's always supposed to be the lower traffic count that gets the stop. If they don't, they won't consider a safety argument that it's whichever road deserves priority based on traffic counts.
No obvious which way gets the most traffic actually.
So either way, that's not really our
Yeah, no, we can we can ask
...Bring it up to the county, they might put a four-way.
Yeah. They did it at Nelson and Hornbrook. You know,
I'm not sure it'd be an improvement having a four- way, but
Mostly everyone just slows down.
Nelson & Troy has also been a topic, same one.
This agreement to spend funds. Joe, when will that be?
That's coming up in the first part of business here in a minute.
Gotcha.
After we get past the consent agenda. Which is the next thing except that I do have I do have an issue with the general fund. Which I discovered when reviewing that effect this afternoon. And so I think if we could address that first. I was reviewing the bills the bills and WeMow has a fuel recovery fee in their invoice, which is not part of the contract with with them. And I can understand why they might want to add something like that. But it's outside of what we contracted to do with the contract to do. So, I think we ought to remove it, and then ask them if they want to renegotiate the contract and come back to us with a revision, but it was inappropriate to just change it unilaterally. And that would that would reduce their payment by $33.38. Not a big deal. But...
Yeah, I didn't think to look at the contract for that. But it makes sense. So
...meaning the increase in the price of the fuel, or...
Well, when I had this discussion with Dick when we when I was soliciting the contract. And his is his proposal was about, I think, 7- 8% above last year. And I asked him about the magnitude of the increase and he said, well now fuel prices are up a bunch. And I said, Well, you could put in, you know, a fuel adjustments so that if the price went back down at and parts went up more, you could compensate for it. He said I did that once, and it was a pain in the ass so I decided I would just increase my price and that's what it would be. Said, okay, that's the way we want to do it. So that's what he did. That's what he submitted. That's what we approved. So when this came through with the field recovery fee, I said, well, this is not what we agreed to. So and then when I when I, when I spoke to him about it this afternoon, what he told me, I'm not able to repeat in public, but...
Do we need to find another mower?
Well, I mean, he might, he might [indiscernable]. He does good work, you know, and it's not that this is an unreasonable thing. It's just what's unreasonable is just adding without without...
Yeah, contract is a contract.
Exactly.
So we remove voucher A175?
Well, I don't want to take it out, because then he won't get paid at all.
Oh you just gonna reduce it that amount?
I'm just gonna shorten by the $33.38 that is the fuel recovery fee.
Okay.
And that's the price for the both of the buildings, right? How much is it for each one?
Well, it was it was 1669 times two. Look like that all that got put into the town.
It did. Yeah.
Because that guy, I was wondering the same thing.
Yeah, because we didn't pull out. We didn't it wasn't fractionally allotted to each one. It was just an overall thing.
Yeah. Just kind of.
Yeah. So it's hard to say well, you know, $1.65 that was for the water district or something,
Right, right.
So if I if the if the amount on the on the warrant was correct, it would reduce it to $10,280.55. If we took out that $33.38.
Should we vote on this one by itself now and then we'll do the rest of the...consent agenda
We could do that, or either that vote or either that or... if we make that change, we can vote on them all together
Since we discussed it technically we should do it now. Yeah. Okay. Two votes won't take that long. Yeah. Janice, did you get that change though? Okay.
Great. You want to move that?
I'll move it. I can't remember exactly the dollar amount but it was $33.38 less than $10,313. 93.
$10,280.55
There you go.
Discussion? OK Janice?
Conners?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
Woodworth?
Yes,
Gagnon?
Yes.
I guess what's left is to move the balance into the consent agenda. which there is no discussion, but there was a second one to do.
Oh, did somebody first it? I think I firsted it. Oh, if you okay, if you moved it. Yeah.
So are you seconding it?
Yes, I'll second.
Okay, so the highway and the water?
Yeah. Highway and water.
Yep. Connors?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
Woodworth?
Yes.
Gagnon?
Yes.
Should have a little sticky note. That's like all of our faces in order or something.
When I type as I'm...
yeah, thank you
right in front of me,
Okay, so now Jack and Laura, coming back to you about the agreement to spend funds. We have a proposal from Highway on how to further commit our CHIPs money for this year.
Yes, this, this just has the one road. I know we're going about this kind of piecemeal just as we go along and, you know, checking out schedules and taking a look at things, but some not to exceed 100,000 would be spent on the reconstruction of Comfort Road from Gunderman Road to Leib Road, which is what Jack just was just talking about. It will be cold mixed pave, the shoulders will be pugmill, the double coated chip seal will be applied. Now there's a new pot of money that they have come up with in our CHIPS program. So we have CHIPS, we have inclement weather. We have pave New York funds. And now they've got a fourth one this year. They another one it's called the P O P program is called Pave Our Potholes. The Town of Danby was allotted $39,875.44 dusting that 39,875.44, which we didn't anticipate getting to cover part of this cost. And then the other part of the cost, which is around the $60,000 mark, I just have here the remaining expense will come from our original CHIPS program that we have.
So it's all out in this proposal in the agreement. Yes, I didn't get to see this before.
It's on this. Yeah, it's right here.
Yeah, it's, I'd sent it out to everybody. But maybe you didn't see it in the email.
I probably didn't get it into my inbox.
It's right here. And it's funding for this project. But come from the CHIPS allowance Town of Danby from the New York State $39875.44 will come from the new CHIPS program called Pave Our Potholes. And the remaining expense expense will come from the original CHIPS.
Do they have any additional requirements, since it's a different program like to prove why you're using it or something like that? Or is it just kind of added to the bulk CHIPS?,
It's pretty much added to the bulk really, you know, it's it requires the same paperwork it's requiring, it's basically part of these programs where they can get funds, they set it up. It's a way to give additional money, really. And so as long as we are using it to pave, we're using it, you know, pave our paths.
So so paving paving the road counts as as paving the road, the potholes
It's, you know, it's reconstruction work. I mean, it was a program when I was reading about it online, that they had put together, because New York state does have some some roads that are that is just far reaching that you should be able to have the money to do it. So we were thinking about using this money for Comfort Road, it's a something that came up, I'm not totally sure of the timeframes. But how best to use it and right off the starting block. We'll get that chunk in. And then we still have around 400,000 left to work on some of our other roads from our other program. Well, more than that, close to $500,000. With our other programs, and the amounts that we had, that we carried over from last year. Some of that will go towards our bridges. Others will go through go for a few of these other roads that we'll be coming up with even possibly in the next meeting with another agreement to spend funds. So you're kind of getting it little piecemeal here, but it's just sort of investigating, we're trying to prioritize as we as we go along here.
I personally have no problem with it.
No, we've just wanted to say we've done what we can do to save the town money. We went to because the shared service agreement with everybody so we made a phone call to the Town of Ithaca. And as you see the shoulders along Sandbank Road, we called the Town of Ithaca. And they are going to donate the machine to help us do the shoulders as well as the material to do the shoulders uncomfortable so that will save quite a bit of money for our shoulder work. We'll just have to pay for the it's called plugging. That was part of this to put the oil in the shoulder so it makes a stiffer shoulder. And we did that we also we were able to turn our we had some millings they call them millings. It's ground up asphalt every time like the state or the county tear a road up, They'll ask us for trucks can we help to remove it and they give us the millings. So we had a pile of millingswho about 2000 tons. And we were able to take that up to Seneca Stone and trade the millingsfor material to build the roadway. So essentially the road material we're going to get for the car for free other than transportation of our millings. So that that also helps reduce the cost of Comfort Road rehabilitation substantially. Probably just in the aggregate is probably uh $20,000 for that not counting the shoulder material. So we're saving at least 30 to $40,000 total probably those two things mentioned that we would have had to go out and pay for and we'll continue to do that. Continue to research ways to get what we need and save the residence funds.
Really appreciate that.
I'd like to move that we expend the identified funds the CHIPand the POP funds to fix Comfort Road.
Okay, second that that's the only time I get to hear anyone say POP anymore.
Our kids and our kids thought we were nuts. Yeah.
All right. Moved and seconded. Any discussion?
Yeah, I'm happy to hear a lot of these projects. I'm moving forward.
Yeah, me too.
Janice?
Connors?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
Woodworth?
Yes.
Gagnon.?
Yes Thank you, Jack. And
Thank you so much.
Thanks, everybody.
All right. Next up. Ammend Town Board Rules of Order limiting Town Board meetings to two hours.
Yes.
Proposal originating with Sarah.
I think yeah, I think so. Haha. Anyway, I don't remember exactly how it started. But I wrote up a very, very simple resolution. I'll actually... if I can show you where in the Rules of Order it'll go it'll go under Conduct of Meetings. I figured rather than re numbering everything we could just add it to the end which is where I got 3.7 Just make a whole new section and this would be what would be worded you can see that highlighted right? Just saying all meetings of the Town Board are not to exceed past two hours. If the Town Board would like to extend the meeting a vote of the Town Board is required. Just something simple.
I'm open to any other wording options. I just figured keep it simple.
Yeah. I have something I knew I I knew we had discussed it in the past and I didn't bother to go look for it. But if you go back in the Rules of Order on 2.1, It talks about board meetings shall no later than 10pm subject to extension by the board. I mean, if we should six maybe we could just say not nine
or more maybe we could actually yeah, I didn't think to look in there because I didn't know it wasn't in there I
I knew I remembered there being something but you found it.
Yeah. Well then in that case, we could just change that section to say board meeting shall conclude no later than two hours past the start, subject to extension.
Perfect.
Okay. All right. How do I do that?
It begs the question whether we really want to do it or not. But that's another.. That's a discussion that follows the proposal...
Well, let's see how should I reword this than?
Board Meeting shall conclude no later than two hours from start subject to extension by the board
It's in bold. [Laughing}. There. It's not gonna let me copy and paste that is it? But yeah, so it would say...
It should let copy it, you can if you if you put your cursor somewhere else. Yeah,
There we go okay still not...
it's copied it. Yeah,
There you go...
Well, they have to meet very well in the first place regular meetings will meet meetings are not going to meet.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Well I thought we had changed that...
it should be... should be "occur."
That's what I have....written. That's why I had scribbled on mine.
This was just what I found.
Why don't we fix the other thing? Well, where is
...updated version
will occur at least monthly?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. And conclude?
Sad meeting?
Yes. That's right.
Yeah. Sad.
Is there a...should there be comma there? I guess. Does that, does that make sense now?
For me should conclude after two hours subject to extension.
So
We're just trying to keep it simple.
Conclude after?
Yeah. Conclude after is perfect.
Here. Is that better?
Yeah.
Okay.
So you want to move it?
Yes, I will move it. I just wanted to reread it. But yeah, okay.
I'll second. Discussion.
I don't like the hard stuff, but that's me. I occasionally agree with Ted. And this is one of those cases. I think we should take whatever, whatever time it takes.
I'm just gonna stop sharing just so I can see everybody.
Yeah. I mean, I was, I was reading the write up of the most recent Common Council meeting, I think ran for five hours. And it's not, you hang together until you get through it. But I mean, there's, there's room to criticize how I conduct the meetings and how tightly we adhere. We could put, you know, we could put estimated time periods for how long we're going to spend on a particular topic and sort of move things expeditiously. We could also commit to not not varying too much from the subject at hand. But I don't like I don't like having a deadline for completion. That's because I don't like deadlines anyways.
I feel like it gives
The rules already have a deadline. So if you want to delete it, and then vote on that, that's option. But what we're doing now is modifying it to account for the fact that meeting start at six. So the rule has been there all along. We're not adding the rule.
Well, the rule was three hours. And I do agree that anything after 10 o'clock is like, nothing productive. Yeah, but, um, but
The rule was there when meetings started at seven, not at six.
Yes, but seven. Yeah, that's three hour three hours three versus two now. But I personally would like to have a even if we do extend it regularly, which we can do, it would give us more of an idea on how to pace the meeting. Because I feel like we end up an hour and a half in before we even get to our business. That's where we should have our bulk the bulk of our meeting, which we're not, so if we try and I don't know compress the front, then we we should be able to conduct most of what we have been conducting within two hours in my opinion.
I agree and I I you know, regardless of what people say, as far as you know, oh, you should finish the work that you have. I think all of us are more than willing to extend more, we all I think, have been pretty agreeable to have extra meetings when we need to. I mean, I, I Yes, but I think, you know, if we have, you know, at least have a ballpark two hours, and we extend it half an hour, I don't think I don't think that that's an issue. It's a, it's a decision. But hopefully, it would keep us on, on track. And, you know, maybe we'd get to the point quicker. And if we have enough, we have a special meeting where we think there's, you know, a public hearing where there's going to be lots of people who want to talk, we'll just extend it, we're not going to, you know, cut that section of, or. But to have to, to, you know, maybe we'll get things done quicker, instead of, you know, going
I don't think any of us are trying to make the meeting shorter, just because we want to make it shorter, I think we can do the same quality of work in a shorter period of time. And I know personally, I am like, like this close to being totally burned out with everything I'm doing, like, I can't keep doing so much that late at night. I know, the six o'clock has been helping me significantly. So thank you all for that. But I don't think it's a bad thing to have two hours be, Hey, we should be doing this, maybe that'll teach us not to put too much on a particular agenda or to shorten a particular topic, because our work is never done. So it's not like we're going to stay here until it's done. Because...
That's right.
But that's it's always continuing and everything can always go to another meeting. Yeah, we should be expeditious about things that we can be expeditious is about. But we're never done with a meeting.
But I think in the past, in the past, I've seen meetings before where the public hearings are not part of the meeting. Again, they're not part of the meeting. They're separate. So in the past, the agendas have had public hearings, then the start, and then the start of the meeting after the public hearings are done. So the public hearings should not affect what happens at the meeting, because they're very different. They're they're additional work and additional time. So I think we should go back to that and put the public hearings, if we do them before the meeting. That's fine. But they're not part of the meeting, the meeting starts when they're done.
That's a good point. I mean, we can reckon the time of the meeting as beginning after the public hearings.
And that's what was done in the past. I do specifically remember seeing agendas, where it says public hearing, public hearing, public hearing, and then the meeting begins, and then the rest of the agenda on the meeting.
And that's what we're doing. What do you have any differences in the past, it has sometimes been the case in the past whether a specific time was given for the public hearing, public hearing, such and such as at seven o'clock, another one at 7:10? Or another one at 7:20? And then you end up sitting on your hands if nobody has anything to say and then running over if people do so I mean, I think it's better what we're doing. What's
The difference is the call to order comes after the public hearings. That's the difference. If you look at the agenda, the first thing is public hearings called the order comes after the public hearings.
Good point, why don't we just make don't just do that and we can just reckon from that time. Modifing the template...
I think we, I hate to use this word control. But a public hearing could go on for hours. So we do have to think about that. And I don't know, you know, it is an issue. I don't know the answer for it. I don't know whether it means that we have to have a set limit for the public hearing and then have a special meeting for the consent. I mean, we can't just say the public the public hearing is endless.
No.
I would handle that either.
Right?
Well, we could even open and then we could like cut it short for one meeting, leave the public hearing open and have it at another meeting. So we don't run into what we're trying to get to that meeting. But I'd also like to have enough time for a public hearing. But it's hard to gauge how many people are coming.
It's hard to gauge right? And if none of this precludes the board saying, you know, we we didn't anticipate the public hearing last night for an hour. The agenda is rather long, let's prioritize what we want to get done tonight and do the rest of it in the next time. And we've done that. In fact, recently when we had a long thing we had we there's just too much to get through. Let's see what we can bump to the next meeting. That's all perfectly reasonable in my estimate.
So my question to the last comment. As another newbie to the board meetings here is it seems from my review of past meetings in years past? That there didn't used to be two meetings a month? So I guess my question is when did it increase so much that it...
That's a long time, Janice...
I was looking in like, 2010. I feel like was still one one meeting a month?
No, it was it started being there was one board meeting. And then there was one agenda setting meeting, which the agenda setting meeting always ended up being, you know, regular meeting board meeting, you know, you needed to... so it just, we got rid of the... set agenda meeting and just kept them both being board meetings. So there were always two meetings.
Well, not always, but it's definitely been a long way, it's been at least 20 years since it's been
at least 20 years. Yeah.
But even before then, when I was looking at meeting minutes, when I was doing research stuff back in like the 60s and 70s. They had two meetings then. So at some point, it changed. But I also know other other towns only that are a whole lot larger than us have significantly less or fewer meetings, but I think we're all kind of well, for one, the one town I know of that only has one board meeting, they should be having way more than that. But I think two to three, I think two solid meetings plus whatever other extra things, I think that come up gives us good wiggle room, but also keeps us on track to do what we want to do.
I agree, I think I think that your two regular meetings a month is a good place to be. It's just a question of if you really want to constrain the length of the meeting. If we, theother thing we could do. You know, the public has a right to attend and observe. But not necessarily to comment. If we could move privilege the floor to the end of the meeting, instead of the beginning of meetings, and that would ensure that we would get through the business. But
Yeah, I don't like that.
What it doesn't do is it give give the public an opportunity to come in at what you're about to do.
Right.
I don't think anything that we have, I think I mean, I most of the time privilege of the floor is not what I think makes the meeting too long if we stick to our original three minutes. And then move on. I do think that there is space kind of talking about what we were talking about before that there is space within privilege of the floor though to kind of correct certain misinformation before we move on too far into the meeting, I suppose. But...
Yeah. So we have a motion on the floor. We could discuss it further or should we go ahead and vote, and just remind everybody, the motion is to have a two hour two hour stop without without a vote to extend.
Without a stop?
The meeting lasts two hours unless we vote to extend it.
Yeah, right. Share this one more time. If anybody wants to see it again. But good catch, Leslie. That was that was a lot more. Well, eloquent.
It's funny. I saw it somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, that is good. I thought I remembered seeing it but
I should remember because I've wrote it.
So this is this is an elegant resolution and
and Janice since we edited this, you have this right?. Okay, because it was shared. Okay.
Okay, I do have it on a have it on a Town letterhead.
Good. I would. I didn't have much time today. So I was gonna do that. I was hoping you were going to um, okay. Yeah,
I got it.
All right. So are we ready to go?
Okay, yes. Connors?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
Woodworth?
Yes.
Gagnon?
No
I'm happy to go along, though, but it's still not my druthers.
Fair enough.
Okay, the Stretch Energy Code. As I mentioned, there's there's the we do not have a law in front of us. So we can't reasonably pass anything. You know, it's just to say we're passing the extension. There's a template but there's also the ambiguity regarding that section. I'd like to call the Associated Town Lawyers and get some see if they dealt with it elsewhere.
What was the conflict?
The ERV or something like that?
Well, the one section which is... whatever it was 403.6.2 is a requirement for heat recovery, ventilation or energy recovery ventilation. Yeah. Which is which exceeds what the Energy Code provides for, and you cannot supersede by local law the state code. Why this doesn't apply to other sections is not obvious to me, but that this particular section was flagged by NYSERDA as being something that if you could, if you want to omit it, you would have to petition the codes council to allow you to omit it. I mean, to include it rather, if you were to, to include it, you have to petition to include it because it exceeds the requirements of the code. And, you know, it's a multi step process and the pain in the neck and who's going to do that, you know, so it's an expense is not really recognized, associated with implementation of this...
So that would be required in order to remove that requirement. From the DStretch Code.
No, it would be required in order to include it.
Oh I think...
What they said was in their guidance, was it you can you can omit it for 403.62 without affecting the qualification for the Clean Energy Communities bonus points and $5,000 grant. So we can omit it. And if we do, we don't have to petition the Code Council to include it. So it's a question of how much hassle is it? What's the story here? So anyway, we don't have I don't have clarity on it as of yet, so we can't, we can't really act.
Have you been talking with Jim about , have you had contact with Jim?
Yes, I was back and forth with him about this, looking anyway... we were both ending up scratching our heads,
Well, it sounds like Trumansburg was farther ahead than we were in trying to figure it out.
Yeah. Trumansburg did it, and so did Dryden, and so did Newfield
Did they they leave it out, or...
They included it, but I'm looking, but it looks, the work, it looks a little sloppy to me. You know, it looks like I mean, the Newfield, for instance, is there. But it's the template and doesn't even have all the blanks filled in. So I'm not sure they have given any real thought to what is going to take to actually implement it.
Gotcha.
[Indiscernible] We do it right, and we're not getting ourselves into more work.
Looks like David has something to say about this.
If he does, I'd be happy to hear.
Cool. I just wanted to let you know, I don't know if you know about this, but NYSERDA has these regional New York Stretch circuit writer experts that can provide help? Would you like me to reach out to them?
That's a great idea.
Yeah, cause my only issue is with going the easy route and omitting that requirement is that because all of the other requirements are so much higher, that you really need an ERV in a house like that. Even just for fresh oxygen supply?
Well, there's not if it wouldn't have ventilation, because the alternative that is in the code is is exhaust only.
That'd be required?
or balanced. Yes, it would be.
Okay. Okay. So you wouldn't end up with a house that's so tight. And the people are like, have mold in their house because they boiled pasta once or something?
While your moisture management is what it's all about once you get it tight. .
Yeah.
So yeah, so anyway, we're not there yet. But we are somewhat under the gun in that in order to qualify for that points in in extra money. We need to have it passed by the end of the month. So So I moved that we schedule another public hearing for the 22nd. Okay, on the subject, at which point we will have a law before us to actually pass. Somebody like to second that?
I'll second that.
Any discussion about that?
Is that, David? Is that do you think that's someone that we would want to talk to before the meeting or at the meeting?
It may be useful to have them attend the meeting, or it may just be useful to have them answer any questions
Figure it out between now and...
Your technical stuff. And yeah, if they can draft a law, so we don't have just the a template like Joel said for Newfield. That'd be cool too.
Okay, thank you. Okay.
We got the template. It's just there's this ambiguity about the whole thing. Okay, all right.
Yeah, so I have scheduled public hearing on June 22. At 6pm. Yes.
Can go ahead and vote
yes.
[Laughs] Hunter?
Yes
Schnabel?
Yes
Woodworth?
Yes.
Gagnon
Yes. Okay.
Video conferencing.
Video conferencing policy and associated law, which was shared with us last time if I recall
Wait ...did, oh, wait, no, we did have the public. I just thought because nobody said anything about it.
We didn't say anything about it, but we did have the public hearing.
Yeah. Okay.
So we've got that all ready to go if I recall
I believe so. Yeah.
I didn't know if you needed to pass the policy.
We have to pass the local law first. And then we can pass the policy by resolution.
Okay. You don't want to, they're not bundled in the resolution, is that an option?
They should technically be separate.
Are they structured that way?
I believe so. Yeah. The local laws, a separate, separate document. And then we might have to write up a resolution saying we passed this policy, but the policy is written.
Uh-ha.Yep. So local law comes first, right?
Yes.
Well, I'll move it...Somebody else...
Second
Discussion. We've already talked about it quite a bit.
What number is this? Resolution or Law?
Law. Three, three. Yeah.
Okay, I think we're ready to vote.
All right. Connors?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
One? Woodworth?
Yes
Gagnon?
Yes.
Thank you.
Okay.
And then I'll move that we... I don't know how you do petty word this. I move that we accept the video conferencing policy.
Adopt. How about that?
Adopt! There we go. I'm not good with words. I like numbers.
I think you are good with words.
Am I?
Second, if somebody already didn't do it.
I don't think so.
All right. I'll write your name as Connors [Laughter]
Nothing in discussion. We can go ahead and vote.
Connors?
Yes.
Hunter?
Yes.
Schnabel?
Yes.
Woodworth?
Yes.
Gagnon?
Yes. Okay, now, we're not- with respect to zoning. It's only changing Commercial Zone C. There was some reason for postponing, David?
Yeah, so. I sent an email to the board. But for those who don't know, I was incorrect. And we'd the town does need to send this because it is a zoning change. And it does affect parcels near county and state roads. The County Planning Department through GML 239 M, N, and L has the authority to send comments. So I sent this in it was too late. They haven't responded. I expect they will respond shortly. But we need to delay a final vote on the change until we receive comments. I don't think that they'll have any comments. I don't think that they'll have any issues with it. But just to make sure we're following proper procedure. I have suggested that it would be best to put the vote off till the next meeting.
So, I have put it on the agenda for the 22nd. Well, that's it for that, tonight
And for that we're just waiting on comments. We don't need to have another public hearing.
I mean, we had to hearing because the content isn't changing. We're just delaying..
Gotcha.
Is there I mean, I'm wondering if there's a time issue where if if, you know, tomorrow the county gets back to us and says no problem. If in five days, we could have a five minute meeting. That's an option that I'd be willing to entertain.
Well, that's if there is a compelling reason to act swiftly on this matter, though.
It might be.
David could answer that. Probably better.
I don't, I don't think it's gonna make a difference that seems to come for. Yeah, I don't think that it needs you know, I don't think it can't wait for the next meeting.
Okay. All right.
So that'll just go on the next meeting agenda.
Right.
Great.
Okay. Which brings us to the zoning. Not zoning, the noise issue. We had you recall, we scheduled ourselves a special meeting. And then and then after thinking about thinking, there's an awful lot of stuff to ruminate on and review, before we decide what next steps are going to be. We have a little time tonight, if we're willing to take pick that up and and decide how we're going to deal with it. Because that's where we are essentially, we're going to do with that extra meeting,
I think we should just make schedule the local law, ah scheduled the, what am I talking about, schedule the special meeting because I know there's probably quite a few people who realize that we are not scheduled to discuss it tonight or that we really intend to. So I think we should just schedule this special meeting and deal deal with it, then. I do think we might want to consider who we might want to invite to that if we have any particular expert people we want to be able to refer to...
Well, that's what I mean. I thought that was what that meeting was supposed to be about in the first place. But I think it would be profitable to, to think about, you know, what input do we want? In order to decide how to proceed? You know, there were good suggestions made and several questions raised, some of which would be good to have answers to before we decide what our next steps are going to be.
Yeah, maybe we just start with like, trying to figure out where we want to go with it considering where the...
Yeah, but where we want to go with it?
From all of what we heard? Yeah,
yeah. But where we want to go with it depends on on, on the information that we have. And there's there was conflicting information for one thing. So clarity regarding where does the where does the the truth lie? I guess I will say, with respect to some of the suggestions that were made, would help us to decide whether or not we you know, whether and how to proceed, for instance, you know, if in fact there is a state law that adequately covers the matter, then why are we creating a local law to deal with it as well.
I think that issue comes from people being told by the sheriff's department that they have no jurisdiction to do anything.
Yeah, yeah...but you recall that in our correspondence, we've also got, we've got retired police officers on both sides of that one saying that's the case. And another one saying that's not the case that there is state law you can rely on. Do Is it? Is it or is there not a state law that you can rely on? That's it? That's a that's a that's a question with a straightforward answer. I think. And, and I have a response from Betsy Wahl on that matter. She was the chair of the committee. And is also is a lawyer with 30 years of experience. So it's not like she can't answer that question. But if we have questions about whether or not we believe that answer, we could decide what, in somebody else's opinion on the matter, in addition...
Is that something that that Guy would know?
He might? He might know. So
Yeah, because I wouldn't even know where to look for a state regulation.
Well we know what the law is. And people are citing chapter and verse. It's a penal law chapter that's being quoted. Betsy says, you know, if it applies to public nuisance. And so it doesn't apply to, you know, private complaints. Although, I'd like to hear somebody else's opinion on the matter who's on some legal standing. So that's one. That's one question and a fairly fundamental one. Yeah. Is there something already around that you can use? If not, then then the premise of the whole enterprise here was there is no good way to address it if you don't have a local law. And then the question becomes, well, if that's the case, and you know, first the answer to that question, if that's the case, then what does a local law look like? That does address the question. And that's where we've got a variety of people weighing in. Excellent comments by Jennifer Tiffany and by Warren Cross... something, suggestions for you know mediators or ombudsperson in addition to or instead of a local law. You know what we want it, what do we want? What do we need? What kind of input do we want to get? I, myself would be very curious to know what Warren would suggest. He's just looking at a completely different way. What does that look like if you try to turn it into a law? I think we should have that, that input before we decide how to, you know, where do we go?
Well, that's what I was thinking, we should make sure that whoever we want to have an input from, whether those are because I know .. Warren Cross is some kind of sound expert or some professor at Cornell. Yeah, so a lot of his info was very technical. And I liked that because I, my issue was I did not like the subjectivity of the proposal that came to us.
And we've gotten, we've gotten, we've gotten strong opinions of both sides of that, too. Whether we want a retired police officer saying the subjectivity is is necessary flexibility that takes the context into account. And others saying that, you know, the subjectivity is problematic, because it can be then used as a weapon when, yeah, and that's not good. So you know, the problems with using decibel meters was cited as some that was responding back last time around. So we need to know, you know, technologies change, is this something that's going to be problematic if we try to use it. That's something Warren could probably could contribute to that conversation on. But you know, if the one police officer's correct about it, that itself is problematic, because you've got to have some you got to have, you know, objective, calibration of your instrument in order to verify their applicability. And that's more hassle than then the small town should be getting into, we'd probably be putting it on the shoulders of the sheriff's department cause they're our enforcement agency. But whether that's a reasonable way to go, might might want to ask that we might want to engage the sheriff in that conversation as well.
I think getting getting more feedback from you know, there are a number of either x or current law enforcement people who live in Danby, who have had experience either reacting or reacting with a law that a town has or not, you know, or reacting without a law. So I mean, I'd like to hear more from some of them about what, you know, what works, what's easy for them? What doesn't work? And, you know, you know, there's things I know that I know, the sheriff will come if you have a dog complaint, if you have a complaint about a barking dog, they'll come, you know, they'll come talk to the people.
Yeah, although it's usually the SPCA whoresponds to this, it's their job to do it. But...
The SPCA doesn't come unless unless it's really bad.
Well, we pay them for it. We pay them pretty well to do it too.
But, you know, I just think it would be good. We've got, you know, I know of at least four people who have connections with either the sheriff or troopers ...
And then there is also there's also the issue of after the police are involved, then it goes to court. So you can't have subjective laws...
Well, why not?
...where you don't necessarily have well, because you can't necessarily prove it. That's why we want to change the dog law, right? It's because it couldn't be held up in court. Right. Yeah. So it's similar with with being able to prove one way or the other. Yeah, but...
But I mean, people who have experienced with this, I mean, sometimes punishment isn't necessarily what works, you know, sometimes just having somebody knock on the door, whether it be an ombudsman or, you know, a sheriff or, you know, sometimes that works.
Yeah but I think for the most cases, at least, what I'm trying to think that this law is for is not to be the general run of the mill, kind of neighborly, you can talk to your neighbors. It's once, it gets too far past that, that there needs to be something that people can fall back on. But I personally don't like the idea of a town run mediator. It's not our place to be mediating for people. But it's our place to put rules in place and enforce them and make them work for everyone. But well, everything's not going to work for everyone. But at least that's where I'm coming from.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the idea of a mediator is attractive to me; I would question who would be willing to do it? That is another matter.
But what about that the county run Resolution Center? I mean, that's not us.
I mean, we could have resources for people, but it is not our place as a local government to be doing that, once you open that can of worms then.
Right.
Who knows where that's gonna go.
Right.
Well I don't know...
But anyway, I think we should probably just schedule that meeting. And
Yeah, well, when I'm when I'm fishing for is information we might want to have available to us in advance of the meeting so that we can have a productive, focused discussion when we get to it. And I'm hearing that reactions from law enforcement one way or the other, you know who those who haven't have done it in jurisdictions with or without one of the things that would be good to have.
And I would definitely like to have more in there from Warren Cross if he's amenable to that.
Warren's suggestions would be something I would like to.
Yeah, some of his suggestions were something I had never heard of, like even thought of. So it's like, it's just coming from a different angle or
A totally different perspective. Right. Exactly. Which is so refreshing.
Is there is there any point in saying that we are not going to adopt the law as it is? Because I think that might take some of the pressure off some of the arguments.
I think we already determined that? I mean, it was pretty much a consensus of the group that we were, you know, we could have, if we'd wanted to say, well, you know, we'll adopt it. But I mean, the, my sense at least, was that none of us were willing to adopt it as opposed.
I agree. But I don't know that we formally said that I'm suspecting that maybe it might help if we say that we're not doing that law. And that we have to, you know, we have to regroup on this because there's, there's issues with this. Issues for people.
I mean, it was a draft, it was actually a lot of you know, a number of people spend a lot of time and, you know, really put a lot of work into that. So I want I like to honor them, but it's a beginning of you know, there obviously, is some kind of a need, that the town isn't meeting. And we need to find some way to meet it.
I agree with that assessment. You know, I think if you think it would be helpful, Katherine, we could we could we could move to say that we are the board was was not willing to entertain passage of the law as proposed. And we'll just looking at alternatives.
Well that includes getting the advice of people that that several of you have mentioned already, and we've seen in the letters. So the problem we're going to run into is everybody has an expert at their right hand.
Right? Well, you know, and experts can just differ. Sometimes
I said that that's exactly why I said that - everybody's expert is right? You know?
Yes. Yeah. Didn't you watch the Johnny Depp hearings? There you
There you go.
That's sometimes they may differ over matters of fact, and there's a right and a wrong answer to a question. In that case we can at least get clarity on that.
But I feel like it's hard to start with a conversation without having something to look at. So at the at the the meeting that we want to schedule, I was hoping we could at least like kind of or we could take from the one that was proposed at least the structure. So or propose a structure of something because it's, at least for me, it's hard to work within within or work to make something written up like this, when we're all just kind of like talking, you know, it's it's hard to not have something to look at. But maybe that won't be this meeting. Maybe that'll be the next thing.
Well, that's why we're going to discuss it tonight, but I think that we're going to have to having taken into account all the, you know, contributions of the lawyers regarding the the what can and can't be enforced under existing law and, and what the experiences of law enforcement and suggestions from Warren and in thinking about whether a mediator is easily a reasonable suggestion We then decide, what do we want to put in our law. And then I don't think we try to wordsmith it on the spot. But just having that will then result in a proposal that will come back to the following meeting that we can chew on and see whether it's what we really want. And then we can run by the public, again, once we decide what we're going to propose a second time,
Because then we'll go through the whole process, again,
Exactly with a public hearing and an opportunity for people to weigh in on whether this is closer to what was reasonable. And addresses the issue without going further than it needs to.
Now, I got a sense that some people were, you know, wanting to get this, you know, moving. You know, ASAP, I'm, I, I would like to, I propose that we set a meeting for the first week in July, to deal to, to hopefully dig up some ideas, options, talk to Warren, talk to the law law officers in town, or not in town, and I may want to have more time to, you know, look at any innovative things other towns have done.
Okay. I think there's probably a reasonable timeframe, because there's only two weeks between now and the next meeting.
Yeah, I can't do anything between the 24th and the 4th. Just just putting that out there.
Well, you could do it in the next two weeks if you want.
No. I mean. I would rather do it after the fourth. But the the first couple days of July are a Friday. And then the fourth is a holiday on Monday. So, and then our first meeting is that Tuesday the fifth.
That's right. Well, like I said, what we're going to do between now and then is basically get the background information we need to have the board discussion. So I think that could probably happen without without any problem. But I do think that it's kind of tight between now and then to have you know, to have it, by the meeting on the 22nd.
Yeah, I feel like we'd end up in the same spot.
No, no, no.
Yeah. So when, when you're
So why don't we come back to this on July 5th for that board discussion about where to go next? Well, before we do that, then you might say, well, we need to discuss who's going to do what? As far as chasing information, so that we've got it?
Okay.
Well, who's willing to do what, as far as...
One of the things that Leslie had said that I like, is the idea of taking all going through all the letters? And I, I don't know whether it's, it's probably pretty possible with, with computer technology...
I'm almost done.
Yeah, let's list the issues. That's one, list all the issues. And another is I have connections with one of our hybrid leader is a former deputy, retired, in in Tompkins County. And I, I will say this one thing, I think that we're in a tough time right now and in, you know, in our country. And I think that, that this warrants responsible care, because there's no point in making people continue to be mad at each other. It's, it's a really sad time, hard time. So you know, doing this with, with respect to, you know, not hard line, not a hard line, I think is important. So, there was another thought I had that went away. So if I can bring it up again.
Yeah You know, both of our commentators are former law enforcement have been interested and told that they're willing to help out. So we are getting their experiences in the jurisdictions inside and out. Whether these laws exist is something I'm sure they'd be happy to provide. So maybe I can commit to doing that unless someone else wants to do it.
And then Rich who's here has... given us... feedback......
Given us feedback
One of them. You're going to, Leslie, look into what other other places have done in innovative ways or..?
Yeah. The other thing I thought, oh, somebody asked if we could come up with a list of all the complaints. You know, the last five years.
Yeah, that's what I was talking about.
Oh, yeah, yeah, right.
Oh, that well, that. Yeah, that's different than what I was thinking.
Oh, yeah, no, I'm talking about a list of all the complaints.
Specific complaints. I mean, I know, you know, maybe four. And I know Joel, you know of some that I didn't know about.
Yeah but I didn't. I didn't, I didn't keep a log.
Well, I can remember what they were? You know, I think, just would be helpful?
Yeah, examples would help. But I don't think we should tailor or something just to particular complaints, either.
No, no
I don't think that's the idea either. But the idea is to get a list, and I know what I was thinking of a computer program that can use, you will pick up the most common used words in the letters we got, doesn't mean we're going to say that those are the only things we do, but okay, I see Ted laughing at me, but that's alright, so we'll just move right along. But I think that we can do, we can make a list of the most common words that were used for complaints. And that's, it's just one part of this. There were many repeats.
Yeah, there were.
But it would be, it would be helpful. I mean, some people think, you know, some of its related to misinformation, and somebody, you know, people who are upset, and they don't have all the information, but people are not some people are not understanding, you know, what other residents have, have caught up with, and have gotten no help with. So I, you know, just just it maybe it's only 15 things, but to come up with a list of what is what are the what are the complaints that people have called the town with or town officials with about? Um, you know, as far as noise, you know, it's, I don't think it's about lawn mowers. And I don't you know, I think some of the things are pretty drastic, and some maybe aren't, but it would be, I don't know, somebody asked for that and I guess I could just ask everybody and start a list of that.
I want to two things in response to that, Leslie? One. And Kevin. One is that the the complete corrected version of the transcript from the hearing is almost almost, it was a really long meeting. But there will be a transcript full complete transcripts available. And I do have in the minutes, just a simple list of who spoke in favor of, who spoke opposed to , who had suggestions. And then the other thing I wanted to say is that I did come across a folder in the town. I don't I didn't look in it yet. But it said, noise ordinance. And it looks like it was from years ago. So that may have something and then yeah, it's just to say, you know, I don't know if there was reporting process prior to 2020 for complaints like this. We do now have the, you know, you can file a complaint online on the website or...
on the web page. Right.
And if, you know, we can let people know if they would like to log complaints...
Yes.
Even even, you know, a former complaint that they had brought to the town, that they could go ahead and do that now. So that we have we have more information to work with.
Should we not schedule that? I feel like we should schedule a special meeting and have it set. And then that'll give us a deadline rather than waiting for next meeting just to schedule that.
Oh, I thought we scheduled it for the 5th.
I thought it was for the next meeting. No, I mean, for the fifth...
Well, it doesn't matter...[indiscernable] for July 5.
Yeah. I thought we were going to do a special meeting. We'll just add it on to the...
Well, we're doing it. But I don't see...I don't. I don't know we need a special meeting. I mean, the only reason we scheduled a special meeting was A it was it was a very long meeting. Yeah, it wasn't time to have a discussion about where we go next. And then and then the second thing was that there was just an awful lot of information and commentary to digest and think about... so that we needed a little passage of time in order to before before we took it up again. ..Fits into the context of a regular meeting, why have a special meeting?
Yeah, just keep that. So then when that meeting comes up, we'll just keep that in mind. Yeah, that will be
I noted we have a couple of people in the public who would like to comment. Does the Board want to entertain their comment or questions?
I mean, there already was time for that. But...
What time is it?
7:52. [Indiscernable] Privilege of the floor was your time for that.
Oh, I'm sorry. This is my first meeting. I was waiting for this issue. I just had two quick things. If you could post maybe in the chat where that where one goes to, to write a complaint. That would be very helpful. I just heard from someone that it's hard to find. And the other thing is, if this is going to be the meeting on July 5, that's it. I mean, that's even, many people consider that a holiday. And I know a lot of my neighbors, and I really want to be a part of this. So I'm wondering, is there another day other than July 5?
Well, keep in mind...
Well July 5th is a Tuesday...
We're not... having a public hearing on the fifth, we're talking about what is the board going to kind of propose to do...
So you'll still have a public hearing later?
Oh, yeah, we may. I mean,
This is probably gonna take six months, if I had to guess...
I'm gonna guess that on the fifth, we're gonna decide we need to have a special meeting. You know... to finish, to finish, and then a third meeting for public opinion? Yeah.
To be optimistic. On the 5th we might decide what we want to have written up, put into a law, where we view it at the following meeting and decide what is really what we want. And if it is, then we'll propose it, then then we'll put we'll schedule a public hearing for it, and then at a meeting after that, to get people to review it.
OK Joel, I think we all got that. But Kathleen said she had a couple of specific questions. You might have just asked for them.
Yeah. Yeah, that was it. Thank you. I just didn't think it was appropriate to talk about it before the subject came up.
Thank you. And then...
Somebody else had their hand up too, who was it? Yeah. Maybe maybe.
It was, um...Derek.
You answered that, my question. It was it was about the [indiscernable]. My other comment was just that, I know, you said you're gonna collect specific words. Also specific timeframes when these things were recorded, as far as like time of day, months, etc.
Like I said, I don't know that we can put together that kind of specificity. Because I mean, I can remember noise complaints, but I can't tell you. I didn't keep a log.
Yeah, so I've put the link in the chat to the report a concern form. Maybe I'll send out an email blast. But if the people here want to go ahead and spread the word that you can fill out, fill out that form with your...
I'm just gonna, there. This is the main... Oh sorry, this is not the homepage. But there's a button right up here. Do you guys see my cursor?
Report a concern on the right?
Yep. So it's right on the main website, if you go to danby.ny.gov. It's right there. And it'll appear on every page, because it's in the header..
The header is on every page.
Okay, on mobile, it's a little harder to find on mobile.
True.
David's got his hand up.
David, yes.
Yeah, I was just gonna suggest for the board, you might think about a next step being coming to agreement on maybe a set of values for law, you know, what are the things that are important to you that are in it? What what's acceptable, what's not acceptable before you get to drafting a law, if you can clearly state what things is trying to avoid, you know, what, you know, is it important to you to have protections for people who the complaint is against, is that a value that I think we've heard some people were concerned about was not a part of the previous thing. If if we can come to an agreement on some value statements about what you would want in a law, or how a law would be drafted, and what you want to accomplish, I think you'll be in a better position to then evaluate a proposal against those values. And then when people have questions, you can say, Well, we thought it was important to X and this is how we did it. Do you think there's a better way to do that?
Good idea.
Yeah, it's a good idea. Maybe we, I could think of us working off of like, just like a shared Google Doc, just like as we're like, oh...
Zoho, Zoho doc.
Sorry, same thing to me. Something that's not like a PC app, something that's web based. But we could like as we're talking about things like type things down like what like a, like, for example, something like the Helen road issue would be controlled by industrial sounds like that's something that would be important for us to control versus agricultural sound or things like that, but we could just type those and that could give us a lot of info for constructing a like a written purpose for the law, but I thought that would be helpful because I think a part of the proposed, the proposed law was that it's, it started out very like, No, you can't do this. And at the end, there is a bunch of exceptions. But when, from like, public view, it's like better to start out with the purpose of this is why we're doing this. This is what we want to protect. And what we want to make sure is allowed and things like that. Before you get into the nitty gritty of No, this yes, this blah blah blah. Yeah..
Okay. Well, I think we have a roadmap, who is, will pick it up on July 5, and see if we can't provide a little bit enough direction that something could be drafted and we can then bounce off of.
He's got a two minutes for level of operation.
Yeah.
Well, if we if we follow Pats rule, we have more than two minutes because the with the public hearings preceded the beginning of the meeting.
Oh, I see. Okay, that makes sense. I see what you mean by that now. I was I was confused by that point. But okay, that makes sense. Yeah. So two hours for that portion.
Yes. And I don't think it'll take too long to do. The last one level of operation.
We have until 820. Just FYI. So I have the resolution, sorry. Resolution to reschedule a special meeting to consider next step runs next steps around the noise law for July 5, regular town board meeting.
I don't think we need to do a resolution, we'll just add it to the agenda.
Right. Thanks.
So the level of operation? Do we want to modify it or still at the level two masks required...um stage?
I'm not interested in changing I don't know what everybody else.
Well, I would favor mask optional.
I think that, all of the, I had an appointment at Sayer today for vision and that you walk in the door masks are required.
Well, they are a medical facility.
Well, but that doesn't... Yeah, but it doesn't matter whether it's a medical facility, I mean, or grocery store where the grocery stores are now more saying recommended, please, you know, please do it. But if people aren't, but you know, I, if we, if we were to go to the route of optional, I would like to not just make it optional. I think it needs to be a little stronger than optional. But that's my personal feeling about it. You know, I'd like to figure out how to make minewhen it's too tight around my ears not bother me so much. But other than that, a mask is not such a terrible thing to ask.
I mean, the local health department is still recommending that people wear masks indoors. I just, you know, if the decision is to not require masks, I need to, I will, you know, for those of us who are still wearing masks, need to know if there's somebody in the building without a mask on.
So I do think that we're in a different position than private businesses, because it's a choice to go there where yes, it might be a choice to go to town hall. But it's also a right to be at town hall to see your government. I think it's a totally different location where I'm probably personally getting a little bit more relaxed than I was. But I still think it's our position to protect everybody so they can feel safe at town hall and no, it's not too much of an ask, Where...but we should make sure we have because there are a lot of people out there that are operating around with their lives, like nothing's happening. We do want to have extra masks because we don't want people to feel like they can't come in because they wanted to they just have to abide by the policy. But we need to make sure we have some on hand for that...
and are we going to... and what are we going to do if we have people who are anti -maskers who show up at a meeting.
We ask them to leave and we have the sheriff if if we need to. Unfortunately but that's the only recourse we have.
Yeah
There's an option. I know it's not a legal option, but it's an option to meet outside. People who want to have a discussion with somebody in Town Hall can go out.
It doesn't.. it doesn't work with our...it doesn't work with our with our policy of video conference.
No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not talking about meetings. I'm talking about going to the town hall to pay a bill. You don't want to wear a mask.
Yeah.
Or now now that only the courthouse is another issue.
Yeah. Well, are we getting people masking regularly who are attending? Showing up the town hall to pay bills and stuff, Janice? Now?
Yeah. And if, if they don't, they're generally okay to mask when I ask them if they need one.
Which is what you do?
Yeah.
Okay, so anyways, it's the board, which do we keep the mask requirements in place? There's a bunch of recommendations. Alright, so we will be meeting in person starting at the next meeting? Because the tomorrow I think is the end of the executive order that allows us to meet remotely, yes, as a group. So we should get our need to make sure that the microphones all work.
Joel it's the 14th, when that current Executive Order ends.
Is it the 14th? Well, either way, it's before our next our next being on the 22nd. There is a difference of opinion among lawyers even about whether or not advisory committees are covered by the by the open meetings law requirements or...public...
As far as I know, all advisory committees are allowed to zoom the same way they did before, because I know that's how the cas, the county case board, operated for years.
Well that's my understanding too, but the committee of local government has a contrary opinion. Which, which you may recall was shared by Ronda...
I guess we just need to wait and see what they do on the 14th. Whether they extended or?
Well, I mean, you know, this, the CAC, I'm talking about, you know, absent the executive order, the largest of me remotely. Is it possible for some groups, committees, and other advisory groups to continue to meet by videoconference only with the public attending by the same mechanism, of course, as opposed to being required to meet in person?
We can find that out. Could you ask somebody?
Yeah, we can ask. I've asked, we've all asked...
I think the issue is that some people disagree.
Experts disagree.
Like I say, we have committees ofopen government saying one thing, we've got Guy, our lawyer, saying something else...
what about the Association of Towns? Let's just go with what they say.
Hey, yeah.
Well, I can ask, I can ask them to weigh in on it too.
You should... we're already reaching out to them anyway, right, for I forgot what already.
I think part of that disagreement is that it doesn't matter what you call the group, it matters what they do. If you call it an advisory committee, but they're drafting legislation, they're subject to Open Meetings off. If they're doing the business of the town, they're subject to Open Meetings Law, or if they're doing their own business and making a recommendation to the town that there isn't any expectation, it wouldn't be immediately adopted. And however it's done, then, you know, then that's just an advisory group. They can take and give advice they can meet to decide what their advice is. But if they're actually negotiating a contract or drafting a law or something like that, that's something that should be a public meeting.
Gotcha.
If they're telling you what should be in a law that you should draft, then that can be just an advisory group
is a kind of a kind of a mushy line, though.
At least for the CAC, right.
Well, for any group, really, because I mean, if you if you've got well, it's like a case in point to noise group. You know, they can't do, they can't take any action. They're just they're just a committee making recommendations. They that we asked them to draft something up for us to consider. Yeah, they're in no position to to actually pass it for... But, you know, drafting a piece of legislation for the, for us to consider, would by some people at least be considered you know, conducting the business as a town.
Now that's not conducting the business of the town. They have no authority just to do the law they can only, they can write it all up if they want, as as charge or whatever, but they can't vote it in...
Well, no they can't vote it in.
They can't have a public hearing about it.
No, but that's fine. But that's drawing a line at a different place than David just did a moment ago.
No, it isn't. It's the same thing David just said.
Did you concur David?
So what I what I understand is that if there is an expectation that something would come out of a committee ready to be voted on, that that should be a public meeting, that you shouldn't have committees where things are completely done, and then it just comes to the town board and they vote on it. They're obviously that is where the line gets a little bit fuzzy. There, you can start work on thing. Personally, I would prefer and this is what I'm doing with the short term rental group is that they will not be bringing a law that's drafted, they will be making a recommendation to the town board of what things should be considered and allow what things are important, rather than legislation that can be adopted? You know, I do think, if I'm not sure, it's necessarily a problem to have a group draft a law, if you then expect to make a bunch of changes in to it in the public hearing. But I certainly think you're a lot safer if you're going to have a group that has non public meetings, and not having them draft things that are ready for adoption.
So for like the CAC, I would think that they should operate as a public bodies since most of the well, I guess, some of the, I've only done what the one, two conservation easements. But like, those tend to come to us more as a solid package, I suppose. We still have the authority to change things. But in that line, I would say the CAC should, should abide by the in person thing, but I don't know if that's an issue.
Well, you know, there's no, there's no intention. Although someone mightquestion it in one case, but yeah, the CAC meetings are public. You know, they're all there on the calendar, they're all attendable by zoom. So a question of not whether the group itself has to be have an in person meeting, the group itself would just assume continued zoom meetings. Nothing's different in terms of the public's ability to attend. That's why I think that, you know, it's, it's really it's really unfortunate, I think that the the legislature didn't enable laws to continue meeting, having these meetings , the way we've been having it for the last, you know, two years, which is yeah, you know, I find these zoom meetings far better in terms of my ability to participate than, than then having an in person meeting at the town hall with the acoustic acoustics are terrible and it's hard to get, it's hard for those who are attending remotely to, to hear what's going on by those who are sitting there in person masked, so you don't even see their faces as we do as we can see them here. I don't see that as better. It satisfies the letter of the law. But, but, but I don't, I don't see any downside to, well, I see very little downside, the only downside is this is those few people from whom we have heard who say, I want to be able to look you in the face, you know, in person, as opposed to looking you in the face on a screen. You know, these zoom meetings have enabled a lot of people to attend who would not otherwise have attended, because you don't need a babysitter, you don't have to drive, you don't have to skip your dinner. All those things make it easier for people to participate. They can still participate. The only thing that's changing is our need to be in the same room at the same time with the quorum. Why is that such a big deal? I don't get it.
I don't either, but it is what it is, unfortunately.
Yeah. That's not up for discussion. So we should move on.
Yeah, so we should plan on meeting our next meeting at town hall. And Sarah will you commit to making sure the microphones work?
I will stop inbefore now and then and make sure that there's battery's charging and I will find out, there's one of them...
Because one of them doesn't work
Well, one of them interferes with with one of the other ones that has the same frequency for whatever reason it's not supposed to but I will find out which one that is and I will put it somewhere so we don't use it.
We have enough without it?
Yeah, we have nine. I think? We had we have enough for the whole planning board plus a couple extras. Yeah. Because we still have the two regular microphones that we can use also, which I think also we'll set up for, like privilege of the floor, or reports or things like that.
One thing that became apparent last time you if those who are attending remotely are going to hear what's going on, people have to use the mics.
Yes, we just have to make sure that our mics are close enough to our face, especially with the masks on, they should pretty much be right in front of your face, and it'll hear you fine. For the other one, we'll just want to make sure that anybody who's commenting you need to wait to say anything, go up to the microphone and then speak. But we'll just want to make sure that that we keep that happenings and...
We basically will have to tell people that you know, we will not hear unless you're speaking into a microphone.
Yes. Because even if we could hear them because we're in the room. But yes, we need to make sure that it's like no your comments mean nothing until you're at the microphone.
At the mic making them. Right, exactly. Which is you know, again, again, your Zoomis so much easier. But
The other the other problem is even for us when I was sitting in the audience, I could not hear you, even though you had microphones, I could not hear you in the same room.
I think that's because everybody wasn't using them close enough to their face. I think that's what it was.
And the other problem was when you're in a room, you tend to move your head and look at who you're talking to. And that means you're not talking...
That's why we, you know, if we had the body mic, but
... headphones to hear what others are hearing.
I do know that body mics in musicals are not very there. Those are horrible to understand in here. So that's not, but there has to be a better way to do this. But for now we need to speak, you know, hold it if you have to.
Speak into the mic, maybe you know, you know, when Warren Cross emerged as a acoustical expert, I was thinking maybe we can talk with more about how we can do it better. But but for the for the next meeting, at least we'll give it another whirl and see if we can make it work what we've got.
And I will I will try to to annoy everyone and tell everyone Hey, don't forget to put it by your by your mouth.
I will too.
I'm all for that. Okay, that covers the agenda. Do we want to talk about what should be on the next one?
It's the 22nd. Right? Uhhh, Stretch code?
We got two public hearings? Did we just add a third? Or there are two? There's another one on there already?
I believe there was three already. We just added one that will make four.
Which one did we add?
Stretch...stretch code, okay.
We had that, the Ravencache easement.
We only have two for the 22nd prior to adding the stretch code. We had the change in the dog law and the Raven cache.
Okay.
There's one that was also scheduled for July 5. That was... That was the zoning change for the hamlet.
So I have I also have the proposed law of zoning amendment for commercial zone C for the next meeting. And then the Stretch Code public hearing.
I'm sure more things will come up but that sounds like quite a lot already. Yeah.
And I know there is a couple of things. There's like there's not going to be immediately come to mind but I know there's a couple more things will come up as well. All right. Well, with that, I think we can end the meeting. Just in time. Meeting adjourned. Thank you all.