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2006-04-24 SP MTG15 Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 77 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG.#15 APRIL 24, 2006 RES. 224 7:02 P.M. BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCILMAN RICHARD SANFORD COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER TOWN OFFICIALS Jennifer Switzer, Budget Officer Steve Lovering, Director of Parks & Recreation Jack LaBombard, Recreation Commission Chairman PRESS: Glens Falls Post Star SUPERVISOR STEC called meeting to order… 1.0SOUTH QUEENSBURY VOL. FIRE COMPANY REQUEST FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDING CHIEF ERIC LETTUS and PRESIDENT DAVE JONES spoke to the Town Board regarding monies they did not receive from their contract signed December 20, 2005. The contract was for $6,748.00, half to be paid at that time and half when it was done. Since we agreed to the contract at that time, we should have received the whole amount but have not received $3,374.00 of the monies agreed to. MS. JENNIFER SWITZER, Budget Officer left meeting room to get her books, returned and reviewed the records… Noted that the first payment was deducted out and should not have been, therefore a check in the amount of $3,374.00 is owed to them and will be issued. MR. JONES, President-Spoke to the Town Board regarding the need for their parking lot to be blacktopped which was not put in their budget and questioned whether it was something that the Highway Department could do… SUPERVISOR STEC-Recommended getting private quotes regarding the work to be done and then we can go from there…. MR. LETTUS, Chief-Would like to make the Town Board aware that we will be looking to build a new truck and replace our twenty year old truck, a 1985 Mac that’s not in compliance with the NFPA Standards, will be looking to replace by 2007. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Would like you or someone in your department to prepare for me a comprehensive spread sheet schedule of all vehicles that you have within the department, date of purchase, initial cost, mileage and any other information you want to give me on that so I have a comprehensive understanding of your inventory of vehicles. This is something that I’m going to require of all companies when they come in looking for a new truck… MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-We requested an inventory from your company the year before last and I believe Leesa; the Supervisor’s Administrative Assistant may have a lot of that information. SUPERVISOR STEC-A lot of what you’ve asked for, we have. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 78 COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Well if you could get it to me because I don’t have it. 2.0HOVEY POND BIDS MR. STEVE LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation submitted and reviewed the bid results for the Hovey Pond Park Improvement Project… Noted, the bid opening was th on the 17 of April and did come in higher then we had estimated. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Who made the original projection? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-Myself with some assistance from Jim Miller. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Your deviation as a percent is over twenty-five percent. MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-I’m not sure what the percentage is. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-What was the amount that you thought it was going to be? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-We thought it would come in around a hundred and twenty. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-It’s coming in at a hundred and fifty-six. MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-A hundred and fifty-six is with adding in what we need to make up the balance plus the contingency. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Its twenty-five percent deviation. MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-There’s probably some good reasons for that and the original estimate was just that, just a base line estimate as to what we think its going to come in at and you can’t account for changes in cost of materials. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Timing too, if we had put it out earlier when you first requested maybe it would have come in lower. MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-It might have, once you get into the spring, a lot of these outfits already have jobs lined up so you don’t get quite as good a bid as you would if you bid during the winter. SUPERVISOR STEC-You’ve got six bids here. MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-Six companies bid on it, yes. The high was a hundred and eighty-four thousand by Bombard and the low was O’Connor at one twenty-three. The Commission reviewed the bids with Jim Miller and myself on the th 18 and through that discussion directed me to come to you folks to talk about what they would like to see happen. They’re asking permission from the Town Board to award the base bid plus the alternate for fencing and for planting so we can tie up that project and call it done. COUNCILMAN BREWER-What about the wall? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-We originally specked a particular look, we specked a wall that had different shapes and different sizes and different colors and what happened was, there was a local company that wanted to be able to at least get their product to be looked at and so we came up with an alternate that said if you chose this local company, how will that affect the price and you can see that these are all minuses. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 79 COUNCILMAN BOOR-How much do you have in your account? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-The account has a hundred and twenty-two thousand, the Hovey Pond Project account. We have a hundred and forty- three thousand dollars in the Rec Assessment Reserve Fund. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Are you looking to move money from the Rec Assessment into this? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-Yes, we’re looking to move thirty- four thousand three hundred and seventy-nine dollars and thirty-five cents from the Rec Assessment. COUNCILMAN BOOR-What projects might you be cutting back on because this is higher? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-We’re actually not cutting back anything that was proposed to be done this year, all the projects that we’ve got lined up for this particular year have all been funded and that’s Riverside, Gurney Lane and Hovey Pond. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Jenkinsville? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-Jenkinsville, the Commission hasn’t decided what they want to do about the next phase which is the athletic fields. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Do you project revenues going forward? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-We have projected an increase in revenues for this year. COUNCILMAN BOOR-What do you anticipate? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-We’ve anticipated for this year, I think it’s a hundred fifty-two thousand. COUNCILMAN BOOR-There was twenty-three new parking spaces, is that correct? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-No, its fifteen new spots and we had twelve to thirteen there. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Steve, are you saying that you wouldn’t do the wall? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-The Commission decided that they wanted to use the original look that was specked with the job so the wall will still be done, that’s part of the hundred and twenty-three. (Town Board reviewed map of proposed project) COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Does Miller need four thousand additional dollars to do his work? MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-The original proposal that he put in was for phase 1 and then the Commission decided after they looked at his whole master plan that they wanted to do Phase 1 and they also wanted to do Phase 2 which was the resurfacing of the walkway, fixing the drainage and doing the seawall. So what Jim proposed originally was to do all the design work and see the project through for Phase I and then the Commission added to that, they added a whole other Phase to it. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-What’s the total cost to Miller Associates for this project? Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 80 MR. LOVERING, Director of Parks & Recreation-He’s coming in about ninety-five hundred for both phases… The Commission wanted me to brief you and ask your permission to put a couple of resolutions in front of you next Monday in terms of moving money from Rec Reserve and also to award the bid to O’Connor for the base bid plus the two alternates. Town Board held discussion regarding concern with the contingency amount, agreed to move forward with the project and have resolutions prepared for Monday’s Regular Town Board Meeting. Town Board recommended that the resolution would include a clause to address authorization of change orders and contingency amount. MR. JACK LABOMBARD, Recreation Commission Chairman-Would like to let you all know what a wonderful job Steve is doing… 3.02007 LEGAL SERVICES SUPERVISOR STEC-Jen, when was the last time we went out to bid, a good four years ago? MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-I was here in 2002 and 2003 and I know we didn’t do that. COUNCILMAN BOOR-It was 2001. SUPERVISOR STEC-Okay, four or five years, it’s safe to say, it’s probably not bad timing to shop it around again. Then again, I guess we got two ways to go, we can shop around and RFP if we want to continue outside counsel. Then the flip side is, and I can give you my two cents from my understanding of the background on bringing it back in, was that they sent it out for a reason. But as far as having an in-house counsel, I mean, I don’t know what direction the Board wants to go, I don’t know if we’re going to have an answer tonight but I certainly don’t have a problem putting it out for an RFP. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I think we’ve got to look at both tracks. We’ve got to look at what the possibilities could be for in-house counsel and we have to look at what the possibilities might be for continuing with a contracted relationship either with Miller, Mannix or with somebody else. I think similar to what we’re hoping to accomplish with the engineering RFP which I have some concerns about the slow track that’s taking but that’s another topic. I was the one who actually raised this topic at the Town Board meeting and I want to move on this one rather quickly. I don’t want this to be, you know th February 5 was when we had an agreement to go forward with the RFP for engineering and my understanding, based on a review of my notes and minutes was a draft Resolution was prepared but we never acted upon it at the Town Board so we haven’t even gotten to the Resolution point on the engineering, correct me if I’m wrong. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Who prepared a Resolution on that, I’ve never seen it. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Well Marilyn did. SUPERVISOR STEC-She had something but I thought that the direction that this was headed was not an RFP for a firm but it was for us to go and hire, and I’m not sure I agree with the direction but my recollection of the direction was that we were leaning toward hiring an employee which wouldn’t be an RFP MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-Right. SUPERVISOR STEC-And that’s why I said, I saw that e-mail today and I asked Jennifer about it and she said that if we’re going the route of hiring an employee, then she’s waiting to get an answer from Rich Kelly. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 81 COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Okay, well let’s not get sidetracked on that right now. How I would envision this process to work for the lawyers at least is basically, you communicate through the media two tracks. You know, you explain the history that the Town of Queensbury is looking for X, Y, Z and you entertain interested parties to submit resumes or provide qualifications, etc., etc., for one of two arrangements. One is to, I think we need to consider whether we should have a staff lawyer or the other one is a similar situation to what we have now. And then basically the Board decides, you know, which track makes more sense. Until we go through that, we’re not going to know A) if there’s an opportunity to bring in staff or even know what’s available. So, that’s the track that I’m looking to do, I’m looking to prepare a Resolution. I think what’s needed in the Resolution is we need to set up a committee of two again to do the legwork. We need to have some kind of commitment in the Resolution that various Department Heads would be cooperative and work with the committee to make sure that we can move forward in a prompt manner to get this thing through, that there are funds available for the things that we need to do to advertise it and to get things together. And then of course, what it needs, it’s not going to be done overnight, but then what we need to do is report back to this Board and at the appropriate time, its ultimately a Board decision. The Board has to come up with a process upon which they do conduct interviews and/or make the selection. But that’s what I think is needed and it’s not too early, I know Dan one of your comments was it’s too early in the year but SUPERVISOR STEC-Well not to get started but certainly we’ve got 7 months left. I would insert two other steps into what you just said that I think are going to be very important, I know they will at least to me. Certainly one is that we should try to do the research now, I don’t think we need to wait until we have a list of candidates that want to be a Town employee and a list of other candidates that want to be the Town’s contractor to do other research of the advantages and disadvantages to in-house versus out-of-house, what the costs were in the past. I do know from anecdotal information that at one point there were four full-time staff people, at least four, maybe more. I’m not sure if that Memo that we got, I don’t know five, I don’t know where that number came from. I can recall four but maybe it was five. But like I said, at least four and that was just in-house, they also continued to use a lot of outside counsel including Miller, Mannix at the Planning Board level and litigation counsel. So I think that the Town left this back in the mid-90’s or early 90’s because they saw that it was becoming more costly. But certainly, I would do that research in parallel, in the front of that so that we can pick a path sooner rather than later. And then the other thing that I would certainly do is I think it behooves us all to talk to our Department Heads and find out what their experiences have been with, just in general from the sense of in-house versus out-house, we’ve got some Department Heads still around Town that could certainly provide comments on both and then I suppose we could get specific as to things that they would like to see that are different or better. I mean, we should definitely involve the Department Heads in this because they have a lot of contact with the Town Attorneys. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-You know, it has been ten years we’ve been with MMSH, for I think, call it ten years. Two things I mean Dan, it’s quality and cost and cost, you’d like to think is more tangible of the two but yet, like you said, there’s a lot of variables that could enter into that equation that make it less than apparent. Quality is extremely intangible and it depends upon who you talk with, you know some people might talk to Mark Schachner, I think he, he thinks very highly of their firm and what they do and he stated so in this Memo that I received today. Others might not feel quite the same way but that’s an intangible thing and it depends on your own personal preferences and you’re not going to be able to identify that as easily as you would the cost factor. SUPERVISOR STEC-And again, not to make an argument for or against any particular firm but I would go by certainly two items, win/loss record or success rate and then again, the people that have dealt with them, the Department Heads. If the Department Heads say, you know what, sun rises and sets on the service that they’re providing, that’s important to me. If they say, you know what, the service that they’re providing is horrible or if we start looking and we see, you know what we’re batting 500 on lawsuits, 500 isn’t good. If we’re batting 950 or 990 or 999, that’s important. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 82 COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Not even that though, yea that’s right, there are statistics and empirical considerations. One of my concerns is a little bit, more conceptual than that, and that is, anytime you have a law firm involved with a Town government where Supervisors and Councilmen come and they go, and after a 10 year period of time, I can’t help but think that the mindset or the group think settles in, and the paradigm becomes the Department Heads are working for the lawyers rather than the lawyers working for the Department Heads. And I’m not sure if that’s the syndrome that we’re experiencing here in Queensbury but I certainly don’t rule it out. And the same thing with engineering services to some degree. You bring in a professional firm and after a while you know, the role has to be reexamined and I’ve had some discussions with Town Counsel about this predating my joining this Board and here it is now five months later and the decision’s right to go for an RFP. SUPERVISOR STEC-I’m not arguing against an RFP… COUNCILMAN BREWER-We did that, just the same thing, I can’t remember what year it was but I remember doing it though and we interviewed, gosh was it two or three or four different firms. SUPERVISOR STEC-We got about a half a dozen or maybe five or six and we interviewed… COUNCILMAN BREWER-Two or three firms. COUNCILMAN BOOR-Dennis Tarantino, or one of the Tarantinos… COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yea, Gary Hobbs and his … COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Well there is interest out there but then again you got to screen through and you got to see if it’s going to be materially different. It’s not an easy thing and I’m the first to admit it and it’s going to be, ultimately come down to a judgment call. But I’m going to kick it, I’d like to kick it off and again, in this particular case, I wouldn’t necessarily ask Miller, Mannix to prepare the Resolution given that they’re our counsel, but I am prepared to take a stab at one and present it… COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well, what about the Resolution that we had when we sent it out before? COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I would like to review that for sure. But what I’m trying to say is I think, I think you know I’m prepared to, one way or another, prepare a Resolution and certainly willing to benefit of the prior RFP that was used and let’s put it together and bring it up to the Board and see how they want to go with it. SUPERVISOR STEC-Jen, could you get a copy of the last RFP that was sent out four or five years ago to each Town Board member? MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-If I can find it. I don’t know where it would be. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I do have the one that Marilyn drafted for engineering to use … SUPERVISOR STEC-No, but I mean the one that was sent. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I know, legal, I hear ya but you know COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’m not sure there’s anything really tricky about it. SUPERVISOR STEC-I don’t think so either, but… COUNCILMAN BREWER-Before you do that Richard, you have to tell us what you’re going to ask for. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 83 COUNCILMAN BOOR-That’s what we’re going to do, that’s why he wants to do it so that we can review it. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Right, well no I think, I’ll lay out what I see as the framework. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Give us a draft and then let us add or discuss taking, adding or subtracting and in the resolution before we… COUNCILMAN SANFORD-We can deal with it right now. I don’t know if I have to do the draft route; we can discuss it right now. Here’s what I would like to do and everybody can weigh in and we can see where the consensus is and we have it, the nice thing about this is that the workshop level if we don’t reach a consensus, then we always have the option of presenting two different approaches and then we can take it up at a vote at the general meeting. SUPERVISOR STEC-Typically that hasn’t been needed in the past. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Right. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-That’s fine. SUPERVISOR STEC-Very rarely has it gotten to that point where we couldn’t agree on what we we’re going to vote on… COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Okay. I would like to set up a committee, Timmy and John are on the engineering search committee, I would like to suggest that Roger and I are on this Town Counsel committee, that we allocate a reasonable amount of money so when we move forward with it, we’re not going to have a problem with accounting in terms of making expenditures. That we also have in there a provision or clause which indicates that Department Heads will participate and be cooperative in the process and we will be talking with them as well as perhaps at times, asking them to be more active in the process. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I don’t think we need that, just my own opinion. I think that if you have to ask your own employees to work with you, that’s kind of insulting. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-It’s a bit, it’s formal but it’s basically saying that you know some of this, some people might … SUPERVISOR STEC-Just to lay out the process. We should layout a process; I don’t think we need to do it right tonight, but a process of what we’re going to do because if we’re going to interview and stuff, we should be doing that late summer. COUNCILMAN BOOR-I’ll sit down with you and we can go over that. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Yeah, well what I plan on doing with this is, and again, the problem is we have workshops every other week and we then have the regular meetings in between. Before you know it, you start getting involved with too many drafts; weeks turn into months and so what I’ll try to do is work with Roger and any other people who’s interested and come up with a draft and circulate it. And then what we can get is informal consensus and then move it as soon as we can for a Resolution. SUPERVISOR STEC-That’s just it, shoot back and forth via e-mail or what-not and you’ll be surprised how much we can get done in a couple of weeks. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Yea, that way we don’t have to necessarily say okay, we’ll, wait until two weeks and then do it… SUPERVISOR STEC-No but, certainly if it’s been five years or four, even four years since we last put it out to RFP, we owe it to ourselves and to the rest of the Town to shop it around once in a while to make sure that we’re getting the best bang for the buck. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 84 COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I agree. SUPERVISOR STEC-And you know, we may, I mean we did that before and we ended staying, you know not changing horses and that may happen again. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Right. SUPERVISOR STEC-It may not, you know or our current horse might decide their full of us, fill with us… COUNCILMAN BOOR-It could go with something where we have different law firms representing different Boards. I mean, actually, our law firm actually recommends that. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-That’s debated… COUNCILMAN BOOR-No, I’m just saying, I’m giving it as a COUNCILMAN SANFORD-I know. COUNCILMAN BOOR-There’s a lot of ways to slice the pie, you know. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Sure. COUNCILMAN BOOR-If you go to Saratoga, Miller Mannix represents the Planning Board there and they say it’s appropriate that they not do the other Boards and only the Planning Boards. So, there’s all different ways. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-While we’re on the topic of RFP’s, I know unrelated but we did agree early on, I think it was in January, I talked at a regular Board meeting about this when I was reviewing bills, I want to make sure we don’t miss the boat on terms of taking our whole package of insurance products out to bid. SUPERVISOR STEC-We put that in the budget, didn’t we set monies aside? COUNCILMAN SANFORD-And yet, you know I think the next thing you know a renewal will come in place and all of a sudden, well we missed it this time so um, I think now would be the time to start addressing that. SUPERVISOR STEC-Well I was just going to say, did you have a timeline in mind, Jen? MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-My timeline is, our independent auditors are going to be in here the first two weeks in May and that we would start that process after that. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-When’s the renewal with Cool take place? MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-The renewal with Cool takes place; we start that in about October. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Okay, so that would make sense then to schedule. Want to do that. So are we all set on the RFP for legal services at this point? SUPERVISOR STEC-Yes, I would like to see what we’re going to put together but I don’t have a problem with putting it out. MS. SWITZER, Budget Officer-And along with the insurance, the banking will go out this year as well. COUNCILMAN SANFORD-Okay. MS. SWTIZER, Budget Officer-We’re on cycle for the banking. Special Town Board Meeting, 04-24-2006, Mtg #15 85 Town Board held discussion regarding a need for an Executive Session to meet with Planning Staff and agreed to schedule one for the end of next Regular Town Board Meeting…. COUNCILMAN BREWER spoke to the Town Board regarding three street lights that he would like to see placed that are not in the lighting district. Town Board held discussion, would like to know the location and process involved… Councilman Brewer noted that he would email the three sites to the Board Members and will discuss further the process at next meeting. COUNCILMAN SANFORD spoke to the Town Board regarding the Meadow Lane and Meadow Drive work that the town is presently doing and noted that he received concerned phone calls over the weekend regarding that work. Noted that he spoke with Bruce Ostrander, the Water Superintendent who explained some of the issues and explained that he had spoken with the Supervisor… Would request from the Supervisor, if there’s an issue within a ward that he’s aware of that in turn he notify the ward person… SUPERVISOR STEC noted that he received a call from Bruce last Thursday explaining that there may be some issues with the contractor, that he may have some questions for legal counsel… Received another call Friday morning from Bruce explaining that it was hoped that the issues were taken care of… Agreed to Councilman Sanford’s request and would likewise recommend the same be done for him, the councilmen share any information with him… Noted that he’ll be requesting a litigation update meeting to brief the Town Board… COUNCILMAN STROUGH gave update to the Town Board regarding the proposed bike trail for the Rush Pond area…. Town Board held discussions regarding posting of No Littering Signs, road side cleanup, the process involving Lead Agency Status, hiring a Professional to help negotiate with the TV Franchise and the need for a workshop to discuss fire districts…. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO.: 224, 2006 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns their Special Town Board Meeting. th Duly adopted this 24 day of April, 2006, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stec, Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer NOES: None ABSENT: None No further action taken. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, DARLEEN M. DOUGHER TOWN CLERK TOWN OF QUEENSBURY