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1998-10-01 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING OCTOBER 1, 1998 7:00 p.m. MTG.#48 RES. 365 JOINT TOWN BOARD MEETING WITH THE TOWN OF MOREAU TOWN OF QUEENSBURY TOWN BOARD PRESENT: SUPERVISOR FRED CHAMPAGNE COUNCILMAN RICHARD MERRILL COUNCILMAN DOUGLAS IRISH COUNCILMAN PLINEY TUCKER ALSO PRESENT: WATER SUPERINTENDENT RALPH VANDUSEN TOWN CONTROLLER HENRY HESS ABSENT: COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER TOWN OF MOREAU TOWN BOARD SUPERVISOR HARRY GUTHEIL COUNCILMAN LARRY BULMAN COUNCILMAN JACK RAFFERTY COUCNIL WOMAN DIANE KNAUST ALSO PRESENT: TOWN CLERK JEANNE FLEURY ABSENT: COUNCILMAN BOB PENDERGRAST QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR FRED CHAMPAGNE-OPENED THE MEETING - What I would like to try to do for starters is just introduce what the issues from our side and certainly from your side that we believe are of certainly major concerns. One of the things that I thought that we might do even before we get started is give you folks an opportunity to kind of chat amongst yourselves, we have got some written language here and if! could and if you would excuse us, I just want to make sure because this is fresh off the press this afternoon at about four o'clock QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-Yea about that. QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Just about four o'clock. What I would like to do is meet with our board kind of in a quick caucus give us five or ten minutes and let us come back in here and make sure we are all on the same page and then we will commence to begin. Is that a fair shake? Let us do that. (Caucus held) 7:29 Back Copies of proposal handed out, (on file in Town Clerk's office) QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Just like every other class room here we will probably ought to start out by taking the first item first and save your reading pleasure as we go down through down there, for me if you would. We are of the opinion and have been and probably will forever be there is a transmission cost for transmitting water and I realize that there has been some thoughts on your behalf that the transmission charge had been waived at a point somewhere along through our negotiations. I have to tell you in all honesty that there was some language there, was some discussion relative to that in fact it is in the contract where it was crossed out at on time. The issue is that, that transmission charge obviously was built in another place in the surcharges. OK. So, there has never been a point in time in all of these negotiations where at least this board has waived the transmission charge. It is there, it is a cost to Queensbury it is going to be a cost to our users to get that water from the plant to the rivers edge and it would be my hope and certainly the wishes of our Town Board that, that five cents per thousand stays in there. So, if we could take these one at a time or would you rather go through them all and then come back to any of those that, you want to further discuss? What is your pleasure? MOREAU COUNCILMAN BULMAN-I think we should go through all of them. QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Ok. Lets do it. Henry I am going to call on you to pick up this next one. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-The contract language that was originally written really had this under one heading and just for the sake of simplicity I broke it into two, but the language that here is pretty much the language that was in the previous contract prior to the last amendment. Additional Purchases, what this says is that Moreau has the right to buy up to a million additional gallons at increments of fifty thousand increments per day at a proportional price of fifty three thousand dollars per fifty thousand gallons increments which equates to a million sixty. According to the terms of the contract the price being modified only for the Capital improvements to maintain the plant which were covered in the original contract and I think the term that they used in the original contact was reconstruction costs. So, the second portion gives you the right at any time to buy fifty thousand gallon increments up to a full million at the price you pay for the first million. This also says that your full entitlement, your total entitlement under this contract under the under the agreement would be two million gallons per day. Nothing prohibits the two towns from meeting to expand on that in separate negotiations any time during the four years of the contract with us. The second half of this The Right of First Refusal, simply says that when Queensbury reaches a peak of daily uses of thirteen million gallons per day that a line is drawn and you are given, if you are going to exercise your right to buy in the rest of that million you have sixty days to make up your mind and six months to execute that agreement. That is the right of first refusal. The price does not change nor in terms of the buy in does the change, just the term your option to buy it accelerates from forty years back down to the time when your are going to talk about purchasing the million dollars worth. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Isn't that the same as what we had in there? QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-Basically the same thing... QUEENSBURY CONCILMAN MERRILL-The intent is to be the same. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-And it does, it reads, if you take it back and check it. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-How are the moneys to be paid per thousand gallons where is the, what is to be worked up for the, the cost per thousand gallons as far as, I can see the amounts of money but how is that broken down to the? QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPANGE-You mean if you were to buy that second million that first fifty? MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Well, even where we are at the down payment and the river crossing the moneys, we have got to find out what are costs are per thousand gallons for water is. The O&M is seventy eight cents. QUEENSBURY WATER SUPT. V ANDUSEN- That has not changed. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL- I think based on the budgets and none of that has changed, and the only change as from budget to budget and depends on volume. That same language is, I would assume would still be in this? None of that is changed. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-That was not addressed here because it was not.. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-It was not an issue. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-..there was not negotiations to change that... QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Harry, just to kind of re-cap, going back to the original agreement as I understood it the half million what ever it was, the half of the one sixty was coming in and we were going to take that and apply that to payoff that half of the river crossing. OK. We were going to take that and apply that rather than you, because you were going to take your half million or three hundred thousand dollars of your money and you are going to pay your half OK, the second half that you were going to pay for would now be paid by actually you would not necessarily be giving it to us but you would merely be paying for the full cost of the river crossing and then whatever the balance is between that three hundred thousand dollars and the half million we would apply that to the million sixty against the plant. Are we together? QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-No. Can I simplify that? QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Jump in. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-We are going to finance eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars of your buy in for a period of ,..through and with equal payment at three point five, five percent interest through the year two thousand fifteen. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Sixteen years. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-It is not sixteen years, two thousand fifteen no matter when you start, if you start next year it might be fifteen years, it is two thousand fifteen because that is the end of our bonds. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-I understand that. COUNCILMAN JACK RAFFERTy-It coincides with yours. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL- Twelve, thirty one, two thousand fifteen? QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-No it is April 1st. of fifteen. MOREAU COUNCILMAN LARRY BULMAN-How much did you say, eight hundred and QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-It is eight hundred and twenty it might be eight hundred and twenty thousand five hundred, it is five hundred and ten plus what is it three ten, it is five thirty plus the ten so it is ... MOREAU COUNCILWOMAN KNAUST-three point five five up until we have to have paid off by April 1st of two thousand fifteen. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-We will do an amortization, April 1st of fifteen, simi-annual payments, October 1 st. , April 1 st. MOREAU COUNCIL WOMAN KNAUST -And then we pay the current seventy eight cents per thousand, whatever it is, so that is the figures we need right there. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Now have you worked up any numbers on three hundred thousand gallons per day on what that would take to cover the debt service on that eight hundred and forty thousand dollars? MOREAU COUNCIL WOMAN KNAUST -Harry we can do that. I can do that tomorrow... and that would change according to the starting date. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-It does, if you were to start today you have got, your start date would be the drive now. . . QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Obviously that is the expiration date for our bond and I just want you to jump in where ever you might be at the time and come on board. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-That answers a lot of the things that I guess we probably would have been asking, it mitigated a lot of our concerns certainly. Some of the things that... MOREAU COUNCILWOMAN KNAUST-We still have the right of first refusal we do not have any interest expense in advance of that we still have the guarantee of the capacity, the transmission charge which we have objected to strenuously is still there but we all really knew it was built in, you can not blame us for objecting, and it has been reduced on the second million gallons so that is something. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-I do not deny that. MOREAU COUNCILMAN BULMAN-We knew the numbers were just being shuffled around. MOREAU COUNCILWOMAN KNAUST-And we can buy in increments of fifty thousand gallons a day. I really think we have something we need to go home and seriously look at and I can do amortization schedules for you in three minutes, I can get them to you tomorrow. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-We will have to forecast a date of when. MOREAU COUNCIL WOMEN KNAUST -I can do it on fifteen years, fourteen years, thirteen years... MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-How many months remaining at this point, April... QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-It is October 1st. so you are talking about six, then ninety nine.. . right now you are talking about sixteen and a half years from today. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-If we could get this thing going in eighteen months it would be just about a fifteen year amortization. MOREAU COUNCILMAN BULMAN-We are going to have a caucus and then if we have any other questions before we leave today. (Caucus held by Town of Moreau) 7:48 P.M. Back in Session MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-I think you have answered most of our questions I think we would like to have our Attorney review and get something, I would like to see the language in it in its final form. I think that could happen very quickly because certainly we have had enough drafts and QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-This was extracted from draft language so this is almost.. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-I think that our June proposal cleared up a lot of the language and we got the river crossing stuff out and so. MOREAU COUNCIL WOMAN KNAUST -And actually I like the idea that we just pay the river crossing it is just clean. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Do you have any questions of us? Quite honestly there are some of the things that we do not know, that were left out it has been bounced back and forth before you know, there have been a couple of proposals. MOREAU COUNCILMAN BULMAN-These are the major issues. QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPANGE-To me that has been what has been on the outside...we will have Bob Hafner with Henry and our people sit down and we will get out what was out before what has been red lines or whatever. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-That is an interesting question, do you want us to take the.. and incorporate this into a draft and submit to you MOREAU COUNCILMAN RAFFERTY-I would say so Henry. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Well, lets see, as far as I am concerned I do not mind Martin doing it because whoever can do it the quickest, because I want to get, we are going to court again early in October and from June we went up from June 4th to July something a lot of time can go by fast. QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-I have got an August 12th 1998 here this is the last one. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-To me this is the type of thing that should be done in a few days and I do not see anything big there, do you Pliney? I would think in an hour somebody could key punch the changes in and we could have something to look at. MOREAU COUNCIL WOMAN KNAUST -Why don't we have our Attorney, we will spend our time and our money with our Attorney to redraft this proposal incorporating your language we will send it to Bob, and obviously MOREAU COUNCILMAN BULMAN-And he will review it when he is doing it. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-Simultaneously with Bob, get a copy in my hand, because..talk about it right away. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-Then we will get it to all the, so you want ours to go to Bob and you. QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-I like that idea, if you do not mind. QUEENSBURY SUPERVISOR CHAMPAGNE-Are each of you going to get a copy of your Attorneys draft, I would assume, you would, then I would like us all to get a copy of that same draft when it goes to Bob, it ought to be spread all four sides. We may end up putting this contract together with or without attorneys. MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-So somebody does not have to sit down and tear apart and make them again, how many copies do we want, lets do it that way. You want five for you board one for Henry one for Bob QUEENSBURY CONTROLLER HESS-One for Ralph MOREAU SUPERVISOR GUTHEIL-five, six, seven and the Attorney is eight for you people, five for us is thirteen and Martin and John is fourteen, fifteen, right. Then fifteen should do it. We just have them run fifteen copies and give them to you as soon as we have got them. QUEENSBURY COUNCILMAN TUCKER-I have got a little statement to make, hope to see you all here in four years because I am going to be here. RESOLUTION CALLING FOR ADJOURNMENT RESOLUTION NO. 365.98 INTRODUCED BY: MR. DOUGLAS IRISH who moved for its adoption Seconded by: Mr. PLINEY TUCKER RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Meeting. Duly adopted this 1st. day of October, 1998 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Merrill, Mr. Irish, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Champagne NOES; None ABSENT: Mr. Turner Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury