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2000-10-31 SP SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING OCTOBER 31, 2000 6:00 p.m. MTG. #48 RES. 422- 429 TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DENNIS BROWER COUNCILMAN JAMES MARTIN COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER COUNCILMAN DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER SUPERVISOR BROWER-Called the meeting to order PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER 1. ORE SOLUTIONS RESOLUTION SETTING PUBLIC HEARING ON THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY'S 2001 PRELIMINARY BUDGET RESOLUTION NO.: 422.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board has prepared a Preliminary Budget for the Town of Queensbury and its Districts for the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2001, and WHEREAS, the Town Board wishes to approve the Preliminary Budget and conduct a public hearing, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby approves the Town of Queensbury Preliminary Budget for 2001, comprised of statements of appropriations and estimated revenues, a copy of which is attached and made a part of this Resolution, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of the Preliminary Budget shall be filed in the Town of Queensbury Town Clerk's Office, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury where it shall be available for inspection by interested persons during regular business hours, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Town Board will conduct a public hearing on November 9th, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury and all interested persons will be heard concerning the Town's Preliminary Budget, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby authorizes and directs the Queensbury Town Clerk to publish and post a Notice of Public Hearing in the manner provided by Town Law ~ 108, such Notice to be substantially in the following form: NOTICE OF HEARING ON PRELIMINARY BUDGET FOR THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY FOR THE YEAR 2001 NOTICE is hereby given that the Preliminary Budget of the Town of Queensbury, County of Warren, State of New York for the Fiscal Year beginning January 1, 2001 has been filed in the Queensbury Town Clerk's Office where it is available for inspection by any interested person during normal business hours. FURTHER NOTICE is hereby given that the Queensbury Town Board will hold a public hearing on November 9th, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury and that at such hearing the Town Board shall hear all interested persons concerning the Preliminary Budget. AND FURTHER NOTICE is hereby given in accordance with Town Law ~108 that the proposed salaries of Town of Queensbury elected officials for Year 2001 are as follows: TOWN SUPERVISOR $52,250 DEPUTY SUPERVISOR $ 1,250 TOWN COUNCILMAN (4) $13,500 TOWN CLERK $50,100 TOWN HIGHWAY SUPERINTENDENT $55,000 TOWN JUSTICES (2) $32,400 Duly adopted this 30th day of October, 2000, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: None 1.2 RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING PAYMENTS TO AND FROM SOUTH QUEENSBURY VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY INC. (HELD- AWAITING MEMBERS OF THE SOUTH QUEENSBURY FIRE COMPANY) RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING PURCHASE OF CHEVROLET BLAZER FROM CENTRAL FLEET INTERNAL SERVICE FUND TO REPLACE VEHICLE USED BY DEPUTY FIRE MARSHAL RESOLUTION NO.: 423.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board previously adopted purchasing procedures which state that the Town Board must approve any purchase in an amount of $5,000 or greater, up to New York State bidding limits, and WHEREAS, the Town Comptroller has requested Town Board approval to purchase one (1) 1998 Chevrolet Blazer sport utility vehicle, complete with light bar and other installed factory equipment, from the West Glens Falls Volunteer Fire Company No.1, Inc. for the amount of $16,500, and WHEREAS, the vehicle to be purchased is similar to the vehicle being replaced and presently being used by the Town's Deputy Fire Marshal and is equipped within the guidelines of the Town's Central Fleet Management Policy, and WHEREAS, NYS Bidding is not required, since the transaction is for used equipment, at a negotiated price between related parties, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby authorizes and approves the purchase of one 1998 Chevrolet Blazer sport utility vehicle, complete with light bar and other installed factory equipment for the amount of $16,500 from the West Glens Falls Volunteer Fire Company No.1, such vehicle to be paid for from the Central Fleet Internal Service Fund, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Comptroller to take such other and further action as may be necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution. Duly adopted this 30th day of October, 2000, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: None RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING ENGAGEMENT OF MDI ASSOCIATES, LLC TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE APPRAISAL OF PROPERTY DESIGNATED AS THE SHERMAN ISLAND HYDROELECTRIC PLANT FOR 1994 - 2000 TAX YEARS IN CONNECTION WITH ARTICLE 7 TAX ASSESSMENT PROCEEDINGS COMMENCED BY NIAGARA MOHAWK POWER CORPORATION RESOLUTION NO.: 424.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. James Martin WHEREAS, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation has commenced Article 7 Real Property Tax Assessment Proceedings against the Town of Queensbury concerning the Hydroelectric Property, including underlying land, formerly owned by the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation and now owned by Erie Boulevard Hydropower, designated as the Sherman Island Hydroelectric Plant for the 1994 - 1999 tax years, and WHEREAS, the Town has been ordered to file a comprehensive appraisal of the property with the Warren County Supreme Court, and WHEREAS, MDI Associates, LLC has offered to perform a comprehensive analysis of the value of the property for the tax years 1994-2000 for the amount of $39,500, not including out-of-pocket expenses, primarily for travel, subsistence and communications, which will be billed in addition to the professional fees and which will not exceed the total of $4,300 without prior Town Board approval, and WHEREAS, the Town Assessor has recommended that the Town Board engage the services of MDI Associates, LLC to provide the required appraisal, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby authorizes the engagement ofMDI Associates, LLC to furnish a Court -ready appraisal in connection with Article 7 Real Property Tax Assessment Proceedings commenced by Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation concerning the property referenced in this Resolution for the 1994-2000 tax years for an amount not to exceed $39,500, plus out-of- pocket expenses outlined above not to exceed an additional amount of $4,300 without further Town Board approval, to be paid for from the appropriate account, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board authorizes and directs the Town Assessor and/or Town Counsel to take such other and further action as may be necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution. Duly adopted this 30th day of October, 2000, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: None Discussion held before vote: Thanked Counsel Mark Schachner for his negotiations in this matter. RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING EXPENDITURE FOR HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY RESOLUTION NO.: 425. 2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHEREAS, the Friends of the Town of Queensbury will hold its annual Holiday Tree Lighting on Friday, December 1st, 2000 at 6:00 p.m., and WHEREAS, all residents in the Town of Queensbury are invited to this public event, and WHEREAS, the Queensbury Town Board wishes to appropriate funds for expenses associated with the event in an amount not to exceed $1,600, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby appropriates a sum not to exceed $1,600 to the Friends of the Town of Queensbury for expenses associated with the annual Holiday Tree Lighting, including but not limited to, advertising, entertainment, refreshments and photographs to be paid for from the Celebrations Account No. 01-7550-4400, and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that any funds not expended by the Friends of the Town of Queensbury for the annual Holiday Tree Lighting shall be returned to the Town of Queensbury. Duly adopted this 30th day of October, 2000 by the following vote: AYES Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brower NOES None ABSENT: None 2.0DISCUSSIONS 2. 1 PROPO SED NOISE ORDINANCE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CHRIS ROUND-Stuart Messinger was going to be here as well, Stuart was unable to attend, Mark and I are here to discuss the development of a noise regulation for the Town. Mark has afforded you a memorandum dated September 27th I put a copy of that in front of you. You also have two other pieces of information that we will talk about in a moment. Mark will talk briefly I think about his memo and we will talk about a little bit about the two different approaches for the development of noise ordinance and then it was meant to be a workshop session open discussion on that. We are trying to get some direction from the Town Board on which method they would like to employ if any in the development of a noise ordinance. Mark I do not know if you want to just introduce the? TOWN COUNSEL MARK SCHACHNER-Basically this has been discussed before at various levels by various Town Boards but as I understood it at a meeting that I was not in attendance at you all asked a bunch of questions about different ways of regulating noise and the purpose of this September 27th memorandum was to outline and answer and hopefully address some of the questions that came up relative to both existing laws both criminal and civil and also, possible approaches to regulating noise if you choose to do so. I know that some of the questions that came up had to do with whether criminal laws such as laws such as the penal law and the provisions about disorderly conduct and public and private nuisance as well as civil and criminal nuisance. Who would enforce those things, were they enforceable as to noise issues, does the County Sheriffs office have the authority to enforce provisions like that? Does the County District Attorney's Office have enforcement authority to prosecute alleged offences and things like that. You all have certainly received and hopefully reviewed the memorandum, but basically it goes thorough the first four roman numerals go thorough the different ways of approaching regulation of noise not by enacting new local noise ordinance but under existing State penal law and similar provisions. Specifically disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct, criminal nuisance, private civil nuisance and public civil nuisance. The memo goes into more legal ease than I would like to use but you asked some questions about these things and we tried to answer them in as simple and straight forward a manner as possible. Certain criminal laws do exist, criminal laws generally are enforceable both by the County Sheriffs office and by the County District Attorney's Office as opposed to Department of Community Development or Code Enforcement and us as Town Counsel that is good generally. Those County agencies generally do not make enforcement of these sort of things very high priorities because they feel that somebody playing loud music in the middle of the night or somebody riding a motorcycle or disturbing the neighbors privacy somebody running a lawn mower at odd hours or what ever. They generally feel that those things do not rise to the level of crime serious enough to devote their attention and resources to that is true both of the Sheriffs Department level and at the County District Attorney's level. So, generally speaking we feel that those existing State Criminal type laws and the frame work in which they were enacted and at which they were enforced generally are not capable of being effectively utilized to regulate local noise if you chose to do so. That is whether it is local noise from an amusement park like the Great Escape or from Go Carts like on Route 9 or from any number of other sources from motorcycles, ATV's loud machinery operation or anything else. Private civil nuisance there are a number of cases in New York involving what is call Private Civil Nuisance Claims in which people who are offended by what they believe to be overly intrusive noise bring legal actions on their own behalf, privately, this does not involve the Town or local government municipality but bring private actions on their own behalf and there are instances in which courts have found that the type of noise being generated and the circumstances under which it is being generated are so intrusive that they break so to speak what are called common law provisions about civil nuisance. Sometimes courts have actually gotten in the way of certain noise generators and said they cannot continue. Generally speaking that is an issue that Town government does not have much to do with. That is between private parties both the objectors to noises and the generators of noises. Where that leads to is that at the local municipal level if you feel that the concerns about noise are sufficient to warrant regulation then we think the best way, by which I mean most effective way to accomplish that goal is through an enactment of some type of municipal noise ordinance or noise regulation. That can take the part or it can take the form of a separate stand alone noise ordinance that is part of our Town Code or in some towns it can also take the form of being a chapter of a zoning ordinance. We do not believe that there is any significant difference between those two, it is form over substance. If you decide to proceed we could do it under either scenario. What Chris was alluding to earlier are there are different approaches to local municipal regulation of noise. I guess I am going to talk about two general approaches and then Chris and I and Stu Messinger have talked about different permutations and combinations of them. The two general approaches are what I call and these are just my words and my labels, what I call subjective adjective based noise ordinance vs objective standard based noise ordinances. Let be back up a step and say that I think it is a case that most towns in the State of New York in which there are about a thousand do not have local noise regulations, many do, I do not mean ninety ten don't but I think a majority do not as I understand it, certainly many do. Of those that do many are older noise ordinances that are what I call subjective adjective based noise ordinances. What I mean by that is there are many noise ordinances in many communities that say things like and I am paraphrasing, it is unlawful to create unreasonably loud, intrusive, offensive, obnoxious noise and then they sometimes list some things that might constitute those things and sometimes they don't. It is our opinion as Town Counsel and I think Chris's opinion as Director of the Department of Community Development, that and I can tell you this is my opinion very, very strongly that any ordinance based on standards or criteria like that is not likely, a. be efficiently and reasonably enforceable by our code enforcement people and b. is not likely to withstand legal challenge if people who are in charge with its violation challenge it. The reason I say that is that because, what constitutes unreasonable, intrusive, obnoxious, unreasonably loud and things like that sort of like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The story I tell people when I speak which I sometime do in public forums about this topic, I have participated in administrative enforcement legal proceedings anD hearings where witnesses have sworn to tell the truth and taken the stand and said things like I enjoy the pleasant sound of the jet skies in the morning on Lake George. I am not making that up I participated in a proceeding where a witness under sworn oath, under oath said that and the truth is I think she was telling the truth. I think this particular woman finds that sound pleasant and attractive. She said it reminds her of the recreational opportunities on Lake George, I am not suggesting that is a common view but it was that particular witness's view. My point is that it is very hard to enforce criteria that are laden with subjective adjective based standards, like unreasonably offensive, intrusive, noisy, disturbing and things like that. But there are many noise ordinances that still use that type of language. What I call the more modern approach is an approach that I refer to earlier, as an objective standard base noise regulation. Those are more common among municipalities that have only recently jumped into this noise regulation game, those noise ordinances tend to have specific criteria, usually expressed in decimal levels and often expressed in variations that include location in the town so that one decimal level is applicable or appropriate in a certain location or certain area but a different decimal level is allowable in a different area. They also are often based on hours, hours of the day and night, so that it is very common to regular noise by not only by how loud it is but when it is being generated. Whether it is day time, night time as well as location, is it in an area zoned residentially, zoned commercially, zoned industrially or whatever. It is our opinion that if you are going to embark upon a noise regulation program that this second type would be a much more effective and much more enforceable means of accomplishing whatever the goals may be. Let me make it clear that we are not sitting here saying you should regulate noise, we are not as Town Counsel saying you should do that and I do not think the Department of Community Development is saying that, that is a discretionary decision by the Town Board as legislators, as elected officials. If you decide you want to regulate noise I think what we are jointly recommending that the best approach to do that both from the efficiency and the enforceability standpoint is to go with some sort of local noise regulation along the lines of the second thing I described. Now, we also met, Chris, Stu and I just last week and talked about if you decide to go forward what types of noise regulations might we be talking about. One of the things that we talked about is, it is very common to tie these noise regulations to zoning districts, residential, commercial, industrial, what have you. Some towns go further and tie them to the sub, to what I call the sub-districts, the type of residential the type of industrial the type of commercial. The other thing that I think would be allowable although I cannot tell you for sure that I know anybody has done it, but I think you could if you wished to only establish noise regulations in certain areas of the Town so you do not have to have noise regulated everywhere. I do not think that you could pick only one house or one neighborhood or one you cannot spot zone or spot noise regulate in too small a way but if you for example wanted to pick you know a particular commercial corridor and enact reasonable and enforceable noise regulations in one particular area you probably could do that lawfully as well. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROUND-There has been significant discussion what we are looking for is direction from the Board and that is the purpose of the workshop to get feed back to have an open discussion on those items. We have done some work in addition to you know, collecting noise ordinances this started a year and a half ago, probably, is progress toward developing an ordinance or collecting information for that. Last October 12th we presented the results of some analysis that were done in the area of Route 9 in the area of Twicwood, Courthouse Estates, and also in Hidden Hills. So, we had some information that we can, that we shared, several board members were there that we also forwarded so if you were to go to a performance based or a noise limit in relation to zoning districts you know what the impacts of those specific monitoring events would be. A lot as Mark said, Stuart and I and he met and we discussed originally in the zoning ordinance it had been a district -based regulation. Light Industrial district this is what you can, if you go that route there are two things that you have to consider immediately is where you want to monitor it the property line of the noise generator or at the property line of the receiving entity. That has two different impacts on how stiffly you are going to regulate a particular land use. In our discussion, that was the less favorable approach to take based on what we understand what we are trying to regulate. That is some specific problem uses so that I think I can speak for Mark as well, we thought that the type of an ordinance based on noise generators specifically problem noise generators might be the more appropriate way to regulate noise today in the Town it might not be the way we regulate it in the future, but something that was geared toward what we have heard complaints from the public. Whether it is building construction, refuse company collection, stereo from either a mobile stereo or within a vehicle, power equipment, recreational vehicles, public entertainment type uses. So, those are the things that we have two examples of ordinances in front of you. One is a town of blank noise control ordinance which is the zoning district based ordinance that establishes, this is not specifically crafted for the Town of Queensbury this is just a template or generic ordinance that establishes maximum permissible sound levels based on districts and things that you have to consider are, are what hours do you want to use, where do you want to monitor noise, what are the actual limits of the decimal, the decimal limits. So, there are several debates that could occur within the context of this ordinance. The other ordinance is a copy of the village of Lake George's which is an example of a noise generator based ordinance. The Village of Lake George prohibits certain activities, building construction refuse compacting, etc. some of those problem noise generation things that we have identified. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Prohibits outright any operation at all between those hours? DIRECTOR ROUND-Yes it does. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Yes, I believe so. DIRECTOR ROUND-For instance page four of that ordinance the following prohibited noise, section 45 B the following noises shall be prohibited, building construction while operating or permitting the operation of any tool, equipment etc. between the hours of ten p.m. and 7 a.m. except in the case of emergency with a variance etc. etc. So, that is the kind of ordinance that COUNCILMAN BREWER-Did you talk to anybody from Lake George about this as to the success or failure of it? DIRECTOR ROUND-I have not directly, no. Success or failures is going to be depending on a couple of different things, and it is not tied to the municipality. I think it is tied to enforcement it is support of the court system, several other things, the proper staffing etc. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-This particular one of the Village of Lake George I believe is not very old either, so I think it is new enough that they might not. COUNCILMAN BREWER-It is 97. I guess my point would be they put this into effect in 97 for a particular reason has it been successful, I guess that is what I would ask. DIRECTOR ROUND-I know only second hand from what I read in the paper and from conversations with other people that they have successfully used it to enforce vehicle noise during the car show, they have used it successfully to enforce problem band noise on decks, etc. so it is like anything it is enforcement, it is not necessarily the, is this law challengable in the court system it depends on how well you do data collection or how successful you pursue enforcement. That is one of the points that we pointed to with the difficulty with the other type of ordinance with a zoning district based ordinance with maximum decimal levels at a property line or at a receiving when you go thorough a typically the literature that we read planners advisory service, American Planning Association, etc. says keep it simple. When you go in and you have to collect information at a level that approaches scientific research level standards that you, it becomes very costly, generally you only pursue enforcement in high profile cases and that they are generally subject to very sophisticated legal challenges. Did you calibrate the information, did you calibrate, Mark uses the glove test, the football player that was..the 0 J Simpson black glove that maybe it was Stu that used that. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I didn't say DIRECTOR ROUND-I apologize, that it can be challenged under various number of levels whether it is data collection the operator ability etc. so that generally they are more difficult to enforce although they might be they are more scientifically constructed but if there is going to be a challenge that, that is the kind of challenge that is difficult and can be time consuming and frustrating from an enforcement perspective. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-My concern about these things is I think the devil is in the details. You know, enforcement, I am interested in this Village of Lake George thing because the Village of Lake George does not have a Village Police Dept. correct, as like us they rely on the Warren County Sheriff. I think it would be very important for us to have sitting right at one of these chairs tonight Sheriff Lamy is he COUNCILMAN BREWER-Sheriff Lamy is not Sheriff anymore COUNCILMAN STEC-Sheriff Cleveland. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Cleveland, whatever, is he actively going to enforce this thing? Because the likely, if you look at these hours you work at 2:30 in the morning, Chris, I do not think so, I do not think Craig Brown works at 2:30 in the morning and we are going to need the Sheriffs patrol actively and enthusiastically you know enforcing this thing or it is not worth the paper it is written on. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I think the general response we are going to get from Sheriff Cleveland or anybody else at the County level is that they are reluctant to get much involved in these things other than in very high profile situations like Americade the car show things where they have already got personnel that are on the job so to speak and they will use the local regulation as an additional regulatory tool when they already have people on the job. I am not at all discouraging us from pursuing this with the Sheriffs Dept. but I think we have talked to them informally but the Sheriffs Dept. and the County District Attorneys Office and the sense we get is that they are not, for the lack of a better way to put it they are not anxious to get involved in these things on a lower profile basis, short of the large community events like Americade car show I do not know of any noise problem at the balloon festival but if there was a noise problem the balloon that is the sort of thing where they have already got personnel involved in regulating the event other aspects of the event, crowd control what have you in which I do not think they have any problem in using an additional enforcement tool even if it has been enacted at a local level. They do seem to be reluctant to commit to any significant allocations or even efforts on what I am calling more of a piece meal basis as you say Jim at 2:30 in the night you get a call from somebody you know, COUNCILMAN MARTIN-And they are going to want action, somebody that is being disturbed at 2:30 in the middle of the night or something, five minutes I want an enforcement officer here I want that to stop. Oh,yea, Sheriff so and so yea we will get right on it Mama, we will get a car over as soon as we can free one up, an hour later. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I think that is generally DIRECTOR ROUND-The disadvantages of not having a local, TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-well especially if it is that type of ordinance. I think that is a real. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I am not criticizing them I mean, they you know their attitude is well I have on a priority TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Real crime. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-this is a real crime but if somebody is speeding or you know, I do not know whatever, much more serious type infractions of the law and that is what I am concerned about this I just want to make sure I think we should have one. But, I want to make sure that we paint a realistic picture for the residents of the community of what they can expect this to do, and not think well we passed our noise ordinance and now we have got you got a panache because I do not see that. I have worked in local enforcement myself directly and it is very, very difficult. COUNCILMAN BREWER-It is, not only this but every other area we try to enforce. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I also think we need more data. We have a profile of one particular type of nuisance noise or whatever you want to call it in the community I do not know what the readings are out of West Mountain for snow making, I do not know what the readings are out of motorcycles up in the first Ward by Lake Sunnyside and my way of thinking speaking for the people I represent that is the worst noise that people have to deal with in this entire community arguably. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Supporting the idea of gathering more data one thing that I think you have already been presented to at a previous meeting, with at a previous meeting is that the data that has been collected thus far from the one particular area just I think viewed, as I understand it, and Chris may jump in here, but viewed just objectively without, do I like it, do I not like it, does it bother me, does it not bother me. But viewed objectively from the standpoint of the decimal levels that were obtained doing that data collection exercise. It is my understanding that they were not that high relative to what is considered normally acceptable decimal levels. I am not saying these noises are good, I am not saying that they are acceptable I am not saying they would not bother me or anything like that all I am saying is there is a series of publications, many publications that generally list a table that talks about different noises and different decimal levels and what people typically find objectionable or acceptable or even dangerous if you get into the hundred decimal level. My understanding that the data that was collected that was previously presented to you by Chazen did not really indicate decimal levels as high as perhaps many of us had anticipated from the stand point of being unacceptable or dangerous or just plain loud. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That was going to be my next point about the devil being in the details, the obvious detail is what kind of range do we site? Like I see here in the Village of Lake George they have a fifty DBA measurement as measured at the real property line. So, they have even addressed that issue. But, you know from what I recall of that chart we had things that were in the high forties, during the night time hours that this is referencing. There were maybe some occasional places that spilled over. Again if we set that range to low I think Mark would probably say that we could be challenged about our range being unreasonable and all sorts of data would come out about what is you know from the other side, we got to make sure that we have a defensible range. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Right, if! could just give a quick guide line on that. I think the general way to view this if we decide to go forward is that you do have the power to regulate noise and you even have the power to regulate noise over existing generators. In other words your power is not only prospective for newly generated noises it includes the power to regulate existing generators. But, what we need to be careful about I think what you are alluding to, is we cannot set thresholds so low as for example to not be achievable. I think we run into serious potential legal issues if we start putting people out of business for lack of a better way to put it because we set levels that are simply too low to be met. COUNCILMAN STEC-IfI could chime in with that, I think the Lake George ordinances is in the right direction, but as Tim and Jim have both hit on I think it is important to talk to Lake George to find out if this working for you or not? Number two, find out from the Sheriffs Department are there enforcement issues with this, do they support it, is it working from where they sit? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-It has been my experience the best things to do with things like this, we did this back when we introduced the civil standard, rather than just a criminal, is we sat down with the other involved entities so to speak and talk to them up front before we enacted the law. In that case we sat down with the town judges and we said, we got all the details all worked out up front and pro actively and I would argue we bring in the Town Judges as well as the Sheriffs in this case and say, ok folks, you know, what are your concerns and COUNCILMAN BREWER-But then do we have to supply the enforcement officer or who ever it might be with decimals meters? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yes. I understand that there is equipment out there now. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-There certainly is and that involves training one of the things when these things are challenged it is not all that different from the stand point of challenge, let me rephrase that, there are certain similarities from the stand point of challenge to what you see people challenging breathalyzer tests COUNCILMAN MARTIN-And radar guns. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-And radar guns exactly. You know what was the type of equipment used was it modern equipment, had it been tested, was it properly calibrated, was the operator properly trained did the operator make sure to and focus on this use and not that use, that is the approach. COUNCILMAN STEC-But you know in a lot of cases though, it is my suspicion that it would never come to that. If somebody pounds on my door, if the cops pound on the door and say Stec turn it down, my decimal, that is enough for me and I think it would be enough for me and I think it would be enough for most people. Right now we do not have any tool, I personally think that it is important for us to go to the next step, gather, we got some more data to gather we certainly want to see buy in from the town justice and buy in from the sheriffs department because other than that it is just a paper tiger. But, we get we take it to the next step and we can always tweak later we can always say you know fifty just isn't cutting it you know we should lower it to forty five, or fifty is too restrictive we could always tweak it as we go. I wanted to comment though on the portion of your memo about grand fathering and that section there, really caught my attention. I am encouraged that I was frustrated that a lot of this would not address existing problems, but I mean, I do not think it is very complicated and I do not think you have to worry about calibration issues and what not. The rides the go carts, the music is either on or off after ten a.m. or ten p.m. or eleven p.m. we could get something very simple but very enforceable and apply it now to the existing problems we have and tweak as we go and kind of. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think that, I agree with you, the two most important parts about this are going to be what times you set and what levels. COUNCILMAN STEC- That is right but a lot of this is on off uses, between this hour, just like Lake George one, between this hour and this hour no power equipment, no home construction, then you don't have to worry about that guy is it calibrated do you know how to use it and all that stuff that goes with that. It is either on or it is off. Anyone can determine that ride is either operating or it is not, the go carts are either operating or they are not and then I think that is probably that is the low hanging fruit, that you can go in there and you could immediately address some of these things that are really pains in the neck on the Route 9 corridor. Go Carts we do not want you operating after ten thirty p.m. and according to this grand fathering section we might be able to go do that. A lot of people said, they have operated prom parties throughout the entire night dam I guess we missed the boat on that one and we cannot go after them and stop them from operating after eleven o'clock because they do it now. This suggests that maybe that is not the case and all isn't lost and there may be some low hanging fruit that we can go in there and quickly grab. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Underline the maybe in that, in that remember that some of the uses that you are alluding to are uses that did not just crop up without getting municipal approvals but got municipal approvals and in at least one instance that I am aware of got a local municipal approval that expressly allowed continuation and actually more than one that I am aware of, expressly allowed continuation of these uses past ten o'clock, past ten thirty and I think in at least one case past eleven o'clock. So, I am just underlining the word maybe in what you said and what I said so that you recognize that in some instances certain entities maybe grand fathered may be have what is called vested rights and we may not be able to cut back on those rights. COUNCILMAN STEC-But we can prevent things from getting worse, which is a victory. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-That is definitely true. COUNCILMAN BREWER-What other data do you think we need to collect besides talking to the Sheriff and the Judge? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I would like to get some more sound measurements about other areas in town. COUNCILMAN STEC-I do not disagree, but I do not think that that should hold us up. I do not think that that needs to hold us up I think that between now and spring we can come up with something that says you know what, this addresses seventy five percent of the issues and it is good enough for now it is a starting point and continue to gather data. But, I do not think that we need that we need to wait by the time we gather all the data it will be.. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I don't agree that we don't need to wait but I on the other hand I do not want to get something in place that. COUNCILMAN BREWER-How much did that cost? DIRECTOR ROUND-It cost sixteen hundred dollars. COUNCILMAN STEC-But obviously continue to gather data and because we may find that this is good but it is really not getting it done. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-By the way I would like to have that thing corrected I guess there were a lot of typo's and the charts in there were all, and have another issue, it was confusing enough as it was and then having that done it looked like virtually impossible to follow. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I remember Robert Gardens North when I visited several places there here a year ago some people complained that they were plowing snow at five in the morning and yet a lot of people were thrilled to death they were plowing snow at five in the morning because when they got up the parking lots were clear and they were able to leave. And of course the same with garbage collection. COUNCILMAN STEC-But we could control that, that is a municipality. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Right, but I think we should all be mindful. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No even private snow plowing, in private parking lots. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Be mindful of what Dennis is saying at least from my perspective as Town Counsel remember a lot of this stuff you will not get uniform opinion about, things that some people think are good things like the two things Dennis just said some people were very upset about that and some people were thrilled about it. That happens a lot in a noise regulation business. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Some people are going to be mad that now if you limit snow plowing you cannot start until seven a.m. there are people that are going to be mad because they are blocked in. DIRECTOR ROUND-The direction we are getting in is to go in the direction of the Village of Lake George rather than go zoning based is to go to actually noise generated based. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well, that was another question I wanted to ask could you to a hy-bred of the two say these uses are allowed in these zones at these times but not in these zones at other times. I think you could say, I think most of the people's concern is my bed at night what is the noise that I have to deal with to go to sleep at night. So, I think that their concern maybe more in the residential areas where I do not think one industrial user cares how much noise another industrial user is doing, is making. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Suppose a guy works midnight to eight, trying to sleep at eleven o'clock in the morning? COUNCILMAN STEC-But, I think most of the complaints are going to be complaining from the residential zone. So, I think we may want to include something in here along the zoning lines, not necessarily to complicate things, I am not looking to make this so hard that its unenforceable or un- understandable but you may want to say in the residential neighborhoods these are prohibited and in the industrial area this shorter list or these shorter list of activities or different rules or whatever. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-My only problem about that is when you start in the matter of ordinance construction, when you start tying two ordinances together you know, it can be fraught with parallel because right now at this snap shot in time that looks fine with the zoning ordinance we have the use table we have but who is to say what uses come down the pike when and you know, I just would have that concern. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-The other thing that gets sticky there if I could jump in is remember that in many instances and I can think of examples the noise receptor may be me in an area that is zoned residential but the noise generator is an area zoned commercial. In fact it is very common for noise issue to arise in what I call transition areas where you have boundaries of zoning districts so that, that gets a little sticky also. COUNCILMAN STEC- That is what we are seeing I think I sense at Route 9 right now. Where you are right the zone that is creating the noise is not residential but it abuts a residential zone. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-So, what are we, what marching orders are we giving here to go ahead and begin to develop a model like the Village of Lake George that is timed based and pretty simply DIRECTOR ROUND-Generator based, we have building construction, refuse compacting, power equipment, recreational vehicles, and we will have another discussion on that, but that is going to be a very difficult one. Within the Village of Lake George is says eighty five, it provides a standard eighty five dba, fifty feet from the vehicle. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That is pretty loud. DIRECTOR ROUND-That is fifty feet and there is a whole level of complexity when it comes to trying to capture somebody and enforce that and whether they are going to actually achieve 85 dba at a property line where the receptor is so on and so forth. COUNCILMAN STEC-Chris that goes to something that I talked about at previously meetings about for example, snow mobiles or I do not think that most people that in a LC-40 zone are too concerned with how loud is that snowmobile that is going down a trail, I do think that people that live in residential zone do not want to hear the neighbors tooling around on their quarter acre size lot on a snowmobile ever. So, that might be an instance where the hy-bred that I was talking about where you could say you know what, no snowmobile operation in these zones. No, industrial equipment operation in these zones. DIRECTOR ROUND-Mark and Stu and I had this conversation I passed that along to them several times Dan was that, the idea of prohibiting the use of recreational vehicles in certain residential zones. I forgot where that conversation went. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Well, I think we were talking about property sizes, we did not really talk about it in the context of residential vs. for example LC-42 we understood that one of the things you and Dan in particular were talking about was that we just flat prohibit you know operation in residential properties and one of the things that we were talking about was if you have a residential property of one hundred acres and you are operating a snowmobile right in the middle of the one hundred acres nobody can use a snowmobile I mean hypothetically nobody can use a snowmobile at all off your property and you should be allowed to do on your property whatever you want, that isn't noticeable off your property. The way you just discussed it though, would be if you were in zones where properties were of certain sizes, vs other sizes that might be a way to fine tune that point so that it doesn't unreasonably inhibit the operation on a hugh amount of property but it regulates it on a the smaller property. COUNCILMAN STEC-I mention it not to be academic but I have gotten phone calls in Ward three about so and so's next door neighbor is running their snowmobile in the back yard and it is right up against the fence and they are always doing it and I can imagine that there are similar circumstances over in Jim's Ward you know COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yes, the only problem again though Dan is even in LC42 there is a number of lots in the community that are one acre in size, they are one acre neighborhoods. So, you are going, you have the same development pattern as you do in a suburban residential area but if it is LC-42 and you are saying snowmobiles are allowed here because it is LC-42 those people are going to be just as upset as if they are in a suburban COUNCILMAN STEC-And not to pick on the snowmoblier you could over the dirt biker, but I do not want to co-mingle my comments into the snowmobile issue all the time. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think it is a mistake to go to zoning districts myself. I think... COUNCILMAN STEC-I think if you did this though you can always think of examples where you could say you know there is a case and there is a case but I am thinking in my neighborhood where we do not have a noise problem but there is residents that live in that area where if you said, you know what you cannot operate a snowmobile in this neighborhood that covers a lot of houses you are always going to find that one acre lot that is in the LC-42 zone there will always be the exceptions or the special cases that fall through the cracks and then somebody complains and you say gee I am sorry our ordinance did not catch this. But, right now we have nothing. I just think that if you said you know in this zone or lots of this size in this zone you cannot do this and this. I think that you are going to head off a lot of problems. Again I do not think that is going to be an enforcement issue, I do not think that most people are going to say I am going to fight this. Sure, you have a few that like to do that around there but I, most reasonable people the Cop knocks on the door the Enforcement Officer knocks on the door and says I have a complaint and you are in violation I think most people want to be good neighbors. Most people want to follow the rules, yea, you got your trouble makers and that is why we need teeth in these things, and we need enforcement, but for most people you know somebody says this is against the rules, right now we do not have any rules and everyone knows that. That is a problem, that adds to the issue. I just think that it is important to consider and yes, there is going to be circumstances that one slips through the cracks and what can you do, you learn from that and we can always modify later. SUPERVISOR BROWER-A lot of noise generators concern is the high decimal levels. So, setting decimal level is a reasonable standard where beyond, which most people would say is totally unreasonable, I think that is important too. DIRECTOR ROUND-Well, we will take the direction, I do not know if there is anything else you wanted to discuss in that one. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Are you clear? DIRECTOR ROUND-I think we will prepare a draft for your review and then we will take on those other tasks about working with the enforcement and the judicial branch and then I do not know, your next step is if you actually want to conduct an open forum on that in advance of a public hearing to invite. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think that would be a good idea. DIRECTOR ROUND-Those people who are going to be impacted by the ordinance both COUNCILMAN BREWER-Invite the Judge and or Sheriff. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Well, I think we should have that kind of input the staff could meet with them even before hand. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I think that should be two separate things. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I would expect then the Sheriff if this is the Village of Lake George has already got sound measuring equipment already. SUPERVISOR BROWER-They must have something, yes, other wise they could not even enforce it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That is something that we could find out. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-That seems likely, the Village does also. COUNCILMAN STEC-I would be curious, what is your prosecution record, how many times have you enacted this ordinance and how many times has it gone to court and what is your win loss record, absolutely. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I think what you are going to find Dan is like you said. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Most cases do not get that far they just stop. COUNCILMAN STEC-And that is what we should hope for. That is what we want as a Board we do not want to go out and start issuing warrants for people we want the problems to go away and like I said for maybe ninety percent of the people in this room the neighbor knocking on the door and say can you turn it down a little bit is enough for those other ten percent you need this. For those ten percent just having this might be enough for ninety percent of them. SUPERVISOR BROWER-That is a very good point. We would like to have voluntary compliance and would like to limit the our legal fees as much as possible, with all respect to Mr. Schachner. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Well the other thing is, TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Well keep in mind you do not pay extra for this, there is no legal fee Issue. SUPERVISOR BROWER-But if it is challenged and we go to court TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-No, in Town Court you do not pay for it. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-The other thing is we want to make sure are we being responsive you know not just to capture that but are you being responsive up front and pro actively to the complaints that got us to this point. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well, that is why you know like we said the next step I suppose would be a public hearing after we have done a little bit more homework and research and get a draft. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Public meeting not a public hearing. COUNCILMAN STEC-I am sorry public meeting. I agree. COUNCILMAN TURNER-There is a dramatic difference in the size of the Village of Lake George and the Town of Queensbury, the Town of Queensbury is seventy two square miles and a lot different types of noises, that is a problem we are going to have totally different. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well see how they do. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That is a Village setting it is different. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-It would be way more complicated no question. COUNCILMAN TURNER-The other side of the coin is the Sheriff is in Lake George he is a presence there all the time. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-They have a station right there. COUNCILMAN TURNER-They can jump right on it. Here we have to get a hold. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I can assure you it will be difficult and more complicated in Queensbury, no question. COUNCILMAN STEC-Just by the profile the make up of the communities. SUPERVISOR BROWER-We have got eleven hundred homes right on the lake and I appreciated what you said about that witness because I used to live on Lake George and I loved to listen to the Boats in the morning go up and down the lake, they were not jet skies but TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-The context just so you know is that the Lake George Park Commission has noise regulations of vessels on the Lake George and the Lake George Park Commission enforcement personnel actually do have decimal meters and they actually do run these checks. They will do voluntary checks at the beginning at every summer you can drive your boat through and see what it is at and they will enforce and then during the rest of the summer they actually do enforce the noise limitations with mixed success. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I will bet you that nobody ever heard a kid pull up to their front door with his stereo blaring and they love the sound of it and you can feel the base inside a building. SUPERVISOR BROWER-The only thing I did not like was the ...the ...would have a piercing noise that if they were too close to shore would be very annoying. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-You would not want to hear a fifth rendition of who let the dogs out at eighty five decimals? 2.2S0UTH QUEENSBURY FIRE COMPANY BUDGET REVIEW (no one present from South Queensbury Fire Dept. hold discussion) 2.3CRANDALL LIBRARY EXPANSION ISSUES SUPERVISOR BROWER-Mr. Tucker you asked to speak to the Board MR. PLINEY TUCKER-Division Road, Queensbury I had conversations with you and Henry over the financing of the Crandall Library going to Division of Audit and Control and the answer came back that and I think it is still the same that they were not going to give any opinion what so ever. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Basically they gave us a response that indicated that they normally would not provide an opinion in this case unless all three municipalities expressed concern. I did speak to the Mayor Friday, and asked him if he had a concern he said he would let me know today and he never contacted me. So, I do not know, I guess he doesn't. Harry Guthiel definitely has the same concern that I have expressed about the majority vote for an expansion like this the original intent from everything I have been able to glean from previous Town Board Members that were there at the time was that if for an expansion issue, anyone one community were to vote down the library expansion it would kill it. It would not proceed. MR. TUCKER-That includes the budget too. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Well, I knew it was definitely for additions or expansions, however I think the regular budget they have been doing it as a majority vote up until now. I do not know if any particular community has ever failed the regular operating budget so I do not know if that has ever come to play. MR. TUCKER-1995 I believe it did. COUNCILMAN BREWER-The total of three if was failed? MR. TUCKER-The budget failed one year, 1995 I think. SUPERVISOR BROWER-l 995 it failed you believes? COUNCILMAN STEC- The majority vote, I think it was. MR. TUCKER-I do not know whether it was the majority or what, I know one time it was turned down here in Queensbury and the Board of Elections said that the voting machines were screwed up. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Mary Beth Casey, well Nick Caimano I had spoken to he was on the Queensbury Town Board at the time, Mary Beth Casey told me she was in on the discussions from Glens Falls point of view and both of the indicated that, that was clearly the intent if anyone municipality were to fail it would fail. MR. TUCKER-I know that I had conversations with Mike Brandt who was Supervisor at the time and he feels the same way. I guess the reason that I am here tonight after it came out that the Division of Audit and Control would not give us an opinion. Somebody said that we should go to the Attorney General but some people feel that we are side stepping the Division of Audit and Control and might get somebody ticked off at us. So, what I would like to ask here tonight is and there are a lot of things that have come out since this financing part came about. I understand that the legislation to allow the library to borrow from the Dormitory Authority just was added to this bill last year. I also understand that Mark Leobowitz, who was the Attorney hired by all three communities to draft the legislation to establish the district determined that it would take a majority vote to turn this, the majority vote of all three areas to turn this budget, this expansion down. It is his opinion that the bonding attorney is accepting it works this way. I know, I asked you to talk to Mark Schachner our Town Attorney what it would cost for us to take this thing to court and definitely get an answer because, and I have been told, well, with all the taxes being raised and everything they believe this is going to be voted down. But, that is not what I am concerned about what I am concerned about is it bothers me that a Town Board who has the power to create laws can be over stepped by an opinion of an attorney on down the road. This bothers me, I do not think that things are supposed to work this way. I know I have been told that the legislature changes their minds and can do different things as far as laws are concerned. But, I just have the feeling that this law was passed by a referendum, passed by the voters here in the Town of Queensbury and I believe under constitutional law that if they want to change it they have to come back here to do it not just by somebody's decision down the road somewhere and I would like to find out whether that is so or not. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Didn't Mark in some memo somewhere along the line that we got that said legislation was passed last year to allow the Dormitory Authority to bond for this or buy bonds for this? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Well, essentially that is correct, legislation was passed last year that added Crandall Public Library as one of the facilities for which that type of financing might occur. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why did they change that legislation? MR. TUCKER-I know that all these laws have a history I do not know what they call, what do they call it Mark? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Legislative history MR. TUCKER-And I have a legislative history how the legislation notes and things. COUNCILMAN BREWER-What was the previous law Mark that they changed, can we find that out easy enough? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Yes, it is a list of other libraries that doesn't include Crandall Library. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Oh, that is all it is? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Correct. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Typically those in Dormitory Authority financing are of better interest rate? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Often. It is a powerful State agency with a good credit rating. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Who would go and ask for them to be included in that, the Library, the Board.. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I would suspect the motivation was that this a better form of financing better being defined as lower interest rate than what you could get by being limited to a local or more limited bonding agencies. I do not have a perception that this is some kind of smoke and mirrors you know tricky financing scheme.. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I would argue that the Town of Queensbury would have the opportunity to finance the bonds through the Dormitory Authority or any other agencies we so fit that would be at the lowest interest rate we possibly could get. If it were each municipality we would have the authority and the right to finance our debt obligation on our own regardless of who the library would like. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Fine but I am just saying why I think that is probably why they did what they did. I think it is being presumptuous to think that it is some sort of tricky you know or trying to take the decision out of the hands of the people type thing. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-As far as the liticitize of history goes, I mean Jim is right, it is not real fancy it is not real tricky and it is no big mystery. I have got the legislative history right here it is very, very short. I answer the question as simplistically as I did Tim's question because it is that simple. The law used to say the following libraries shall be eligible public libraries for purposes of title four of article eight of the public authority law which is a section of law that allows this type of financing. There was a list that previously included seven libraries the well know........ Public library the Rogers Memorial Library Company, the Hendrick Hudson Free Library, the River Head Free Library, the northern Ondogawa Public Library Distrist, the Suffern Free Library, and my favorite the Haverstraw Kings Daughters Public Library and to that list of seven was added last year in 1999 introduced in the Senate by Senator Stafford introduced in the Assembly by Assembly person Little approved on July 27th 1999 an act to amend etc. etc. etc. amending the public authorities law in relation to including the Crandall Public Library within the provisions of such chapter. I have read you now ninety five percent of the new law. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I do not disagree with you Dennis I amjust saying that I think that was the motivation behind it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Would we be able to if this were, if we were ...this legislation basically enable Crandall Public Library to be finances through the Dormitory Authority would it not allow individual municipalities to bond for that purpose? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-This legislation has nothing to do with allowing individual municipalities to bond for that purpose. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Henry what do you think the chances are that we could, we would be able to finance at similar interest rates to what the Dormitory Authority might be able to offer? Any comment at all? COMPTROLLER HESS-I have not looked to see what the interest rate is, because I really don't here again, my interest isn't so much in the financial cost here, I still think what you are talking about we are combining financial costs with the cost of giving up the right of the voters, I am still hung up on that to be honest with you. It is nice to say well we give the right of the voters away because we might save a percent or so interest and I am not sure that is what the original legislation intended. So, I really have not looked into see what the cost is because I as yet until there is an approval by the voters I do not see that as an issue. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-It also strikes me as COUNCILMAN BREWER-Do you look at the original legislation Mark? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Sorry? COUNCILMAN BREWER-Did you look at the original legislation that was...what is your opinion on it? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-It is here, what do you mean? COUNCILMAN BREWER-Your opinion as to whether the voters had the say in the Town or it had to be all three? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-There are apples and oranges here the original legislation clearly indicates that the Town Boards of Moreau, Queensbury, and the City Counsel of Glens Falls, have the power to authorize, sell and issues bonds and other financing steps and that the approval of each municipality is required for authorization and for the municipality to share the indebtedness, that is crystal clear that is not what is happening here this is a different method of financing through the Dormitory Authority, proposed. COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, to me it sounds pretty simple that when they did this it had to be Moreau, Glens Falls and Queensbury or none, correct? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I think you are over simplifying it. It had to be those three, it does not say or none it says for any of those three municipalities to do the financing all three must agree that is basically what it says. Here we do not have those three, anyone of those three municipalities or even any group of COUNCILMAN BREWER-It is the Dormitory Authority. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-That is correct. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think that is a double edge sword here to is rather than looking you know, rather than the people just within the district or one municipality accepting the burden and putting the good faith and credit of just that limited populous behind the bond we are spreading this over the entire State of New York by virtue of the Dormitory Authority which is you know from my stand point as a local tax payer that you know dilutes the pain a little bit if there is pain. You are distributing the burden over a greater population of people. It is not just the people within the district or within one municipality accepting the burden of backing those bonds it is the entire State of New York Dormitory Authority which is a more secure situation and a better one for the tax payers. COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, clearly Jim, I think we are still responsible for those bonds not the whole State of New York. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-If the Dormitory Authority backs those bonds and those bonds are defaulted upon who as to ? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I cannot answer that question without looking at the financing documents but I strongly suspect and that is all I can say, that the initial obligation lies with the three municipalities. So, that the Dormitory Authority itself would only have to come to the plate so to speak of the three municipalities defaulted and that is not going to happen. COUNCILMAN STEC- The original question is still there though, that has it changed from all three must approve to a majority of the entire district, because that is Pliney's question? MR. TUCKER-I want to know if the legislature had a right to do what they were doing and if they did it on the strength of Mark Leobowitz saying yea you can do it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I do not see any problem with what they did Pliney, what they did was say that it was just another avenue to finance. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-We did not have to choose it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-We do not have to chose it we can say no, the Town of Queensbury is going to borrow the money and back the bonds. I think all they did simply was they gave that avenue for the library to finance the bonds. MR. TUCKER-You passed a resolution to put a total amount of money on the ballot based on the interest rates that the library is going to get not what the Town of Queensbury is going to get based on what the library is going to get. But, the resolution that you put on the ballot was prepared by the Crandall Library this Board you guys did not have anything to say about it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yea, we did we could have said something they sent it. MR. TUCKER-You did not have a thing to say about that resolution that you put on the ballot. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Oh, yes we did Pliney because we approved it. If we did not approve it, it would not have went on the ballot. You are wrong. MR. TUCKER-You did not have anything to say how it was constructed. COUNCILMAN BREWER-If we felt that, that resolution was wrong we could have added our two cents we did not have to put it on the ballot did we? MR. TUCKER-All right here is another point. The finances are based on assessed valuation, Queensbury's share that they are paying that you allowed to go on the ballot will be more next year will be more the year after that. We are, the Town of Queensbury is assessed at one hundred percent assessed valuation, the Town of Moreau is not and I still believe the City of Glens Falls is not. They may be in the process of doing it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-There is no doubt in anybody's mind that Queensbury is paying more if that is what you are trying to make a point of. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-But doesn't the equalization rate ..addresses that. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Equalization should make up the difference I would think. MR. TUCKER-No, it doesn't guys. We went through that with the Lake George School District that is why we got one hundred percent assessed valuation because the equalization rate was not taking care of the people along Lake George, remember Ted? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think Moreau and Glens Falls are in the process of going to one hundred percent. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Glens Falls for sure is. Through our coordinated assessment program. MR. TUCKER-Are they taking some voting rights away from the people, if they are not all well and good. COUNCILMAN STEC-By that I think he means can one municipality veto COUNCILMAN BREWER-Turn down the vote. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I can say this if after the vote occurs on November 7th, if the vote occurs and Queensbury turns it down the majority of Queensbury voters turn it down I think then we would seek legal opinion. Because at that point in time we have got. MR. TUCKER-You mean, that you believe that the people are totally informed out there and they know that if they pass it even though this thing is not legal that is happening that it is going to be all right. Is that what you are saying? SUPERVISOR BROWER-If it is not legal, well first of all the Comptroller told us he did not think he would even get back to us telling us it would be he was not going to issue an opinion or he was before the election occurred. So, we never anticipated to hear from him but we did. MR. TUCKER-But now he told you he is not even going to. SUPERVISOR BROWER-But I would think though that if any Judge told us after the fact that he agreed with us that it would throw the election out I would assume, would you agree with me Mark, what is your presumption as to what might occur. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I might phrase this a little differently but if I am understanding what at least you are saying Dennis, and it is true that this is something of a hypothetical and meaningless debate, I do not mean it that way, but hypothetical debate that will not have any legal significance unless in fact one of the three municipalities does not carry the proposition but the proposition is carried by the over all majority of the residents of all three. If it goes down in all three this is pretty much a mute issue. If it is approved in all three this is pretty much a mute issue, where this becomes not a mute issue and perhaps maybe a very significant issue is if the popular vote so to speak carries the proposition but anyone of the three or two it could even be in theory of the three municipalities does not approve that and if that happens and if I am following what the Supervisor is saying if there is a legal challenge at that time a Court would rule on that and would not dismiss it as mute or irrelevant of hypothetical or abstract because you would have a real controversy. There would be a real fundamental difference in impact with whether the court upholds the validity of the vote or over turns it. I think what you asked was could a Court over turn the vote and the answer is yes. The Court has the power to do that, that is what a Court would do if the Court found that it felt that the means of calculating the vote so to speak was illegal. COUNCILMAN BREWER-And that is what you are saying Pliney, right? MR. TURNER-What I that? COUNCILMAN BREWER-That is the way it should be if one municipality votes it done it should not go, is that what you are saying, I am just trying to understand. MR. TUCKER-My personal feeling is I do not think the vote should have anything to do with it, the vote should not have any bearing on it. Whether the voters ok something whether it is right or wrong should be found out, the action that this library board has taken whether it is right or wrong whether they have a right to over ride town law. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Your basic point is that if one municipality turns this down it should not go. Is that what you are saying? SUPERVISOR BROWER-Yes, I believe that is what he is saying. MR. TUCKER-I believe what the legislation says. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Because as I understand it the legislation we are talking about all that does is allow them to borrow via the Dormitory Authority and if I am wrong please tell me. What you are saying is a whole different question. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-The way it gets to his question Tim if! can speak and tell me if! am wrong Pliney from your perspective, the way it gets to his question the legislation authorizes financing through the Dormitory Authority the type of financing going through the Dormitory Authority cannot, does not get vetoed if it does not carry in one municipality. Financing through any of the constituent municipalities does get vetoed if it does not go through one municipality I think that the crux of Mr. Tucker's problem with this. I am not suggesting that he is right or wrong. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why is there, there is not one we can ask the answer to that question we cannot propose that? SUPERVISOR BROWER-We asked the State Comptroller but they would not give us an opinion because they said all three municipalities did not approach them, Harry Guthiel approached them and I approached them but apparently the Mayor did not approach them and . COUNCILMAN BREWER-He will decide next Wednesday if that's what his decision is going to be? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-The other thing here SUPERVISOR BROWER-Well, Mary Beth Casey did tell me they are calculating the vote by municipality in other words there will be a total but each municipality. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-It is easy enough to do. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-They always do that. They would do that anyway that is how they calculate the vote. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I wasn't so sure I asked her today and she said absolutely. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Well lets pose a question this way, first of all wasn't it actively looked at the choice of establishing a satellite library facility as opposed to expanding their on site? COUNCILMAN BREWER-I think it was looked at as an option not necessarily not do the expansion as an addition. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-And the cost of that were more, were they not as I recall of that analysis to do a satellite facility? COUNCILMAN BREWER-I do not think that they ever really got true, how could a satellite be more than the whole expansion Jim? SUPERVISOR BROWER-I know when the library started it was going to be an eight to ten million dollar project and I think it is up to about thirteen million now or thirteen point eight million. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I thought I remember reading somewhere that the long term cost of a separate distinct building at another location with staff and all that cost more than expanding there on site. So, my point in saying that is that if you do not want the expansion that is one thing but if you are saying well maybe a separate distinct building at another location would be better from a finance from a cost point of view I thought was already explored. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I am not saying that at all. I am only concerned that I really think the in talking with again, former board members when they established the library taxing district it was their intent that issues that came before the three municipalities if one failed it, it went down to defeat. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-There has got to be some sort of case law on this where there are other taxing districts that span other, that span many municipalities and if they have a capital project. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-There is no generic rule it goes by specific legislation. These districts that span multi municipalities are typically creatures of State Legislature just like the Crandall Library District is. So, in other words you go by whatever rules apply to that particular legislation, there is not a generic rule. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Hadley Luzerne Library I understand had a similar case and I tried to get a hold of Larry Bennett all afternoon and I could not reach him. But, someone told me today they had heard that the Hadley Luzerne Library had a similar situation where both municipalities voted apparently Hadley turned it down Luzerne didn't and Hadley one way or the other one of the municipalities who ever turned it down refused to participate. Now I do not know if you are aware of anything like that, I tried to get a hold of Larry Bennett to verify it and see if he knew anything about it but I could not reach him today. MR. TUCKER-Mr. Chairman, what would it cost for our Attorney to research? SUPERVISOR BROWER-Mark said if he was unopposed it would be less than five thousand dollars, was that it? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-He is asking about research you are talking about litigation. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I am talking litigation. MR. TUCKER-I mean to research it up to before somebody says we are going to sue you. COUNCILMAN STEC-It is too late now, one and two it is mute if it passes anyway. I think what Mark said earlier was while don't we wait until next Tuesday, because it is not coming off the ballot and we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Tuesday if we find out that we turned it down. . . MR. TUCKER-Why do you feel it is mute if it passes, this situation? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Because the voters at that point well, you are right, it doesn't answer that specific question but it does answer it in its relationship to this one project. MR. TUCKER-No, if that was the case I would not be here talking to you tonight, if! felt that way. I do not feel that way. COUNCILMAN STEC- There is nothing that we can do to pull it off the ballot, now. MR. TUCKER-No, no what I all I am looking for Dan is I want to be satisfied if it gets turned down right, then we still don't have the answer to this we are going to go through this again. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well you are right we may cross this bridge again in which case we should maybe do it. I do not think that we need an answer between now and Tuesday. MR. TUCKER-I will let you in on a little secret SUPERVISOR BROWER-You have a valid point Mr. Tucker that we should probably get an answer to this in any case. Where or not we proceed to with action prior to the election is doubtful. MR. TUCKER-I will let you in on a little secret I am going to pay four hundred dollars toward this is I live another ten years I mean that is not bothering me. COUNCILMAN STEC-Four hundred dollars? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-What was the nature of the Comptrollers response did he say they would not or? TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-You should have it you do not have it? They said, short answer, yes, they said they would not. Not sometime later, they would not answer. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Ok. That is tough. COUNCILMAN BREWER-So, why don't we get a hold of the Mayor and see if he will go along with us and get the answer to it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I talked to the Mayor Friday. COUNCILMAN STEC-What did he say? COUNCILMAN BREWER-He did not give me an answer. Lets get an answer from the Mayor and we will get the question answered I do not have a problem with that. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You are assuming that he wants to get an answer to it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well if he doesn't then lets ask him why he doesn't. If he doesn't why doesn't he. COUNCILMAN STEC-You asked the Mayor if he wanted to find out the answer to this question and he said no? SUPERVISOR BROWER-No, he did not say no, he said I want to think about that over the weekend and I will let you know Monday. COUNCILMAN STEC-All right today is Monday. COUNCILMAN TUCKER-Where are we at? SUPERVISOR BROWER-Where are we, I think you have made a valid point Mr. Tucker I think MR. TUCKER-What are we going to do? COUNCILMAN STEC-He wants to know if we are going to follow through. SUPERVISOR BROWER-What are we going to do, I don't what we are going to do at this moment but. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I don't know what we can do Pliney because the only thing, the way I interpret SUPERVISOR BROWER-I will poll the board, how many members on the Board would like an answer to the question? COUNCILMAN STEC-I would like an answer to the question there are three. COUNCILMAN TURNER-I would like an answer UNKNOWN-Four.. . five MR. TUCKER-The whole Board does. SUPERVISOR BROWER- In that case Mark we will ask you to proceed and try to obtain an answer for us if possible from a Court I would assume. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-You are saying before the vote? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Regardless of the outcome of the vote? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yes. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Regardless of the outcome of the vote. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Understand, we are happy to do that if you want, understand that there is a risk that a Court will say, we will not rule on this because it is not an actual viable issue relative to a particular project. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Right that is what I think you are going to get. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-And just understand that. SUPERVISOR BROWER-So, you are telling me that it would be best to wait until after the election is that what you are just. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-No, then I am miss-understanding your answer to my previous question. I thought, I asked you before the election you said no, not before the election so we are not talking about before the election. COUNCILMAN STEC-A separate time line. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-So, what I am saying is SUPERVISOR BROWER-Who says not before the election? COUNCILMAN STEC-Because it is mute, it doesn't matter before the election. UNKNOWN-There is no way he is going to get it before the election. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Well let me see if! can make this a little easier, it is too late in my opinion to meaningfully get judicial opinion prior to the election. So, a lot of agrees, but Dennis was still talking about before the election. Now you are saying, I think what you are saying is you would like us to bring an appropriate legal action to get a judicial opinion or judicial determination of this issue sometime after the election. COUNCILMAN STEC-No, we want your opinion. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Our opinion, that is easy, our opinion is that the legislation appears from what we can tell to have been validly enacted and we are not judges I cannot tell you whether a court is going to say that because the legislation that was enacted last year seems to frustrate a portion of the purpose of the legislation enacted in 1992 that, that makes it legal or not legal. The general principal that we have told you before is that the New York State legislature like this Queensbury Town Board and like any other elected group of municipal or governmental officials can change its mind about certain things. We cannot give you any better opinion that we have given you. The legislation COUNCILMAN STEC-Pliney's question was that when this district was initially set up at this level we said this is the rules for the district, now Pliney's question is can the State change those rules on us? We said that TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-The first part of what you said is not the entire story. The Crandall Public library district as I understand it was in fact created by the New York State Legislature not just by the local municipalities but by the MR. TUCKER-We created the legislation that was sent to them. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-And you care a lot about who drafted things and who created things and as Town Counsel we don't care who wrote it. Mr. Tucker earlier said that you know for example had no input into the resolution putting this thing on the ballot that mayor may not be true but the fact is you voted on it, it does not matter from our perspective as Town Counsel who is the author of something similarly it does not really matter from our legal opinion perspective who is the author of what we adopted in 1992. The fact is something was adopted in 1992 by the New York State Legislature the second me, correct me if I am wrong but that is my understanding, you do not disagree with that I assume. Something else was adopted by the New York State legislature in 1999 the practical effect and the legal significance of the two things that were adopted one in 1992 and one in 1999 seem to be at odds with one another, but the 199, each of them seem to have been validly adopted by the New York State Legislature. A Court may say yes, they do not agree but the New York State Legislature like this legislative body has the right as we have said previously to change its mind and if the 1999 legislative act was validly adopted there is a substantial possibility that a Court is going to say that is a valid piece of legislation. We cannot tell you any more definitely than we have told you. It is certainly possible that a Court could say no it is not a valid piece of legislation but we cannot hold any bid... COUNCILMAN BREWER-Can we go the simple route here can we call Bob Reagan tomorrow and say, Bob will you go along with the two municipalities and lets get an answer and settle this once and for all. COUNCILMAN STEC-IfMoreau wants an answer and Queensbury wants an answer then public opinion should prohibit Glens Falls from not wanting an answer. The other two partners, two out of three partners want an answer the City ought to want an answer to and we should get Bob to nail down this ... COUNCILMAN BREWER-Is that the easiest way to do it? COUNCILMAN STEC-If all three of us write the Comptroller and say we want they will give us an answer. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Maybe they might. They said they may not. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That does not cost us anything does it... so lets do that. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-It is very very simple, just understand what Dennis is saying they have not promised to give an answer but yes, simple. COUNCILMAN BREWER-But that is the easiest way to go wouldn't you think? SUPERVISOR BROWER-yes. One thing does bother me about this, this came up late in the year compared to the time to vote, we had questions we reconvened a second meeting, we did not have a lot of time I do not think any Board Member here wanted to keep the public from voting on this issue, however I would hate to think that by allowing this to go to vote we have subsequently eliminated out rights as to this issue and I certainly hope that, that has not been the case because if it is I will be very disappointed. COUNCILMAN STEC-I will be upset. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I do not think you have prejudiced your position one way or the other. SUPERVISOR BROWER-We allowed it to go to a vote so, someone might look at the fact that we passed the vote unanimously and said well gee they let it go to vote so they knew what they were voting on, obviously. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-I guess somebody could take that position but in our opinion COUNCILMAN BREWER-We honestly did know Dennis we knew what we knew what we were doing and I will speak for myself SUPERVISOR BROWER-We did know what we were doing but we also had some questions that were unanswered. COUNCILMAN BREWER- we knew we were putting this on the ballot to let the voters say whether or not, well we just got told this was a legal legislation that was passed as far we are concerned right now. COUNCILMAN STEC-We never discussed this issue when we put it on the ballot. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Not so, SUPERVISOR BROWER-We did discuss this. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-And we sent you a memo that specifically stated it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-We did not want to prevent the voters in Queensbury from voting, from having an opportunity to vote on the issue. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Where is this different Mark, you know, just comparing the two like say a School district has got you know crosses municipal borders which we have in this area several instances like that, say just hypothetically the Glens Falls School District budget comes up and the majority of the voters in the Town of Queensbury that comprise the Lake George or the Glens Falls School District decides no we do not want the school budget this year, are we going to say then that, that segment of the MR. TUCKER-That has no bearing. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-And you know the answer COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Why doesn't it, it is the same thing. MR. TUCKER-It doesn't have no bearing they belong to the school district. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-So, we belong to the library district, it is no different. COUNCILMAN STEC-It is a whole different section oflaw. MR. TUCKER-It is a different law. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I am just saying on principal where is that different? If you have got residents in the Town of Queensbury who go to Glens Falls School District and that is the case here and say we have a majority of the residents of that, of Queensbury are in that Glens Falls School District vote no on the School Budget TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-You could have everyone of them. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Should they be then entitled not to pay for their proportionate share of the school budget? COUNCILMAN BREWER-No because it reverts back to the budget the year before doesn't it? COUNCILMAN STEC-It is a different law. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I know it is a different law but on principal where is it any different. COUNCILMAN STEC-Because if the original law 1992 was drafted specifically to allow that provisions COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Be that as it may where is it any different? COUNCILMAN BREWER-Just what Dan said and what Pliney is saying. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-You are going to opt out of that share of the budget because the people in that jurisdiction that part of the jurisdiction didn't vote yes. COUNCILMAN STEC-It fails, it gets vetoed it fails if one municipality says no. COUNCILMAN BREWER-The intention of that legislation COUNCILMAN STEC-It does not stick the other two with their share it just doesn't pass. COUNCILMAN BREWER-No it doesn't. MR. TUCKER-It does not. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-If the majority of the people in the Glens Falls on the city line said of that district vote yes and that carries the vote then the budget is adopted. COUNCILMAN BREWER-But you said it backwards. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-No he is right. Actually every single person I am not, I am just flushing this out, there are way, way, way more, tell me if I am wrong on the numbers but I cannot imagine, there are way, way way more Glens Falls City residents in the Glens Falls School District but there is a small number of Queensbury residents in the School District so never mind a majority every COUNCILMAN STEC-It could still pass. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHER-That is right. COUNCILMAN STEC- They would be obligated to pay that. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-Correct. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I agree. Why then in principal is that any different. MR. TUCKER-Because education law is different than the law we are talking about. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-All that be as it may I am saying on principal where is that different. COUNCILMAN STEC-Because that is not how it was set up in 1992 it is a different law. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I say we just call Bob Reagan tomorrow get an answer from him, yes or no and if he says no then we put it in the paper that Bob Reagan said no. COUNCILMAN STEC-Do you just say, Bob. Queensbury and Moreau want you intermunicipal cooperation. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thank you Gentlemen, ok, I think we will move on then I think we have beat that one to death but rightly so. It was a spirited discussion. Thank you Mr. Tucker. COUNCILMAN STEC-Mark wants to know what we want him to do? I thought we were asking you for your opImon. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think we are asking him more than he is able to give you, he is not judge. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-That is right. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I think we ask the Mayor tomorrow a simple yes and then we will go to the Comptroller and then we will get an answer. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I will ask the Mayor tomorrow if the Mayor agrees then Moreau, the City and the Town will go to the Comptroller and ask beg them for an opinion on this matter even though they may likely say no they will not issue an opinion. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-That way as a joint request of the three municipalities because the letter from the Comptroller does say among other things in the absence of a joint request. All right, do you want us if the result of that is that the City says yes go ahead and ask do you want us to confirm that and make the written request. Board agreed. SUPERVISOR BROWER-We ask that you draft a written request and ask them to give us a quick response if they would. TOWN COUNSEL SCHACHNER-We will be happy to do that. COUNCILMAN STEC-Although the City has everything to loose and nothing to gain by getting an answer. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Now, just so the board knows if the Mayor does agree and we do make the request the chances of us getting an answer before the election is very remote. COUNCILMAN STEC- That is irrelevant that does not matter. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That does not matter we just want an answer. MR. TUCKER-Mr. Chairman, as an interested party knowing that the Mayor returns phone calls right a way promptly and answers questions promptly how long are we going to wait from him to give an answer to this. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I hope that he will be able to give me an answer tomorrow. MR. TUCKER-I know you hope,.. SUPERVISOR BROWER- Especially after he reads John Geroux article I am sure he will be right on the phone. MR. TUCKER-All I want to know is how long the Board is going to wait for him to give you an answer. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well, if he does not give us an answer we cannot write that letter. He can tell us to go scratch and we are done. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Well, now, now, you can always get back to the age old thing you can ask the Counsel if they want to go because he is only one person. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thank you Mr. Tucker. I appreciate it. Now we are going to go back COUNCILMAN STEC- The 14th Pliney, meet with the City. SUPERVISOR BROWER-No not the 14th I am out of Town I told you guys I am on vacation. COUNCILMAN STEC-Well then it will be a really good meeting, I will run the meeting the 14th. COUNCILMAN BREWER-We are not going to take any action on anything. SUPERVISOR BROWER-No, meeting on the 14th thank you boys. Just so you know, no meeting on the 14th. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why not. COUNCILMAN STEC-We have three votes. SUPERVISOR BROWER-South Queensbury Fire Budget Review. 2.2 Who is here representing the South Queensbury Fire Company. COUNCILMAN TURNER-George and Dave. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Three gentlemen, would you guys come forward and grab a chair and come up to the mic? Henry are you prepared to assist in this? COMPTROLLER HESS-I can state what I know has brought this to the surface here, when we reconciled the financial the 1999 financial statements for the South Queensbury Fire Company a couple of things came out. One is that they had under spent operating funds and over spent the restricted reserve fund. We made the adjustment for the under expenditure of the operating funds to their check which is the way it is handled and under the terms of the contract, and let them know that they owed the, that they needed to repay the restricted reserve fund forty thousand dollars which they had taken and spent from it without town board approval. Since that time they have come in we have talked about a their need for cash. Apparently they are running short of cash and we sat down and looked at the timing of the vehicle, the time they receive the vehicle and when they expected to receive it and how the under expenditure of operating funds occurred in 1999. Because they were sort of holding back money to outfit that truck and it did not happen until the year 2000, which caused them a timing delay. So, we have sat down and re-looked at their financial reports and I can concur that to the extent that they under spent their operating budget to the tune of around eighteen thousand dollars I can justify making a timing adjustment between two thousand expenditure and retro applying them back to 1999. That does not alleviate the forty thousand dollar over expenditure in restricted reserve fund and that is going to the restricted vehicle fund. That is causing them a cash flow problem. One of the resolutions before you tonight is to allow them to apply approximately twenty thousand dollars of those outfitting expenses to that fund and then pay back the other twenty thousand we are using round numbers here. That in addition to the check for around eighteen dollars I would be giving them would carry them through but they would still have a twenty thousand dollar obligation to the Town. So, with that when the resolution came out and I notified the Board you though it was worth talking to the fire company about how they got into that situation and to make a decision as to whether they are going to approve the twenty thousand dollars applied to the vehicle with a debt of twenty thousand or whether you are going to look for the whole forty thousand dollars back. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thank you. Gentlemen would you each introduce yourself and give us your name and address please. MR. DAVID JONES-My name is David Jones, Chief, live on the Boulevard, Town of Queensbury. MR. CHARLES HILLEBRANDT -Charles Hillebrandt, Vice President of South Queensbury I live on 7 Bell Avenue, Queensbury. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-George Rozakis, Treasurer, 404 Dix, Queensbury SUPERVISOR BROWER-Can you give us a little background as to how you got in the situation that you are in currently? MR. DAVID JONES-Well first of all we did not go on a trip or nothing and spend the money, the money was spent on the vehicles. COUNCILMAN BREWER-On what vehicles? MR. DAVID JONES-We bought a new rescue truck, and that we spent like nineteen thousand more on that than was approved by the Town I guess, Henry's figures and our figures are different. SUPERVISOR BROWER-So, you did not come to the Town for approval prior to buying that? MR. DAVID JONES-Yea. But not at that price. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Not at that price. MR. DAVID JONES-We put extra stuff on it. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-How did it get over priced by that much was it a manufacturers increase or? MR. DAVID JONES-Part of it was part of it we did not have a big enough motor in it to run everything. Part of it the generator was not big enough to run the air system in it so that had to be bigger. They did not like, first they want to put a whole great big cage in the truck but we explained that we did not need that whole cage it would cost them more to configure it so it would fit in the side of the truck instead of resting between the two rails on the truck. Do you understand what I am saying there? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Typically aren't these things spec out before so you know the size of the motor, I mean the size of the generator and things like that? MR. DAVID JONES-Yea they are supposed to be. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Than it was just an over sight on, I am not looking to point figures, I am just trying to figure out what happened. MR. DAVID JONES-We figured it was better to spend a little extra money than to get something that wasn't quite up to our expectations. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I understand that your company was the only company that acquired three vehicles, for your department instead of one vehicle which was authorized by the town board and then recently you have purchased a fourth is that correct? So you have four vehicles we wanted you to have one with so you have three additional vehicles is this causing the cash flow problem? MR. DAVE JONES-Two came out of the town money and two came out of fund raising. SUPERVISOR BROWER-George you kind of shook your head yes. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You shook your head no. ok. I thought you were shaking your head yes. Henry do I understand this correctly if the resolution before us today if we accept this resolution whether we accept it or don't accept it the fire company will get eighteen thousand dollars, approximately and they will either, if we accept it they will owe us twenty thousand dollars which they will pay back over a period time if we don't accept it they will owe us forty thousand dollars which they will pay back over a period of time. Is that basically the way it comes down? COMPTROLLER HESS-Correct. In a nut shell that is the way it works yes. The eighteen thousand we are making an adjustment for that and I think it is within the purview of my office to do that, we are administrating the contract and it is valid and they will not get credit. They are going to have to watch next years financial statements because they will get, if they do not watch them carefully they will get hit again. But, yes, they will get the eighteen thousand dollars in cash the question is whether they will owe you twenty or owe you forty. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Now, Gentlemen do you have any thing else to add to let us know what your position is, I mean, do any of you, George you are the treasurer, do you have anything to add to what has been said? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No, overspending on the rescue the vehicles that you are talking about have nothing to do with it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Where did the money come from for those vehicles. MR. DAVE JONES-Two of them came from fund raising and two from out of the town money. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-Two fund raising and two out of the money that was allotted for Chiefs vehicles. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Again, the long and the short of it from our point of view, see is that the intent was for one vehicle out of town money, what you do with your fund raising obviously is your own thing and I wish you the best of that but from our point of view I guess at least speaking from me anyhow is that one vehicle had been purchased out of the Town money there would potentially be money there that could at least further off set this overage. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why not. MR. DAVE JONES-Because there was not that much money. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-You leased them correct? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-We were allotted six thousand a year for a Chiefs vehicle and at the time we had met with you guys in that room over there we had mentioned we could get two KIA you could buy two KIA if you wanted to as long as you did not go over six thousand dollars a year. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Wasn't that said in jest? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-We don't know, we did not know, if we had thought that we would have questioned it. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Come on we are all grown men, our intention, why, then why would every other fire company in this town buy one. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-Well it could not have been because there was a letter sent out to every fire company meaning, stating that the board only mean one. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I wrote that letter. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Because I will tell you the reason we said six thousand dollars because one of the fire companies came to us and said it would cost in the vicinity of five to six hundred dollars a month to rent the type of vehicle they need we said ok, that is a reasonable price. Well, put six thousand dollars aside then we found out that you bought two and I can quite frankly tell you I was very up set when I found out that you had four now and you are starving for money. I do not see, if my daughter asked me for a dime for candy and had a bag of candy in her pocket and wanted another nickel you think I would give it to her that is obsurbe. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-But it is not coming out of Town money, Tim. COUNCILMAN BREWER-George where does the money come from? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-From funding raising. COUNCILMAN BREWER-All your money came from fund raising. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No, the two Chiefs vehicles that we got two for came out of Town money we were allowed five hundred a month six thousand a year, we leased two trucks it came to five hundred a month and that covers us for the six thousand. We got two vehicles instead of one. Some people got one vehicle for six thousand dollars a year so there is no money being over spent there. SUPERVISOR BROWER-I can truly tell you that I would like to see the day come pretty soon where all fire companies are restricted to one vehicle for a Chief. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- Y ou know our situation because we have a three year lease. SUPERVISOR BROWER-You have got a three year lease COUNCILMAN BREWER-You couldn't back out of the lease? MR. DAVID JONES-We tried that we asked the sales man about taking one of them back and he said yes if you want to payoff the lease. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Why did you go out and buy the fourth one that is what I do not understand? You guys knew I had a problem with the three why did you go out and get a used one from West Glens Falls? MR. DAVID JONES-Our first responder program with Bay Ridge Rescue Squad right now that equipment is on a four hundred thousand dollar rescue truck and they. . . today we are not too particular on having everybody is not qualified to drive that truck, we bought the other car to replace one of the Jimmys so we could put the stuff in that so that everybody could drive that, instead of taking the big truck all the time. Because today somebody drove it that were not qualified to drive it they almost got into an accident they didn't and that is .. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Why would somebody even get in it if they were not qualified to drive it? I mean that is internal but. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-It just strikes me again from my perspective that you know I think a rescue truck and tell me if I am wrong, on the scale of things and the priority of things is of a greater priority and a greater importance than Chiefs trucks so called. Is that a fair statement? MR. DAVID JONES-Yes. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Well then if! have got X number of dollars and I have got to buy a rescue truck or four Chiefs trucks I would like to put my resources towards purchasing that rescue truck and now with all this money tied up whether it be leases or fund raising or whatever in these Chiefs trucks and you are committed now for three years now we cannot pay for the higher priority rescue truck. That is where I am coming from and I am not here, you know to make you look bad I am not chastising I am just saying from a priority level you know, given the importance of what a fire company does I would rather have the rescue truck than, and I am not saying no don't get the Chiefs truck, but maybe if we could cut back on three of them and have some more resources to dedicate toward the more important vehicle. COUNCILMAN BREWER-What would happen if you went to Della and said we cannot pay for these leases, what would they do? UNKNOWN-Take them back. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Yea, but there would be a penalty. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Well pay the penalty it is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than what they are paying for two more years, isn't it? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I do not know that is an analysis you have to do over the course of the lease, I do not know whether that would, you know, you would have to see. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I understand you r needs and I don't want to take anything away from any fire company but I am sorry other fire men came up to me and said what the hell is the matter with these people? I am not saying that because I dislike you because I like you but it is just not responsible. COUNCILMAN STEC-We have a lot of fire companies come and sit down at budget time and at contract time with us and they were surprised and they started going over their budget line by line and they were talking about how many pairs of gloves they went through a year and how many cases of soda they went through a year and we were scratching our heads and my personal thought why were they doing this, apparently I gathered from my own research that previous boards got, wanted to get to that level. They were so far into it that they wanted to know where every case of soda went and where every pair of gloves went and now I know why, they did that. We did not want to play that game, but I can understand why you had other boards that had gone over every line item and nit picked how many cases of soda and it is because of situations like this. I personally feel that you took advantage of this board. That is how I feel, you were writing checks knowing that this Board was going to bail you out and it bothers me. MR. DAVID JONES-Write checks to who? COUNCILMAN STEC- Y ou over spent yourself financially and irresponsibly in my opinion. MR. DAVID JONES-No we didn't MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No we did not. MR. DAVID JONES -So, how do you draw that conclusion? COUNCILMAN STEC-Because you are here twenty thousand dollars short that is why. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-And you are saying that has to do with the two trucks that are leased from Della? COUNCILMAN STEC- Y ou knew that we were pissed when you went out and got two because he sent you a letter the very next day after it was a four one vote that we passed the contracts then since that date in the last eight months you picked up two more. You think that we like that? At the same time you went out and bought a truck that was under spec and you had to spend more money to get the right truck and you committed funds to that knowing that this is where the money is coming from that bothers me and that bothers a lot of people and that bothers the other boards that is why you had boards in the past that said how many cans of soda you go through a year. We should not have to worry about how many cans of soda you go through a year but I can understand why other boards have done that now, because of a situation like this. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-We would still be here if we had one Chiefs truck. COUNCILMAN STEC-Somehow, we did not miss manage your money, there is a financial problem here and it is not this boards doing. MR. DAVID JONES -You did not give us all of our money. COUNCILMAN STEC- Y ou are still twenty thousand short even if we give you the eighteen thousand from the left over from last year you are still twenty grand short. We did not do that, we did not go and buy a truck. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- Yea, but you are trying to put that we are short because we had two Chiefs vehicles that still come to six thousand dollars a year, we would still be here if we had one. COUNCILMAN STEC-But you went out and picked up two more. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-But that had nothing to do with that, that is a fund raising. COUNCILMAN STEC-But what Jim's point is, is that you are treating these separate piles of money separately you have got a fire department to run and you are short on cash and maybe had you said this fund raising that I am doing is going to cover this error that I made when I ordered this rescue truck because I did not order the right one and now I need more money to make it the right one. You could have funneled money the right, a better way to avoid the situation. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Based on the numbers that I am seeing you are right, you probably would have been here for some amount but it would have been less. I am just saying it would have been less. This is public money that we are dealing with here it is not just like a open check book. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- What we are doing is, we spend six thousand dollars a year whether you own one truck or you got four its. COUNCILMAN BREWER-George is all reality when and I am just putting it as a perspective that when your four cars are driving around this town and I know you are doing your job you are trying to do your best and John Q public sees four vehicles going down the road Jesus Christ what is this a club? That what was said to me. COUNCILMAN STEC- That is what bothers me, you know who I am and you know where I come, and it bothers me to have to sit here and say dam they embarrassed us. This is a bad situation and it bothers me from my upbringing I am close to the fire service, this situation stinks and it bothers me and I want you to know that and it bothers me to have to have this conversation. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-But again, MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-I understand what you are thinking as far as imagery, that I understand but as far as spending more for two vehicles vs one vehicle that is not true. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Beyond imagery though if you got six thousand dollars in a town vehicle fund and then six thousand dollars in a fund raising money alright you have a total of twelve thousand dollars for four vehicles. Just to simply the argument that is about three thousand dollars per vehicle, right, I am just saying that if I were in your shoes I would rather get by on one Chiefs truck for three thousand dollars, take my six thousand dollars of funding raising money apply it to the rescue truck because it is of a greater priority a greater importance and take my three thousand dollars in what I would say savings on the Town money apply it to that and now I have taken a nine thousand bite out of it and if you would have come here to this Board with that approach you would not even be here tonight, we would have just. . . COUNCILMAN STEC-No problem SUPERVISOR BROWER-Of course it is complicated to George because West Glens Falls was getting rid of two additional vehicles that they bought with none fireamatic money so that they would have just one Chiefs vehicle for the entire company and you bought one of those so, it was. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Because we allowed six thousand dollars doesn't mean that you have to spend six thousand. COUNCILMAN STEC-Right, just because you have a line item that says here is six grand. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Especially if you have a rescue truck that came in over priced. MR. DAVID JONES -On the other hand you gave us two hundred and forty or two hundred and twenty two thousand dollars last year right we did not spend eighteen thousand of it and you took it back, so don't tell me if you give it to us we don't spend it there is no problem because that is why we are here. SUPERVISOR BROWER-We do not have an argument on the eighteen thousand we do not have the argument on the eighteen thousand that is we believe that is legitimate and that you are going to get that check regardless. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS -There is one year that we never even got truck fund money. We were the only company in the Town that did not receive a truck fund. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Did you need a truck at the time? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS -Well no, you build it up so when you do need it you have it. COUNCILMAN STEC-Not all vehicles are bought with a truck fund. COMPTROLLER HESS-Let me just say that George is right, but, the fact is this is the only squad that went out and bought a four hundred thousand dollar truck, last year they needed a four hundred thousand dollar truck and the board found ways through debt services enough to get it. Even though it is not in the truck fund when you need a truck it comes along. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I just want to convey the message I respect what you people do, I think you are the finest people in this community that serve in this fire service I am not undercutting that you are the fabric of this community I do not undercut that a bit, I went into this budget discussion with that in the back of mind and any of the companies or squads that you talk to that is how at least I conducted myself. What I am saying now is you know, I am just asking you to try and be a little bit more financially responsible. This is not just well I will come and get a tongue lashing and go on my merry way and do it again, it just cannot be this way. At some point there has to be accountability. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I would like to see if you could turn those vehicles back in and save some money, at least one. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-At least the one leased one that is on the town money and keep the one. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Is there any other, do you have anything else for the board at this time? Would you like to say anything else? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-No, that was it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Ok. Thank you very much. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I think there is a lesson to be learned in here about specking out a truck and all that stuff. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- The imagery part of it, trust me Tim I understand that I talked to Dennis about it, but it wasn't that we went over the six thousand. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I understand exactly but it gives that perception that the Town the fire company had to come to the Town to get forty thousand but they are driving around in five new vehicles, or four new vehicles, whatever. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Let me ask this question at least tell me this much to make hopefully make me feel better, when you went out and ordered those two trucks on the Town money did you know this rescue truck was going to be over this much? MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-At that time no. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Thank God for that. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thank you Gentlemen. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Would you guys be willing to see if you could break one of the leases for one of the cars? You would? COUNCILMAN MARTIN-And what the penalty would be. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-First we will see what the penalty and if it ruins our credit, I do not know how that works. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-Can you get back to Henry about that...Ifthere is a savings even if it is a couple of grand or fifteen hundred at least it is something. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I do not see why you would have to, well there is different ways you can approach that. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-I am sure that GMAC is not going to lose whatever. COUNCILMAN BREWER-They are not going to lose the price of the vehicle that is for certain. MR. DAVE JONES-Should we ask Della or GMAC? COUNCILMAN BREWER-You leased three of them from one place? MR. DAVE JONES-GMAC COUNCILMAN BREWER-Then go to GMAC. They are the people that are either going to get the money or not get the money right. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- What I will do is call them up and see what the stipulation was and how it works. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I am sure there is a clause in the lease to break that lease there would have to be. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS- The bad way to go it not pay for it and then have. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I am not saying to do that. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-No don't default on it but see if you can what the penalty is for turning the vehicle in early. MR. GEORGE ROZAKIS-And I can get back to Henry and tell him what they say. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-If there is any sort of net I would say from my position anything more than a thousand dollars net gain I will take it. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Ok. Thank you Gentlemen, appreciate you coming tonight. It is time to go to resolution 1.2 RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING PAYMENTS TO AND FROM SOUTH QUEENSBURY VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY, INC. RESOLUTION NO.: 426.2000 MOTION FAILED INTRODUCED BY: Mr. James Martin WHO MOVED ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHEREAS, the Town of Queensbury and the South Queensbury Volunteer Fire Company, Inc. (Fire Company) have contracted for fire protection services and such Agreement is in full force and effect, and WHEREAS, the Agreement sets forth a number of terms and conditions, including a provision that expenditures may be charged against the Company's Restricted Vehicle Fund only when authorized by the Town Board, and WHEREAS, by Memorandum dated October 19th, 2000, the Town Comptroller has advised the Town Board that the Fire Company's 1999 audited financial reports reveal that: LAs a result of the Fire Company's new fire truck being delivered late in January 2000 rather than in December 1999, the Fire Company under-spent its 1999 Operating Funds by $18,095, resulting in a charge of that amount against the Fire Company's Year 2000 Contract Payments; and 2.The Fire Company spent $39,277 more from its Year 2000 Restricted Vehicle Fund than was authorized by the Town Board; and WHEREAS, the Town Comptroller has met with Fire Company officials in an attempt to resolve the Fire Company's immediate cash flow requirements and recommends that the Town Board authorize the Fire Company to charge certain year 2000 truck-outfitting expenditures to its 1999 Operations budget; and WHEREAS, the Town Comptroller recommends that certain other year 2000 truck-outfitting expenditures be authorized against the Restricted Vehicle Fund, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby approves and authorizes the following actions: 1.The South Queensbury Volunteer Fire Company, Inc. (Fire Company) shall retroactively apply two invoices totaling $18,101 which were paid with Year 2000 funds for new truck outfitting expenses to offset the $18,095 the Fire Company under-spent in its Year 1999 Operating Funds. The Town Board authorizes immediate payment of $18,095 to the Fire Company against its Year 2000 contract payments, thus meeting the Fire Company's cash needs for the remainder of the Year 2000. 2.By deducting the $18,101 from the Year 2000 truck outfitting expenditures totaling $38,634, the Fire Company has incurred an additional $20,533 in truck outfitting expenses. The Town Board hereby authorizes that the $20,533 be charged against the Restricted Vehicle Fund. 3.The Town Board authorizes and directs the Fire Company to pay back the remaining $18,744 over- expenditure from the Restricted Truck Fund to the Town over the remaining two years of the current Agreement with the Town (2001 and 2002). Such repayment shall be made by the Fire Company's transfer of operating funds to the Restricted Vehicle Fund; otherwise, the Town shall withhold its scheduled payments to the Restricted Vehicle Fund; and BE IT FURTHER, RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Comptroller's Office to make any necessary budget transfers and amendments and take any and all action necessary to effectuate the terms of this Resolution. Duly adopted this 30th day of October, 2000, by the following vote: AYES Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner NOES Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower ABSENT: None DISCUSSION HELD BEFORE VOTE: COUNCILMAN STEC-I just want to make sure that we are crystal clear on what this resolution does, Henry. COMPTROLLER HESS-The eighteen thousand is going to be timing adjustment and it has been justified and we have got it so they are going to get eighteen thousand dollars or there abouts in a payment that we had deducted from their payment last month, they are now going to get that because they have justified it with paid bills. The question here is are you going to let them pay twenty thousand dollars of the money they used on that rescue truck and apply it against the restricted reserve fund or are you not. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Does that just fill back up their bank? In otherwords what are they going to use that twenty thousand for. COMPTROLLER HESS-The twenty thousand dollars would come back into the restricted reserve fund and be used toward some future approved purchase. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Absolutely not. COMPTROLLER HESS-So they either pay it back to the restricted reserve fund or they don't so they either owe the restricted reserve fund twenty thousand or forty thousand depending on whether you approve or disapprove the resolution. COUNCILMAN STEC-In the mean time are they going to be able to operate get through the rest of the year? COMPTROLLER HESS-Yes, I am making sure that they can operate. SUPERVISOR BROWER- And you have worked out some kind of payment schedule, right. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-They are repaying it, it is not that they just get it free and clear. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yea, but we are putting it into an account so that they can buy another vehicle sometime and I think that is unfair. COMPTROLLER HESS-With Town Board approval. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Whether we approve it or not or whether we are not the ones that approve it I would not give them twenty thousand to put back into the Bank so that some point on they could buy another truck. That is crazy. COUNCILMAN STEC-If we vote no what does that do to them? COMPTROLLER HESS-If you vote no on this they owe forty thousand to the fund if you vote yes they only owe twenty thousand to the fund. MR. TUCKER-Henry, isn't that, if I remember correctly the twenty thousand that you are talking about is going to help pay for the rescue truck that they have got. COMPTROLLER HESS-No, that has been done. MR. TUCKER-That is all paid for? COMPTROLLER HESS-The twenty thousand, the difference between whether they pay back you are right they spent that on the rescue truck but they spent if without the Town Board approval so, COUNCILMAN STEC-I am already hearing rumor that they are talking about another vehicle. COMPTROLLER HESS-Actually, I did not discuss it at the time but they did buy another one out of sequence I understand. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-They have got to come here first and the problem being with this one is that, this was an approved vehicle but as you heard they paid for more of a vehicle than was authorized. COMPTROLLER HESS-They outfitted it with more than was, than they disclosed when they first bought it. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-That is why I asked the questions about the specifications. COMPTROLLER HESS-But, I understand that, I guess they left, but I understand that they traded a vehicle that was due for trading in 2001 or 2002 because we keep a capital replacement schedule a vehicle replacement schedule and apparently they replaced one this year out of sequence that we were not ...COUNCILMAN BREWER-What was that? COMPTROLLER HESS-I am not sure which vehicle it was. COUNCILMAN BREWER-How much was it? COMPTROLLER HESS-It was one of their lower I think it was like forty thousand dollars. I am not sure how they did that. COUNCILMAN STEC-They can do that on their own though, they can change that schedule? COMPTROLLER HESS-Well, using their own money, they can not use the Town Board's money they can use their own money. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Yea, but where do you think they got forty thousand dollars of their own money there Henry? COMPTROLLER HESS-I would imagine that is why they are begging, that is why we need this money here. COUNCILMAN BREWER-I am sorry I have never said no to a fire company. ... COUNCILMAN STEC-Henry I would exercise maximum controls of this company. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Lets vote. PROPOSAL SEWER AGREEMENTS SUPERVISOR BROWER-We have a proposal Henry and Ralph, Mike and myself met and discussed sewer agreements with Glens Falls and the potential and developed some perimeters and Ralph and Mike if you would like to come forward and Henry kind of summarized... WATER SUPT. RALPH V ANDUSEN-I would start off very quickly we have not been able to advance very far in our negotiations with the city under the current format. I know that it was my feeling that it is time for Queensbury to put together a package or a counter offer, it just seems that previous discussions were headed in one direction and one direction only and possibly a counter offer can put it back on a tangent or a path I guess is a better word, that is going to be much easier and much more effective for Queensbury to manage the growth of the Sewer Districts. That is what we would like to work toward tonight. COUNCILMAN STEC- This I assume was prepared in conjunction with the comments from Town Counsel, with your memo does this duck tail with that at all? COMPTROLLER HESS-This is a result, we have had a couple of meetings with Bob Hanfer and I think, you got a memo a week or so ago just sort of you are getting barraged with this kind of thing trying to direct discussion into negotiations and this is an out growth of that. What we tried to do here is really come up with and establish a frame work for where we think we have been dealing with discussions with the City and basically dealing with the City suggestions on how this, on how a new contract should be structured and I think what we are looking to do is to put forth, to encourage the Board to put out a proposal to the City structured the way the Town would like to see it structured. What we are trying to do is refine that from Ralph's, Mike's and my and Dennis's and Bob Hafner's point of view and see if we couldn't get a proposal out to them and set up a formal negotiating procedure to get something done one this. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I like the Town objectives here and I note the four of them but these are kind of like from a technicians point of view and I can appreciate that but I think there should be a fifty one added here about the need for promoting responsible job creation or economic growth you know in our region. COMPTROLLER HESS-I agree with you if this were going to another audience this document was created by the three of us with this Town Board as our audience. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-With that understood I still none the less, I would like that mind to be raised because I think that is number one it has got to play well with the City and I think it is our responsibility that to do this with some, I heard the buy in fee with Saratoga was zero. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Did you read the paper about comparison and the cost ofliving, we are lower than Wilton and they brag about no Wilton tax. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I did that same analysis my self years ago when I was in the Community Development Office and that is not news to me. COUNCILMAN BREWER-That is a major factor when you have a company come in and they go to Wilton for example that they are going to pay no town tax but what are their employees going to pay? They could come to Queensbury and pay a far less number for their employees and be better off doing it. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-I am just saying we should be doing this negotiation and the ultimate pricing here in lieu of what the market will bear and one consideration of that is economic development and it is a very competitive market out there. COUNCILMAN STEC-Jim I would add to that Henry, that whatever our buy in cost to reserve capacity is we are obligated to pass that on to, I would hope the City knows that but I think it is worthwhile to explicitly state that so that the City knows we are just going to turn around and pass this cost on, whatever we have to buy it at we have to sell it at to the next business that comes here. Legally we have to. DEPUTY SUPT. OF WASTEWATER MIKE SHAW-That was suggested in our meetings before was that with the City we have to stay competitive because we do have to pass those costs onto businesses. We have made that point before but we can continue to make those points. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Recommended that the board move into Executive Session. RESOLUTION CALLING FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 427. 2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. James Martin WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby moves into Executive Session to discuss Contract language. Duly adopted this 31st day of October, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 428. 2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Daniel Stec WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. James Martin RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby adjourns is Executive Session and moves back into Regular Session. Duly adopted this 31st day of October, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None No Action Taken. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 429.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. James Martin RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queenbury hereby adjourns its Regular Town Board Meeting. Duly adopted this 31st day of October, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury